I canāt clearly remember turning it off in November, but when I opened the Amazon app to check after this thread started, it was off. So presumably I did back then.
Edit: also Iām not even sure if I approve/disapprove of this service (or perhaps donāt care). Because I havenāt had a chance to look into it much. So Iām leaving it off until I do. And while I think @dcaton1220@dman2306 may be right and this could be much ado about nothing (compared to much more invasive things that Amazon or other tech companies also do), I do still find it somewhat irritating to have to opt-out of a new service like this and would have preferred an opt-in.
If you put emotional or philosophical issues aside and examine the facts, it's going to cost most people absolutely nothing and you're not providing Amazon with any data that they don't already have.
Who knows, it could flop or it could lead to the development of useful devices. I don't see any reason to allow my personal feelings towards certain aspects of Amazon or Bezos to be an obstacle to that.
Thanks for posting this.. I agree about the cool stuff this could bring to the table..
I do object to the last bit of her article though she has set up some "strawmen" for those who want to opt-out. What about people concerned about the erosion of our privacy and the fact that Amazon is in charge AND it was made opt-out? Is that being a "control freak" to want to opt-out? Maybe the tech nerds know a thing or two about the underlying potential good and bad..
I did hear that and although I have an iPhone and AppleTV and not 100% sure I would want to the the voice assistant way. But yes the privacy they are building up in there products will bring them more clients, I just upgraded my iPhone to the last IOS and first time I opened Facebook or other apps that collect data I get a message if I want the app to collect data or not.
I don't allow free commercial use of any of my networks/equipment to anyone willingly. Sometimes I don't have a choice (phones in particular), but otherwise - no. If they are going to make money off it (selling devices, etc - which they will) then they can pay me for fair use of my network.
I will say that it is a pretty incredible racket though... Make a commercial product, and then instead of building out an infrastructure of your own ($$$) get your own customers to give you infrastructure for FREE. Genius.
But that gets a big EFFF YOU from me - I'm not a charity.
I really don't care at all about the privacy side of it so am not going to argue that one way or another - that isn't something I'm worried about/interested in. But free use of my stuff - no, if only on principle alone.
"But they're just taking something you are not using anyway, what's the big deal?"
Well... When my neighbor borrows my tools I'm not currently using he has to ASK 1ST - I don't have to opt out by default from him borrowing my stuff. And if he does borrow my stuff too many times, I'll likely say NO at some point and suggest he goes and buys his own.
- that is an excellent point. So easy to forget that Amazon is (quietly) monetizing all of this and expecting you the consumer to pony up your bandwidth etc for free.
Kinda similar thing to WiFi calling... although unlike WiFi calling this is not something that people may really need (yet).
This seems like an entirely reasoned approach to me.
But I think most home users wonāt care as much. The āsmall token of our appreciationā approach to encourage opting in would likely be enough for many people.
Edit: I also think the ācontrol freakā label applies to most people here, compared to the āaverageā Amazon device user at least, whether we want to admit that to ourselves or not .
Another analogy - not perfect either but... I have a 3' utility easement along the back of both my properties. I own the land but the electric, phone and cable utilities have the right to do whatever they please in that area without my permission. They can tear out anything I've got planted or built there and they have no obligation to restore anything to its prior condition. The utility companies are getting free use of my land, and I still have to pay them for their services.
I suppose you could look at it as a charitable contribution to the utility companies for the greater good of everyone who is being served by those lines crossing my property.
In any case, time will tell but this may be the first mistake Amazon made with SIdewalk. They could have given everyone an incentive to leave it enabled; maybe a discount on your Prime membership or your Ring subscription, or whatever. Or even better, give everyone some free device that uses Sidewalk, like a Tile tracker. Demonstrate the potential for the system they're trying to create. Perhaps the economics of that don't work though, at least not at this stage of the game.
Amazon isn't monetizing this anytime soon. A single Sidewalk-enabled device that maintains a 24/7 connection to AWS IoT Core will have to pay Amazon 4.2 cents per year ( AWS IoT Core Pricing - Amazon Web Services). A million such devices would bring in $42k which probably wouldn't even pay the weekly donut bill. At present, there are zero such devices.
This is a long term strategy that may or may not work out. Amazon has a lot of investment to lose; I have nothing. I think it deserves a shot because of the potential benefit to me; to be honest for reasons that are selfish. Not because I'm any big proponent of Amazon.
Of course a difference is that easement rights are law, and not optional. If the utility tried to do the same thing without a law forcing me to allow it I would of course would say NO to that without compensation as well. Same stance I have with Sidewalk.
What Amazon is doing with Sidewalk isn't the end of the world or anything though. And I fully expect most users won't care in the least - or likely even know about it. Which is even more reason it should be opt IN, not opt OUT.
