Is it time to ring the alarm on internet door cameras?
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And self hosting can also be cheaper, unless you're a huge consumer of the service. How many people watch enough Netflix to make the sub cheaper than buying the media instead? We cancelled Disney Plus and bought the few series they like and we've already saved money.
Economies of scale are absolutely a thing, but I think there's a sweet spot where self hosting can be cheaper for a lot of people.
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it’s a camera pointed at a public street.
It's a camera pointed at every person who comes to your house.
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the loss of privacy of a camera looking out onto a public street.
The loss of privacy of a camera that records every face that enters your home and timestamps that data...
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I think you only need the controller or phone app for setup or config changes. Though it is easier, in my opinion, to just run a controller. You can (at least last time I checked) still self host one if you like. If you’re just doing network config and monitoring, you don’t need much in terms of performance.
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They also wouldn't have noticed that they hadn't installed it. Honesty in the best policy.
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Yes, there's always some sort of justification towards authoritarianism. The real solution is to fix underlying issues instead. For example, if there is a lot of theft your social safety net has failed. Punishing people because they react to a problem without fixing the problem is how surveillance- and police states come to be.
We should therefor not fall into spy cameras following our every move. We have to fight them now while they are not too normalized yet. Otherwise, even if underlying problems are fixed, they will still be there, and might get used for far more sinister reasons.
Some good things to understand are the Boiling Frog Syndrome and Ratchet Effect.
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It's optional yes. But they manipulate you with the default scare tactics into registering.
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Convenience? Ok. But safety? Are door viewers unsafe?
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It was time a decade ago. And people were. But few people listened.
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It's been time, dumbass
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Recycle or upcycle. Trash is one of the dumbest uses. I understand the total logic it's just not the best case scenario.
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Yes, I only used mqtt because it’s a common low-level protocol in smart appliances that’s comparatively simple. A more accessible example might have been Smart TVs being half the price of dumb ones (if you can even find them now) since the principle is the same.
I agree that support is one of the main things cloud legitimately makes easier. Support personnel have more reliable case data, more robust central control, and so forth.
And I think you’ll agree many smart home folks already have/had hubs and bridges (servers) floating around that obfuscate most of that complexity without the need for always-on WAN access. Remote maintenance (patches, firmware updates, etc) don’t necessarily preclude a plug and play experience.
Whether this accounts for the cost and complexity differential consumers experience can be debated, but my point was simpler. Cloud-based products are artificially subsidized in at least two ways. The first is that they’re a loss leader facilitating platform lock-in, but the second is that rich usage data from intimate user contexts is quite valuable to the endless parade of marketing voyeurs.
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I left a flat spot on my door so people can knock
