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Nest is acquiring Dropcam

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Re: Nest is acquiring Dropcam

#51

Post by thesausageking »

jeroen wrote: post #24
npizzolato wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny how quickly things change when someone offers to hand you a lot of money. Granted, someone's opinions can change, but I feel like the first quote especially describes a personal philosophical value that wouldn't change on a whim.

"Dropcam will come under Nest’s privacy policy, which explains that data won’t be shared with anyone (including Google) without a customer’s permission. Nest has a paid-for business model and ads are not part of our strategy. In acquiring Dropcam, we’ll apply that same policy to Dropcam too." Looks like nothing will change about that straightforward business model.

While technically accurate that statement is really misleading. Nest makes a significant amount of revenue from utility companies who pay up to $50 per thermostat per year for Nest agreeing to turn down their usage during peak times.

This is a very different model than paying someone for a product. While you buy Nest's product, you are still the product (and selling you is a better business for them long-term).

Re: Nest is acquiring Dropcam

#52

Post by pbhjpbhj »

uptown wrote: post #10

I'm surprised Nest (Google) hasn't bought Logitech's Alert division yet. Logitech has been shopping it around - looking for a buyer - for awhile.

Perhaps they were concerned about leaving Dropcam as a/to a competitor and taking on Logitech; whilst acquiring Dropcam they can take out 2 competitors in one go as no-one else seems to want to take on Logitech? [Pure speculation].

Re: Nest is acquiring Dropcam

#53

Post by CrosseyeJack »

thesausageking wrote: post #51
jeroen wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Dropcam will come under Nest’s privacy policy, which explains that data won’t be shared with anyone (including Google) without a customer’s permission. Nest has a paid-for business model and ads are not part of our strategy. In acquiring Dropcam, we’ll apply that same policy to Dropcam too." Looks like nothing will change about that straightforward business model.

While technically accurate that statement is really misleading. Nest makes a significant amount of revenue from utility companies who pay up to $50 per thermostat per year for Nest agreeing to turn down their usage during peak times. This is a very different model than paying someone for a product. While you buy Nest's product, you are still the product (and selling you is a better business for them long-term).

Nest has only recently started operating in the UK so I don't think that any UK energy companies have yet jumped onto that bandwagon. But still I must ask for a source for your claim.

Does the owner of the nest have the option to override such feature? Just because I have a nest in my home doesn't mean my home is well suited to kill the heating during peak times. Yeah it might save me a few quid and the energy company a bunch more killing my heating during peak times. But I am not going to sit in a cold house just because the energy company decide what is best for me. If I can override it or disable it. far enough. But that is like your ISP killing your connection because everyone in your street is watching netflix at the same time you are trying to just have a few good irc take rooms open at the same time.

In a pay per use case (which most net connections don't) we are used to pay what we use. If I need my house heated because I am cold, I want to be able to heat my home.

Re: Nest is acquiring Dropcam

#54

Post by prezjordan »

thesausageking wrote: post #51
jeroen wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Dropcam will come under Nest’s privacy policy, which explains that data won’t be shared with anyone (including Google) without a customer’s permission. Nest has a paid-for business model and ads are not part of our strategy. In acquiring Dropcam, we’ll apply that same policy to Dropcam too." Looks like nothing will change about that straightforward business model.

While technically accurate that statement is really misleading. Nest makes a significant amount of revenue from utility companies who pay up to $50 per thermostat per year for Nest agreeing to turn down their usage during peak times. This is a very different model than paying someone for a product. While you buy Nest's product, you are still the product (and selling you is a better business for them long-term).

So the utility company pays their customers, who in turn lower their bills by using less energy? Why?

Re: Nest is acquiring Dropcam

#55

Post by maxerickson »

prezjordan wrote: post #54
thesausageking wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While technically accurate that statement is really misleading. Nest makes a significant amount of revenue from utility companies who pay up to $50 per thermostat per year for Nest agreeing to turn down their usage during peak times. This is a very different model than paying someone for a product. While you buy Nest's product, you are still the product (and selling you is a better business for them long-term).

