I like that this makes it easy to completely avoid Amazon devices and to not recommend them to your non-technical friends. I don't care if the data amount is piddlingly small, the simple fact is you let somebody outside your trusted network of friends and family onto your personal broadband, you lose control of what criminal activities get undertaken.
There is no way I am exposing myself to that kind of liability and Amazon won't be selling me or my family anything.
I think that Amazon's marketing for this is horrible, reminds me of XBox' failed marketing around their online-only plan for XBox One game purchases [1].
But really all they've done is built AirTags as a platform rather than an application, e.g. Tile is supported by Amazon's new platform.
I don't want to give random people with random apps any amount of arbitrary bandwidth; I'd rather that users of the Sidewalk platform would have to register app specific message types publicly (to ensure transparency) and with Amazon (who should enforce message type and payload restrictions).
> I don't want to give random people with random apps any amount of arbitrary bandwidth
It uses a maximum of 500 megabyte per month.
Regarding payload type registration – it seems like it would be pretty difficult to monitor that, given that payloads are encrypted.
That actually seems more like a feature than a problem to me: If my IP address does not show up in any logs and I can't even see what's being transmitted, I really doubt there would be any liability for the user here.
That's a fair point, and I do hope that regional caps will take that into consideration.
Generally speaking, are volume caps on fixed line internet a thing in many countries? I'd imagine that it would be hard to use something like a smart speaker on such a tight data budget in the first place, as I can't imagine them to be very bandwidth-conscious in general (music streaming having no "low data usage" option on them usually, etc).
Any AirTag owned by anybody can and will communicate with your iPhone over Bluetooth if you have the right features enabled (which are default). Your phone will contact Apple and tell them about the interaction. I haven’t seen protocol details, but last week a security researcher demonstrated that it is possible to use the AirTags protocol as a covert channel (with very low bandwidth).
I recently read up on Bluetooth low energy. The AirTags are most likely periodically broadcasting announcement packets, and folks' iPhones are passively receiving them. It therefore seems comparable to using 802.11 SSID beacons for geo-location, except that folk intentionally bought the AirTag to be position tracked.
Just by modulating whether or not the AirTag is transmitting, it seems like you could communicate at a low data rate. You could even use hundreds or thousands of AirTag IDs to get a useful data rate. Just because you could do it, though, it seems like there are plenty of other more practical covert channels.
What I've noticed is that the blackhat behaviors of the past have become business models.
I remember when going around logging locations of wifi access points was "wardriving". Now apple and google do it as a matter of course using everyone's phones.
You mean like HolaVPN or Geosurf the “free VPN” applications that quite literally install a backdoor proxy on your phone or PC? The parent companies then sell access to the proxies running on your devices as “residential proxies” and also sell access to your browsing history?
I absolutely think that qualifies as malware, yes. Apps and browser extensions harvest PII all day and the owners of those platforms (apple, google, microsoft, mozilla) do absolutely nothing to prevent it.
Silent auto-update would also be normally classified as a deliberate RCE vulnerability or a backdoor, but for some reason most people are okay with that.
Corporate broad spectrum wire tapping has been greenlit legally for a long time. An employer can listen to private and public communications that occur on and off of company owned resources. This includes:
- emails
- text messages
- microphone arrays
- shared networks
- keyboard input
- file storage
- contact and communication history
It's a logical next-step from there to expand these services under the guise of subscriptions. That's why you owning a device is problematic for them. That said, owning the platform is the next best thing because they can now do many but not all of those things in the name of protecting their platform from "abuse".
not to defend Amazon or anything, but are we sure this is actually sharing your internet connection? the way i understand it is that this would be strictly Amazon devices and strictly for control traffic (ie reboot/configure your device). It shouldn’t be possible to straight up browse the web or download whatever. I may be terribly wrong.
Also, this does not excuse the fact that they made it opt out. If it was opt in and new devices came with it... maybe...
It might just be Amazon control traffic initially, but who's to say in time someone won't publish a TCP tunnel over the Alexa protocol project on github
i’m not advocating for it. i think it’s terrible. i’m just pointing out that maybe we are misrepresenting what this is.
also, as far as illegal traffic and stuff: if the traffic goes through the amazon device, wouldn’t the isp see traffic that goes only go random amazon datacenter ? at that point they would ask amazon about it (hopefully) and do their homework.
It may go through an Amazon device, but that fact is stripped away as soon as the packet leaves your network. Your router may know it came from your Echo, but your ISP won't have a clue.
And even if Amazon is tunneling all traffic now, that may change or someone may find a way to break out of it.
