Fitbit is now officially part of Google • Hacker News Board

Re: Fitbit is now officially part of Google

#201

Post by bootlooped » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 9:52 PM UTC

m00x wrote: post #108

tomComb wrote: post #93

I'm sure the sentiment here will be very much against this acquisition, but keep in mind that Fitbit was getting killed and would likely have gone out of business without this. It is tough for a company like Fitbit to compete with Apple & Samsung. This should lead to more competition by making it possible for Fitbit to compete with Apple. If it doesn't then the acquisition was a failure for Google anyway - Fitbit's c…

I have a Fitbit and I love this acquisition. I want to be able to put my fitness data in the rest of the Google ecosystem. The more data Google has on me, the more use I get out of Google's tools. I really don't care that it has tons of data on me, Google has been super responsible of my data and its uses. The risk/reward is 100% worth.

I have an Android phone and use multiple fitness apps/services. Google Fit would be the natural place for me to aggregate all that, so I'm sold on the utility of that. Sadly I think it's at risk of being Google abandonware. I don't recall them ever having added functionality, but I recall at least one time functionality disappeared (they removed the website where you could view your data). The app seemed to keep getting simplified over time.

Re: Fitbit is now officially part of Google

#202

Post by TeMPOraL » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 9:53 PM UTC

brlewis wrote: post #65

sitkack wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What really disappointed me about the fitbit was that it required it to be tethered to the phone and my account before it would function as a pedometer. It seems broken that I also have to have a phone, app store access to get a device to drive the pixels for data it already has. Every piece of hardware that does this is effectively "app store locked", your phone is now your software dongle for your hardware.

See the section "Don't have a mobile device available?" on https://www.fitbit.com/setup for desktop apps. Some functions, like sleep tracking, are too computationally intensive to do on a wrist computer.

Such functions can be done on a more powerful mobile computer, but that still doesn't justify the requirement for having an account/Internet connection available.

Re: Fitbit is now officially part of Google

#203

Post by dalbasal » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 9:53 PM UTC

tomComb wrote: post #93

I'm sure the sentiment here will be very much against this acquisition, but keep in mind that Fitbit was getting killed and would likely have gone out of business without this. It is tough for a company like Fitbit to compete with Apple & Samsung. This should lead to more competition by making it possible for Fitbit to compete with Apple. If it doesn't then the acquisition was a failure for Google anyway - Fitbit's c…

Does this count as more competition though?

It may provide simple price competition, but I don't think price competition is a main reason for the anti-monopoly sentiment you are referring to. This is more about centralisation/decentralisation, data aggregation.

Re: Fitbit is now officially part of Google

#204

Post by GeekyBear » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 9:53 PM UTC

m00x wrote: post #108

tomComb wrote: post #93

I'm sure the sentiment here will be very much against this acquisition, but keep in mind that Fitbit was getting killed and would likely have gone out of business without this. It is tough for a company like Fitbit to compete with Apple & Samsung. This should lead to more competition by making it possible for Fitbit to compete with Apple. If it doesn't then the acquisition was a failure for Google anyway - Fitbit's c…

I have a Fitbit and I love this acquisition. I want to be able to put my fitness data in the rest of the Google ecosystem. The more data Google has on me, the more use I get out of Google's tools. I really don't care that it has tons of data on me, Google has been super responsible of my data and its uses. The risk/reward is 100% worth.

No company with surveillance capitalism as their business model should be allowed access to health data from an acquired company without the user explicitly opting in.

However, I sincerely doubt Fitbit would have been worth anywhere near as much under those conditions.

Re: Fitbit is now officially part of Google

#205

Post by TeMPOraL » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 9:54 PM UTC

Vermeulen wrote: post #15

I don't understand the fear of Google from FitBit users in these comments. Google has a clear user agreement with how they use your data, including not selling it - and they rely on users trusting them. I'd rather my data be with one of the tech giants than a unprofitable start up

Does anyone trust user agreements anymore? Give it couple years, they'll either renege or it'll turn out that they found a loophole and been screwing everyone all that time.