So the utility company pays their customers, who in turn lower their bills by using less energy? Why?

During high demand the utility may be purchasing the energy for rates much higher than they are collecting from the customer.

Re: Nest is acquiring Dropcam

#56

Post by rdl »

jmduke wrote: post #18

Some interesting quotes from Dropcam's CEO last year: “Our business model is very straightforward. I think if your business model is not straightforward, it veers into potentially being unethical, if you look at things that are quote-unquote ‘free.’ None of the people who work here want to work on something that works like that. They look at it as tricking the user, when [a company is] turning around and using some p…

I don't really mind staying late at the office (with has gigabit nLayer, a 4K monitor, free drinks and snacks, etc.) vs. at home (which has comcast, and is pretty small). The commute between the locations is a pain, but otherwise I have no real difference between "being online doing whatever I want to do" at home vs. at the office.

Right now, I'm working on a TC article and some conference talks on independent research. I'll probably drive home once the traffic is done. I'll go to my co-presenter's house Saturday night to work on the talks again.

The "work vs. personal" distinction is really secondary to me, compared to "stuff I want to do, vs. stuff I'm forced to do"; work-related projects are just as often "want to" as home projects are "forced to".

Re: Nest is acquiring Dropcam

#57

Post by shiven »

jmduke wrote: post #18

Some interesting quotes from Dropcam's CEO last year: “Our business model is very straightforward. I think if your business model is not straightforward, it veers into potentially being unethical, if you look at things that are quote-unquote ‘free.’ None of the people who work here want to work on something that works like that. They look at it as tricking the user, when [a company is] turning around and using some p…

He thinks the lavish perks at many technology companies, especially the free on-campus meals, are a disguised form of mind control, designed to get employees to work 12- or 14-hour days.

WTF is wrong with people!?! I'd work my butt off at a place that provides thrice-a-day healthy, delicious, diverse, vegetarian (for me) meals, on-site gym and sleeping pods!! Hell, I'd have surely done that when I was a decade younger! I hate cooking and it is ridiculously expensive to buy food with my dietary constraints in the open market. Especially food that is not only delicious but also healthy in the long term.

Why is there this utterly misguided hatred against "company food"?

Even after breaking down my yearly compensation to an hourly rate, I bet there will be a marginal difference in the money the company makes by keeping me working the extra hours and the price I'd pay for buying such food everyday (remember, I hate to cook).

Plus, nobody forces you to eat that food, if you really prefer cooking your own food or buying it from elsewhere, keep doing that.

I really feel that good, healthy food is an awesome incentive and stigmatizing it reeks of a bloody first world problem.

Re: Nest is acquiring Dropcam

#59

Post by notatoad »

marvin wrote: post #30

I don't want to spread any unwarranted negativity here, but does anyone know how this fits into Nest's business model? I get Dropcam's business model of letting people check in on their home when they are on the road, on vacation etc, but hasn't Nest's business model been data mining from the very beginning? How does placing cameras in customers' homes fit into this model? I also wonder about the privacy policy quest…

Nest's business model is to sell a product for a profit. From that perspective, it's the same as Dropcam.

More than the business model though, Nest's goal seems to be to use sensor data and usage patterns to provide home automation with as little management as possible. Dropcam is essentially just another sensor - they're already doing things like recognizing people in the video feed. It's a way to get more data into nest's algorithms, and to get sensors into more areas of your home.

Re: Nest is acquiring Dropcam

#60

Post by steven2012 »

I had a Dropcam and was excited for its remote monitoring capabilities. As a camera it is excellent and the cloud recording is really well done. I set it up and left for vacation for 3 weeks. During this time, I got so many notifications of activity (at least 20 per day) that it rendered it completely useless. It's an interesting idea but when I got my first notification of activity I got so scared someone had broken into my house I was freaking out. By the end of my vacation I just turned off the notification altogether and returned it when I came home.
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