And even if law enforcement sees that the traffic is from Sidewalk, our legal system is pretty shit regarding the internet and I bet a dedicated prosecutor would try to get you for aiding a criminal because you technically allowed that access to your network. Look at the legal issues around running TOR exit nodes and the uncertainty there, in a lot of ways this is an opt-out version of that. (though I admit this might be a stretch, but I don't trust the legal system enough to handle this well).
i think you misunderstood what i was saying. I was pointing out that the echo talks to the alexa backend. so it’s evil device impersonator -> your device -> isp -> alexa backend
Do you mean the "xfinitywifi" ssid? Afaik you don't get the customer's IP address when you use that. And you definitely need to enter your Comcast credentials to use it, so law enforcement could probably trace who is really using it.
They probably remember your login based on wifi MAC, so it's probably easy to fake being somebody else, however.
They do it a bit more sophisticated than that. There's an xfinity profile that gets loaded and after the initial authentication you actually connect to a different SSID. When I had Comcast, I used this occasionally, but it was overall pretty flakey and I ended up disabling that SSID on my phone because it kept connecting to non-functioning xfinity hotspots while I was out and about and then I'd have no internet.
I don't like that comcast does this without adequately informing customers. But since Comcast is the ISP, at least in theory, they can mitigate some of the concerns, like not counting the shared bandwidth against the customer's limits and not associating any criminal behavior on the shared connection with the host.
Did you know that cable modems -- whether you rent 'em from Comcast or buy 'em yourself -- download their configuration files from the ISP when they boot up?
> ... you probably aren't part of the Xfinity hotspot system.
Because of the above, I wouldn't be so sure (mostly due to Comcast's reputation).
Personally, when I was forced to use Comcast for a while, I purchased my own "dumb" (i.e., non-WiFi) cable modem. I didn't want to pay their rental fees, I didn't want to run an open hotspot for them, and I already had my own -- much better -- WiFi gear.
No consumer bought cable modem/router/AP combo is going to create its own WiFi hotspot on behalf of Comcast due to a config file. Unless it’s the one Comcast provides.
You can turn off the Xfinity hotspots on the Cisco-brand modems. It appears to be neighbors and/or pole-mounted APs that provide the SSIDs where I was.
I guess it's another reason to buy your own modem?
I wondered which neighbor is the Hot Spot over Covid. By chance I discovered it was a house a few over because they replaced their main electrical panel, and the hot spot disappeared until pg&e terminated the Service lines. Ironically, the owner of the house despises Xfinity. I don't have the heart to tell him his modem is the Hot Spot. He's also a retired lawyer, but I assume Comcast has a legal right?
Does anyone have an alternative to Xfinity? I'm in Marin County. I would like some local channels too. I looked into AT&T, but they seem as devious as Comcast. Devious in high rentals of equipment, although less than Xfinity. Good deals only for new customers. I'm thinking about switching between the two every year, but that's a hassle. My bill is $230 a month. $100 just for low bandwidth internet. New customers are getting high speed for $50. Xfinity needs to be broken up. Oh yea, I heard Comcast decided to "milk" long term customers, instead of competing on price, or worrying about "Cord Cuters".
Rant over. I need an alternative, with tv. I live in Marin County, CA. Oh yea, I remember hearing about free local tv digital channels local channels here. I remember it being associated with UC Berkeley? I can't find it though. Does anyone remember? It was basically free local channels over the internet, which was great for Cord Cutters.
No it’s not the same FFS. Sidewalk is using your home internet connection. It counts against your data caps and if Amazon gets malware on those it’s associated with your IP.
When zero days start floating around that allow people to bypass the VPN they are just sitting directly on your internal network.
Amazon is absolutely sharing your Internet with randos, they are just being picky about where the traffic goes. Still your data caps and still your qos bucket.
I already give people reasons they should avoid them. Even when I tell them you have to tell Alexa to delete history at the end of the day they’re not all that concerned. Useful list of tips here :
Until an update or reset switches it back on, or an app or system feature requires you to turn it on, or you buy a device and forget about it, or you're just not aware of the feature at all.
IPhone shares data via Bluetooth. Windows shares data to download updates. I'm sure Android is similar. Samsung find my phone use network from other Samsungs nearby.
You own the physical device yet you don't get to choose what happens to it. That's only because, when you buy it, you implicitly accept that A) it can be remotely updated to do anything (or stop doing something) and B) you have to use it in the way it's intended. Past that, you can't choose how it works - you have to not buy it if you aren't happy with those terms.
How it works constantly changes. When you bought it, it didn't share your internet. Now it does.
I bought my mom a tv and a few months later she mentioned a new wifi network she didn't understand...turns out with an OTA update the TV now broadcasts its own Wifi network and lord knows what it does on it.
I would not have bought it under those terms, the terms changed, and now I have to take a loss to replace the TV with something that doesn't do that.
So instead, if the functionality of the device changes after the fact, the company who updated the app should be liable for cost to replace the device with a new one that doesn't have the new behaviour.