Re: Fitbit is now officially part of Google

#206

Post by Tijdreiziger » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 9:54 PM UTC

leokennis wrote: post #156

yomly wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It reads like sarcasm but it's more a sign that our views do not leak out of our echo chamber. I have a friend who works for the government and laments at how much red tape there is to acquire or link any dataset and wishes for more data acquisition. To be fair, her use cases were sincerely benign - being able to target people who qualify for more welfare/govt assistance, and being able to make the govt website more…

But that’s the thing. I work for a bank. If I had unlimited access to all transaction data without needing to request elevated access and jumping some more hoops, it would greatly speed up my daily work. But...it would also greatly increase the damage any hacker could do. Same applies to Google. It’s super convenient to have everything “on Google”. Until the day Google is exposed/hacked/turns evil. Then it’s a disast…

> Until the day Google [...] turns evil

You mean this hasn't already happened?

Re: Fitbit is now officially part of Google

#207

Post by TeMPOraL » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 9:55 PM UTC

miguelrochefort wrote: post #107

aboringusername wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is crazy to me...Google is... Your photo manager Your search engine Your document storage service Your health monitor Your contacts list Your video hosting facility Your calendar Your document editor Your location history Your music engine And I have no doubt I'm missing a load here, point being why the fuck has the EU not stepped in at this point and said "woah buddy, you're a tad too big to be this unregulate…

Not to mention: Your password manager Your 2FA authenticator Your notes manager Your domain name provider Your cloud provider Your browser Your operating system Your smart home Your phone number Your mobile ISP Your analytics provider

And, should you post too many emojis in a YouTube comment, you'll lose access to all of these things.

Re: Fitbit is now officially part of Google

#208

Post by cratermoon » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 9:57 PM UTC

klmadfejno wrote: post #194

j0ba wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fitbit was getting killed and would likely have gone out of business If this is a reason for acquisition, then why wouldn't G*gle wait until they were "killed" so they could come in and buy their business for pennies on the dollar? We're fast approaching a dystopian Snow Crash world of all-powerful corporations, and you people are cheering it along. How can these both be true? - it's bad all US legacy media is owne…

My favorite part of snow crash was the corporate mergers with public entities like the library of congress. That one's probably safe for now, but I wonder if we'll see corporate mergers with small local governments when they start to default on their debts.

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/citizen-coup...

"Imagine there was no such thing as a library, and that members of the current neoliberal policy consensus were to sit down today and invent it. They might create complicated tax expenditures to subsidize the poor purchasing and reselling books, like the wage support of the earned income tax credit. They might require people to rent books from approved private libraries, with penalties for those who don’t and vouchers for those who can’t afford it, like the individual mandate in the latest expansion of health care. They might come up with a program where they take on liability for books that go missing from private libraries and thereby boost profits for lenders themselves, like federally backed private student loans. Or maybe they’d create means-tested libraries only accessible to the poor, with a requirement that patrons document how impoverished they are month after month to keep their library card. Maybe they’d exempt the cost of private library cards from payroll taxes, or let anything calling itself a library pay nothing in taxes."

Re: Fitbit is now officially part of Google

#209

Post by s3r3nity » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 10:00 PM UTC

missedthecue wrote: post #131

s3r3nity wrote: post #121

More evidence that Google can't create any good, innovative products anymore - they just acquire them. Can't make good watch hardware OR software? Just buy part of Fossil and Fitbit to handle that. Can't make good smart home devices to compete with Amazon's Ring or Simplisafe? Just buy Nest, Revolv, and a huge stake of ADT. etc. etc.

whats wrong with Google Pixel

Bought out part of Motorola to do this

Re: Fitbit is now officially part of Google

#210

Post by s3r3nity » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 10:02 PM UTC

mav3rick wrote: post #159

s3r3nity wrote: post #121

More evidence that Google can't create any good, innovative products anymore - they just acquire them. Can't make good watch hardware OR software? Just buy part of Fossil and Fitbit to handle that. Can't make good smart home devices to compete with Amazon's Ring or Simplisafe? Just buy Nest, Revolv, and a huge stake of ADT. etc. etc.

Lol Amazon's Ring ? Amazon also acquired Ring. Maybe do some research before trying to score Internet points.

LOL maybe they'll see this and hire you, simp

Also, the juxtaposition was meant to highlight the various competitors in the space, not necessarily to say that those don't also acquire companies to gain share.