Heck while we're on that topic... if opt OUT is ok, I guess it would be fine if they installed a crypto miner on my systems that have Alexa too. Why not? The users can always manually opt out, right?
Yes, that is a bit of an absurd example, but it is not philosophically different to me. They just won't do it because users would get mad - not because there is some rule or law preventing them - aka they will push the users for free resources as far as they will put up with it/let them.
In a perfect world I'd agree that this should be opt-in. But honestly, how many normal non-techie people are really analyzing and discussing this in depth like we are? I think the whole thing would be doomed to failure if it wasn't opt-out simply because the network coverage would be so spotty.
I wouldn't care if they were using unused CPU time on the devices and shared any profits from crypto mining with me, or to a charity of my choosing. But I get your point. I certainly have my philosophical reasons for not dealing with certain companies, or making various decisions. In this case though, I'm taking a self-serving approach, in that there may be Sidewalk devices in the future which would benefit me.
It could turn out to be a great thing, or maybe not. However, unlike many situations, we the people have the power to shut the whole thing down with a click of our collective mice.
Just one more reason to be glad I made the choice to "automate" instead of using any voice assistants. Having no Alexa's = No problem with them implementing Sidewalk.
Good point. Voice control doesn't play a major role in my home either, although I do have a few Echos.
For the privacy minded, Apple announced earlier this week that Siri will have on-device voice recognition. And that Siri voice recordings will stay local. If all that happens, I will probably replace the Echos with HomePods.
I also keep hoping that Hubitat will support Mycroft
Ha! Just checked to see which Echo devices support Sidewalk. As it turns out all my Echos are first generation Echos or Echo Dots. None of them support Sidewalk.
I guess the option to opt-out just shows up by default in the Alexa app regardless of whether your devices support it.
As are all of mine, purchased for about $30 each on eBay (the one Echo Dot was free, part of a Sirius XM giveaway when Sirius bricked all old Russound streamers). I would bet the eBay price of first gen Echos rises because of this.
But neither are they! How much do you think the AWS bill that's associated with Alexa is? I know what the department I work for at my company's bill is and I can imagine the Alexa bill has a few extra zeros on the end. And how much do they charge us for that 24/7 access to the MANY AWS services behind Alexa, in perpetuity, exactly $0! So how do they make up the millions/billions they are spending to keep that infrastructure running? Well there's no free lunch! It comes in the form of some of our data, our habits, and now some of our wifi. I bet if they instead told you they want to charge you the monthly fee that we would be paying if we paid for our own AWS bills related to Alexa, it'd be more than the small sliver of bandwidth they're asking here... it'd probably be more than your internet bill! Interestingly, because of the way I have something setup, I can calculate that if each time one of my Alexa routines triggered it fired off a Lambda, I can say my AWS Lambda bill alone would be almost $8/mo. That doesn't count any of the RDS/DocumentDB resources used to query data, S3 storage I'm using for videos and other files, the actual Alexa services used to process the voice data, etc. etc. If my options were pay "my fair share" for my AWS usage vs. give up some bandwidth... well I have more bandwidth to share than I do dollars so have at it!
I guess I just find it funny when people say they wouldn't let a company use their resources for free, but for some reason we're expecting that same company to let us use their resources for free If I say the same thing are you willing to "pay [them] for fair use of [their] network"? They're just asking you to pay in a non-monetary way. And you can say you'd pay for Alexa, but most people wouldn't. If you had to pay the user base would be much smaller. That means less companies would have cared to write Alexa Skills. Less skills = less utility, which means EVEN LESS users, which means higher prices, which means EVEN MORE LESS users, and you can see how that vicious cycle leads to Alexa not existing. If you're going to say "but how does Apple manage to do it?" well there is a reason a Macbook or iPhone or iPad costs double/triple what other companies charge for similar products. If Amazon decided to tack on a % charge (like Apple does for all App sales) to every single purchase you made on Amazon to cover the cost of Alexa and keep it 100% private would you? Ok not fair, apps are $.99 and so 30% is much smaller... If Amazon tacked on even $0.30 to every purchase you made on their website to fund the cost of Alexa and maintain privacy, would you pay it? I know I wouldn't! That'd add up to a lot of money in my household!
As a note too, for those of us in very rural areas... getting Wifi to my ring cameras was tricky and expensive. I have some that are over 500ft from my house. Coincidentally, they are about 10ft from a neighbor's house (because they're at the edge of my property). If I could have piggybacked off their wifi I'd have saved about $800 in equipment I had to setup to get my whole property covered with wifi.
on Amazon anyway), Iād probably consider it.
- that is an excellent point. So easy to forget that Amazon is (quietly) monetizing all of this and expecting you the consumer to pony up your bandwidth etc for free.
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