That's part of my A point. Regardless of how it technically functions, it has the ability to create and receive radio waves and thus might update itself without your knowledge or permission. As long as it technically doesn't lose functionality that's advertised, there's no problem in terms of consumer protection laws.
> I would not have bought it under those terms, the terms changed, and now I have to take a loss to replace the TV with something that doesn't do that.
Same as above: the terms didn't change and they aren't what it can do now; the terms are that this device might update functionality and that future change, if applied to your device, will be applied to your device under the current terms that allow it. If you don't like that, you don't have to use the device's software and you still have the right to hit the hardware you possess a hammer.
As for if you ethically should be entitled to a refund, well, how do you determine the point where someone is entitled to grievances? What if someone buys a $1000 laptop for the purpose of playing high-end games, but in 10 years game developers start dropping support for the old architecture it uses or new games simply don't run well on it. Should they be entitled to a refund? What if, on surface devices, Windows moves the start menu to the middle (a la Windows 10X), and you didn't expect that - does Microsoft now have to refund or replace your product?
Regarding:
> turns out with an OTA update the TV now broadcasts its own Wifi network and lord knows what it does on it.
That's probably a way to directly stream to the TV without a separate wifi network, or part of the setup experience (eg. connect to its wifi, type in your real wifi password, it shuts down the network then connects to your main wifi). They don't just throw extra wifi chips on their boards for no reason, so it's probably one of these.
>As long as it technically doesn't lose functionality that's advertised, there's no problem in terms of consumer protection laws.
Disagree. Starting a wifi network in my home I have no control over and can't disable was not part of the device feature set when I bought it, and I would not have bought it if it was.
The functionality that was lost was my ability to control the wifi my own devices make.
>Same as above: the terms didn't change and they aren't what it can do now; the terms are that this device might update functionality and that future change, if applied to your device, will be applied to your device under the current terms that allow it. If you don't like that, you don't have to use the device's software and you still have the right to hit the hardware you possess a hammer.
Disagree. The terms changed because the terms never contained an uncontrollable wifi network in my home. Terms of use that allow unending changes with no thought to consideration (in the legal sense) aren't contracts of any merit. Contracts that allow one side to unendingly damage the other side without consideration have no merit, no matter what anyone says.
If I hit it with a hammer I'm still out the money due to their changes to the device I purchased. I'm taking a loss due to changes in the terms that have no consideration and are different than the terms I agreed to.
>As for if you ethically should be entitled to a refund, well, how do you determine the point where someone is entitled to grievances?
There is no such thing as ethically being entitled to a refund. It's fantasy.
>That's probably a way to directly stream to the TV
The TV does it whether you're streaming or not. You can't disable it, there is no setting to turn it off. The TV is hardwired to the router and isn't streaming anything. Even if I was streaming to the TV, it would be on my own wifi network, on theirs. There's no reason for them to control a wifi network in my house, period.
"Smart" devices are just devices that act against your interest interest because 'the terms of service you agreed to when you set it up had unlimited changes for one party'.
Your disagreement doesn't hold up in terms of false advertising in that the device advertised being able to play music with your voice, not 'granular control over the wifi and other RF waves emitted!'.
> Contracts that allow one side to unendingly damage the other side without consideration have no merit, no matter what anyone says.
You'd probably have a hard time convincing a judge of damages given you have the option to turn this off and Amazon gave warning to customers about this functionality well in advance (November 24, 2020 is when I received the email https://i.judge.sh/right/Armor/chrome_lbf9jmauwR.png ).
> The TV does it whether you're streaming or not. You can't disable it, there is no setting to turn it off. The TV is hardwired to the router and isn't streaming anything. Even if I was streaming to the TV, it would be on my own wifi network, on theirs. There's no reason for them to control a wifi network in my house, period.
Probably just faulty engineering then, ie
if !wifi.connected:
wifi.enable_wifi_direct()
And bad engineering isn't usually tackled by local consumer protection agencies when they can just let the market sort itself out.
> Your disagreement doesn't hold up in terms of false advertising in that the device advertised being able to play music with your voice, not 'granular control over the wifi and other RF waves emitted!'.
I bought the device just as much for what it didn't do as what it did. It did not create its own wifi network against my wishes. Now it does. I am damaged because I have lost the ability to control the wifi networks in my home, unless I choose to take a loss on this TV and replace it.
>You'd probably have a hard time convincing a judge of damages
Again, the damages come from the cost of replacing this device with one that doesn't do what it was updated to do against my wishes. My TV isn't made by amazon, and has nothing to do with amazon, so your point about amazon warning users to 'opt-out' of being damaged by amazon doesn't matter. Amazon knows the great majority of old folks and idiots who buy their devices won't turn it off because they can't be bothered to read and 'AMAZON SIDEWALK' doesn't raise alarm bells like 'AMAZON STEAL YOUR INTERNET'.
>Probably just faulty engineering then, ie
Alternately, as you say, I'm unlikely to convince a judge that it's damage so they have no reason not to do it. They can do whatever they want and as long it wasn't disabling a feature, it's kosher. They could sell my location and browsing habits, they could check the network to see what other devices are on it and when they log in, the could do anything at all apparently.
> And this is what I mean by direct play:
My idea of direct play is an hdmi cable - its much more secure and doesnt' require any wifi at all.
Generally if you know that a product can do something is going to happen pre-purchase you can't claim damages from that thing happening, and it's no secret that the smart functionality of the device keep it up-to-date.
> In addition, an act or practice is unfair if the injury it causes, or is likely to cause, is: substantial, not outweighed by other benefits, and not reasonably avoidable.
> They could sell my location and browsing habits, they could check the network to see what other devices are on it and when they log in, the could do anything at all apparently.
Quite literally, yes, assuming you're in the United States and you check the box that specifies the terms of data collection. If you live in the E.U,, your GDPR rights mean they have to ask for explicit permission to do so.
> My idea of direct play is an hdmi cable - its much more secure and doesn't' require any wifi at all.
I'm not trying to be witty, i'm showing why devices might create their own wifi network and 'direct play' is just the name used on some TVs for wi-fi direct.
> Generally if you know that a product can do something is going to happen pre-purchase you can't claim damages from that thing happening, and it's no secret that the smart functionality of the device keep it up-to-date.
Making its own wifi network is not keeping it up to date. There's no reason for it to control it's own wifi network having to do with the keeping it up to date, that is a red herring.
If 'keeping things up to date' includes any predatory feature they can conceive of, then it's sort of meaningless.
>Quite literally, yes, assuming you're in the United States and you check the box that specifies the terms of data collection.
Terms they could update at any time to add any data, so are meaningless. Maybe I agreed to the terms of data collection before they updated the terms of data collection to new data collection. Now it's taking pictures of you sitting on the couch and selling them on onlyfans that's ok under the new terms that you agreed to forever by signing the previous terms that say they can change the terms whenever they want, and add 'features' like selling your pictures under the auspices of 'keeping your device up to date'.
That's the problem with one sided 'contracts' that don't have any consideration. They're vile and they're actively damaging. When attached to expensive physical goods it's almost certainly directly damaging.
>I'm not trying to be witty, i'm showing why devices might create their own wifi network and 'direct play' is just the name used on some TVs for wi-fi direct.
Again, it doesn't matter. I don't want it, it wasn't part of the TV when I bought it, I have no interest in a wifi network someone else controls attached to devices in my home or in my family's home, and it can't be disabled.
Adding this 'feature' has made the TV completely not ok with me. 'Keeping the device up to date' does not include make a wifi network broadcasting in my home against my wishes and outside of my control. That's some kind of dark corporate animal farm speak.
This is why I want to have a “dumb” TV, I only want it to support high quality video and multiple inputs and have no brains at all. I can’t find any decent so far.
Also, when they decide to stop supporting it (servers and security updates), they can flick a switch and kill the products. The best planned-obsolescence ever: unrepairable and it only works by dialing-home.
That video is dreadful. How can the producer equate owning nothing with "socialism, communism and totalitarianism" when this is the effect that we're seeing under capitalism?
State capitalism is the flip side of state socialism. They are two roads that lead to the same destination.
Also, speaking of false dichotomies, pinning this on the GOP is rather silly and plays into a false narrative. The Democratic party is just as much if not more entrenched in the halls of corporate and banking power. We live in an oligarchy (Chomsky calls it a polyarchy). They increasingly own the government and joust for the chance to assume high office.
The free, invisible hand will magically wave-away all of deregulation's problems using efficient markets. And then the capital will trickledown. The billionaires have been hyping their delusional libertarianism to such an extent that millions now believe "all government bad."
It's actually not a 'major tenet in Communism' - a quick read of any Communist literature (yes, even the Manifesto) would correct this notion. I have no idea how the feeling that communism promotes no personal property originated other than by, charitably, mistranslation and misunderstanding. Marx never said everyone will be sharing a toothbrush.
Yes but outside of personal basic needs, you don't own anything in communism, it's all owned by the community collectively. No doubt completely controlled by the party leaders.
Could be because of how major things like real estate and means of employment can’t be owned individually in major communist systems like what the USSR did.
It’s not toothbrushes that people care about so much as their homes and jobs.
I’m not familiar with all communist countries, but the whole “can’t own property” from USSR and China probably contributes to the feeling that communism promotes no personal property.
>"The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on class
antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few. In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property."[0]
Ctrl + Fing for 'private property' brings up a lot more. I haven't actually read this thing, but I wanted to check because I was curious what the manifesto actually did say.
Here's the German of the last sentence in case you think it's a bad translation:
>"In diesem Sinn können die Kommunisten ihre Theorie in dem einen Ausdruck: Aufhebung des Privateigentums, zusammenfassen."
If you do a surface level reading of text, you're going to get a surface level understanding of it.
From here[1]:
> In political/economic theory, notably socialist, Marxist, and most anarchist philosophies, the distinction between private and personal property is extremely important. Which items of property constitute which is open to debate. In some economic systems, such as capitalism, private and personal property are considered to be exactly equivalent.
> Personal property or possessions includes "items intended for personal use" (e.g., one's toothbrush, clothes, and vehicles, and sometimes rarely money).[3] It must be gained in a socially fair manner, and the owner has a distributive right to exclude others.
> Private property is a social relationship between the owner and persons deprived, i.e. not a relationship between person and thing. Private property may include artifacts, factories, mines, dams, infrastructure, natural vegetation, mountains, deserts and seas—these generate capital for the owner without the owner having to perform any labour. Conversely, those who perform labour using somebody else's private property are deprived of the value of their work, and are instead given a salary that is disjointed from the value generated by the worker.
> In Marxist theory, the term private property typically refers to capital or the means of production, while personal property refers to consumer and non-capital goods and services
> In Marxist theory, the term private property typically refers to capital or the means of production, while personal property refers to consumer and non-capital goods and services
Hmm... maybe I misread the Communist Manifesto or something, but I did not get this. In fact, you can almost feel his hatred about the whole idea of personal ownership. This even extends to marriage and having children i.e children should be raised by the commune rather than individual parents.
> Hmm... maybe I misread the Communist Manifesto or something, but I did not get this. In fact, you can almost feel his hatred about the whole idea of personal ownership.
His distaste is not for “personal ownership” but for the distinct model of property that exists in the capitalist system, which is why he explicitly casts the Communist move to abolish bourgeois property (referred to equivalently as “bourgeois private property” and “private property”; the distinct system of property relations under capitalism) as consistent with the universal historical reality that new systems of property relations and economic systems involve destroying the prior system of property relations, e.g.,
“All property relations in the past have continually been subject to historical change consequent upon the change in historical conditions.
---quote---
“The French Revolution, for example, abolished feudal property in favour of bourgeois property.
“The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few.
“In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.”
> This even extends to marriage and having children
Viewing wives and children as part of a system of property relations, while very much a feature of the capitalist system Marx critiqued, is viewed distastefully even by many of the people who defend “capitalism” today, not just socialist critics.
> children should be raised by the commune rather than individual parents.
Where does Marx argue for this? Marx notes that the charge of destroying the family is levelled at Communists, and argues that this is hypocritical in that thr capitalist system has destroyed, in different ways, the substance of both proletarian and bourgeios families, and that what what Marxism seeks to extinguish is the hollow form of family that is left under capitalism, and not even that through any direct policy. He says that the existing family system would naturally fall away as a consequence of replacing the system of property and removing the class oppression which depends on it.
Thanks for the reply. Ok, I think I'll have to go back and re-read with this new perspective. Maybe I took the words too literally.
> money will become superfluous
Given your different perspective, what does he mean my this line? This one bit and the surrounding sentences is where I started to dismiss the text as quackery (compared to Das Kapital, which I did enjoy).
When hearing Marx say money will become useless, you've got to wonder what it means to have property. How do you become to posses a toothbrush if you didn't exchange money for it? Or do we go back to a barter economy?
It depends on what you mean by "raised", but after calling for the abolition of the family in the Manifesto (in whatever sense that the family under capitalism is bourgeois I guess) he says that children will be educated "on a communal basis" and will not be dependent upon their parents (since private property would be abolished). [0]
Secondly, I do not see how our current understanding of "personal ownership" escapes being "bourgeois private property". It seems disingenuous to keep implying that there would not be many radical shifts in how "personal property" would be understood under Marx's ideal communist system compared to how its understood now.
> he says that children will be educated "on a communal basis" and will not be dependent upon their parent
In modern mixed economies (which while themselves quite far from the Marx’s ideals are arguably closer to it than the Leninist-derived “Communist” systems that pay lip service to Marxism), it is very common, compared to the capitalist system Marx critiqued, to have particularly strong social support networks targeting children (even the US, with its generally weak, among modern developed systems, safety net, has a much stronger one for children than generally), much less unaccountable power for parents over children, and free universal public education, often obligatory with permitted substitution of approved private instruction — children are, IOW, educated on a communal and not, or at least far less compared to the system Marx critiqued, dependent on their parents.
It is important to remember that the system Marx sought to destroy and replace is the dominant 19th Century system in the developed world that he named “capitalism” not the 21st Century system that is the product of more a century and a half of changes to that system, often pushed by Marxist and other socialist critics along with other, often more moderate allies (at least, transactional allies).
> Secondly, I do not see how our current understanding of "personal ownership" escapes being "bourgeois private property".
Note that (for example, among many other prior property systems) the feudal system of property that preceded the capitalist system also was not bourgeios private propety, so what is common between that and the capitalist system is not essentially bourgeois property. The distinctive, defining element of the bourgeois property system is marketable property in means of production to which rented wage labor is applied, and it is principally that particular feature that Marx targets for elimination and replacement with control of the means of production by labor when he talks about elimination of bourgeois property.
Fair point re: considering Marx's time of writing.
>The distinctive, defining element of the bourgeois property system is marketable property in means of production to which rented wage labor is applied, and it is principally that particular feature that Marx targets for elimination and replacement with control of the means of production by labor when he talks about elimination of bourgeois property.
This at least points me in a direction of interest (Marx doesn't mention feudal property much in the Manifesto, but briefly reading about the historical relationship to property has piqued an interest. Surely other writings of his explore the concept more, and maybe even Hegel writes about it).
Marx in the manifesto:
>Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such appropriations.
This also clears the focus a bit for me, even if I still don't have a solid position yet. I'm glad I poked the bear a little.
>If you do a surface level reading of text, you're going to get a surface level understanding of it.
I'd take this comment more seriously if you cited Marx in a primary text making this distinction, and not some secondary Wikipedia defense. Note that none of the citations in your copy/paste are from Marx himself.
Also, in the definitions given above, personal property could very well be private property, in cases where it was not "gained in a socially fair manner", which seems like a highly subjective criteria.
edit: for those who are silently downvoting, keep in mind that the poster I'm responding to criticized my 'surface level' reading of a primary text (which I readily admit to) and then, rather than presenting a more thorough understanding of the text, copy/pastes a vague summary of an argument, which fails to even properly make the distinction he wants to prove.
> a quick read of any Communist literature (yes, even the Manifesto) would correct this notion.
You must have missed it. And by it, I mean the whole document. Here's an extract from one of the dialogs:
> Question 3: How do you wish to achieve this aim?
> Answer: By the elimination of private property and its replacement by community of property
More extracts:
> What will this new social order have to be like
> ... Private property must, therefore, be abolished and in its place must come the common utilization of all instruments of production and the distribution of all products according to common agreement – in a word, what is called the communal ownership of goods.
And more:
> Finally, when all capital, all production, all exchange have been brought together in the hands of the nation, private property will disappear of its own accord, money will become superfluous, and production will so expand and man so change that society will be able to slough off whatever of its old economic habits may remain
>
> ...
>
> What will be the consequences of the ultimate disappearance of private property?
>
> ...
Karl Marx studied Property Law and his pamphlets before and after the Communist Manifesto were all about abolishing the personal ownership of property!
Thanks for that... I didn't know there was a difference under Marx.
So one thing Marx did say is that he wanted money to be "superfluous". If money would be useless, how do you get to own a toothbrush? Does that mean we either go back to a barter economy, or something like a social points system like Seasame Credit?
It's funny how the rich get roughly twice the welfare that people on welfare get... even though they're the ones who really don't need it.
And now Texas is about to try to criminalize homelessness yet again, which I thought was settled in the 9th Circuit multiple times. Maybe it's the old "let's see what horribly-insensitive laws we can pass to rile up that other side but will probably be struck-down by the courts."
In general, capitalism only exists with small mom and pop retail and other barely surviving small businesses. The majority of commerce is run by a very few corporate oligarchs that also control the majority of government.
Socialist and Communist theories are all rooted in materialism and revolve around material conditions, right? So when the material conditions of capitalism are identical to those conditions promised by Socialism and Communism, then is it really right to still call it capitalism?
> Socialism is about the people owning the means of production
It's about the state owning the means of production and the state is supposedly representing the people, so the textbook fairy tale goes. Of course, putting aside how evil socialist is in principle, in practice it does one better: socialism is the rule of the rich party officials over an impoverished and oppressed society. (And no, the Scandinavian countries aren't socialist.)
> It's about the state owning the means of production
No, its about the people (specifically, the workers) controlling the means of production. The State is a vehicle for that in some forms of socialism, but not all. There are forms of socialism that see a role for the state but not that of vehicle of control of the means of production, and there are forms of socialism (e.g., libertarian socialism) which reject statism entirely (in fact, not only does that whole spectrum exist withi socialism broadly, the entire state socialist to anti-statist spectrum exists within explicitly Marxist socialism.)
Too many people’s ideas of “socialism” is a product of Leninist propaganda (often through the further filter of Western right-wing propaganda, which has a weird semi-alignment with Leninists in misrepesenting “socialism”.)
"Ownership" is an "ideal". I'm talking about material conditions. If the material conditions of a few mega corporations owning the means of production are identical to the material conditions that are said to result from the workers owning the means of production, then what is the difference?
This is a gross misunderstanding of 'material conditions' in Marx and other philosophers. 'Material conditions' does not mean simply what is - for instance, no socialist would say that the capitalist welfare state is 'socialist' because people have the 'material conditions' of receiving welfare.
The 'material conditions', at least as far as socialist/communist/anarchist authors go, refers to the mode of production and the relationship of workers to the means of production. It is not 'measured' in terms of wealth, nor in terms of poverty levels.
It is also a mistake to say that socialism 'revolves' around material conditions. Marx himself took swift action to point out that people being happy and well-fed is by no means a 'socialist' society. This is, after all, assuming you subscribe to the theory of historical materialism - which several prominent Marxists today (and in the recent past) do not, at least strictly.
What do you mean by material conditions? The point of socialism is that there is no third party extracting profit from the workers’ labour, only the workers themselves. The workers decide what gets done, how it gets done, and how any profits are disbursed.
A corporation owning the means of production doesn’t meet the basic definitions of socialism since the workers have no power and it is only by the grace of the employer that their voices are heard if at all.
I appreciate that you love capitalism and want it to be the perfect system but it’s not, and you can’t make capitalism look like socialism by dressing it up in welfare and democracy.
No, because capitalism creates artificial scarcity.
Under socialism, a battery factory that invents a more efficient process for creating batteries can pass that saving directly to the workers - rather than working 40 hours a week they can work 20. Their leisure time is increased. This is the future Asimov and Roddenberry envisioned.
Under capitalism, the benefits of such technological advancements gets pissed away into market forces and accumulate with the people who need them least. For some reason we still expect everyone to either inherit money or work a job - even a pointless job - just to survive. Why? We easily have the capacity to feed, clothe and house the world's population. Let people follow their passions! Imagine how many Eisteins, Picassos and Mozarts that are being born into the world right now who will never reach their potential. What an enormously inefficient and unjust system.
>Under socialism, a battery factory that invents a more efficient process for creating batteries can pass that saving directly to the workers - rather than working 40 hours a week they can work 20. Their leisure time is increased.
In socialism, you work according to your ability to the maximum society allows, and you receive according to your needs the maximum the society can provide (ideally).
If you could work 40 hours before the process, there is no reason for you to work less than that now. Your labour isn't defined by your output in batteries, but in hours. Nobody in socialist countries worked less because of technology advancements, they just had higher outputs, like in capitalist countries. The benefit-er is the factory owner, ostensibly 'the people' but really the state/party officials. You are a person, not 'the people'. You don't benefit from it directly - that would be theft from the people.
You don't get to keep your labour because you owe it to the people, comrade. Don't be greedy with the people's resources. Who are you to take from the people? You could be sent to a gulag for re-education, and then who would stand in line for your family to get bread?
Welcome to America where everyone is equal. You can buy all the free speech you can afford, and the rich guy can buy all the free speech he can afford, and we let the invisible hand sort it out.
>Danish politician Ida Auken, who wrote the prediction in question (here), said it was not a “utopia or dream of the future” but “a scenario showing where we could be heading - for better and for worse.”
>In a written update, she clarified that the piece aimed to “start a discussion about some of the pros and cons of the current technological development. When we are dealing with the future, it is not enough to work with reports. We should start discussions in many new ways. This is the intention with this piece.”
The "starting a discussion" is bullshit rhetoric under the guise of innocence, and you should be wiser than to believe these people don't have an agenda. No one "starts a discussion" without an agenda.
An 'agenda' is just a want for either change or preservation - we should be evaluating based on the societal consequences of those agendas, not that the agendas exist. 'Start a discussion' is just a way of saying that we should be talking about said thing.
Ownership is an integral part of free societies and is immensely important for our economic system, which doesn't work any other way. People are not motivated to do their jobs properly without incentives, that's basic human nature and systems that tried going against this have failed every time in history.
In a capitalist system, you can have more central authority and planning, but it will lead to inefficiencies and corruption by design. The only way you can sustain such a system then is by increased oppression and censorship of the ill effects. China is a perfect model for this. It works well, granted, at the price of freedom. This is basically what they're steering western countries too as well, only with the billionaires in charge instead of the CCP.
Coming soon to a smart-tv/oven/toaster/baby-monitor/speaker/etc near you: silent data exfiltration from your unconnected devices as long as you live a few hundred feet from an Amazon or Xfinity or w.e internet connected device. Oh, and the radio? It's integrated with the SoC now.
Thought the same thing, that would be the endgame imo, selling access to other providers so all the internet of shit devices would connect to the mesh network even if you dont give them access to your wifi.
A lot of people here seem to have fundamentally misunderstood what Sidewalk is, which is understandable with that headline.
The key thing to understand is that devices providing access via Sidewalk aren’t broadcasting a wifi SSID. They’re using LoRA, a low bandwidth (kilobits/second at the most) long range radio protocol. Even if I wanted to I couldn’t connect to the network with standard consumer hardware to compromise your network.
On top LoRA Sidewalk implements what is essentially a tunnel to specific configured endpoints hosted by AWS. Traffic is routed without you having any control over that, so all a Sidewalk device can do is send packets to an endpoint associated with that device family.
That doesn't matter. I don't get paid for providing a service to amazon for free. So they can get another billions in tax credits to fund Jeff Bezos' pet projects.
> They’re using LoRA, a low bandwidth (kilobits/second at the most) long range radio protocol. Even if I wanted to I couldn’t connect to the network with standard consumer hardware to compromise your network.
Can we as a society for once stop making the airwaves proprietary?
LoRA isn’t a “proprietary” standard. It’s open to everyone to use. It operates at 900 mMHz, though, so the point is that your average WiFi or Bluetooth device can’t transmit or receive it. That 900 MHz spectrum is unlicensed, so buy a dev kit from Adafruit and go make some RF noise!
The first sentence on the LoRA article on Wikipedia is:
> LoRa (Long Range) is a proprietary low-power wide-area network modulation technique. It is based on spread spectrum modulation techniques derived from chirp spread spectrum (CSS) technology. It was developed by Cycleo of Grenoble, France and acquired by Semtech, the founding member of the LoRa Alliance and it is patented.
It's proprietary, patented, and not open. It shouldn't be on the airwaves.
So are 3G, 4G, and 5G. So is WiFi. "Proprietary" just means you need a to buy a licensed LoRa radio chip to use the protocol in a commercial product - something you can do on digikey for $5. The implementation of the protocol itself is well known and you can easily interact with LoRa devices using an SDR [1].
> To enable or disable Amazon Sidewalk, use the Alexa app.
> Open the Alexa app .
> Open More and select Settings.
> Select Account Settings.
> Select Amazon Sidewalk.
> Turn Amazon Sidewalk On or Off for your account.
I don't see Amazon Sidewalk listed under Account Settings. Anyone seeing it?
It seems Amazon is ignoring the Opt Outs or resetting them for some reason that they arent clearly disclosing.
Note i cant really test because i dont keep these types of devices in my home. In fact i dont even install the Amazon app. I just set a bookmark on my homescreen in IOS for smile.amazon.com
Anything above 0kb is too much for my taste. I was contemplating switching from Google Home to Alexa but it looks like I'd be jumping from the pan into the fire. I guess I'll have to brush up on Home Assistant hackery, sigh...
Why can't we have nice things? Why are corporations so endlessly greedy...?
From what I understand Amazon is trying to build a low-bandwidth network for roaming devices (similar to AirTags or Lime scooters). It is more about coverage than actual bandwidth sharing.
You're correct. The key thing to understand is when people talk about "internet" and "connectivity" in the context of LoRa, we're talking about very small packets (like a few bytes), transmitted using "chirp encoding" which is a clever hack to send small packets reliably over long distances). You're not going to be watching youtube on this, and probably not even checking email.
Most use cases I have head about base don LoRa radio are for tracking (clients send GPS coordinates once every 10 mins), transmitted packets are caught by one (or more?) gateway, which FWDs the packet to a server on the internet. I think ACKs can be sent back from the server, but not required.
Good thing I don't have any. I don't trust Amazon to not use this to enable even more dominance of retail. It's like trusting Google to not collect your data in order to sell you even more ads. It's like telling Facebook, well, anything, because it all goes to a huge pile of data they can sell.
Yes, they sell data. To see how this works, start an ad campaign targeted at people who love X. People who click the ad will be directed to you. If they buy stuff from you, you have their info, and you can directly target them for more X, or sell the fact that these people like X to other companies.
Some people think that Facebook, or any advertiser, that allows you to target ads using data they’ve collected but can’t access directly counts as selling it, others don’t. The former seems to be in the minority outside of HN.
This will work well in countries that have laws in the books where the ISP account holder is responsible for all activities performed using said account.
Note: I think such laws are rediculous, but what liabilities is Amazon inviting to their users?
Amazon devices already generally don't connect to domains other than Amazon's own - the voice service itself makes requests to Lambdas and other third-party APIs:
> During setup, the Echo connects to a local wireless network. After that, it is in constant contact with Amazon’s cloud environment. In fact, if the Echo is not connected to the Internet, it does not work, because all the voice commands are processed in the cloud, and not locally on the device.
There's no law in the books like that in the US that I'm aware of, but law enforcement and courts will still go after whoever owns the account or systems that are involved in crimes.
For a simple example of police incompetence in this regard in the US, see the family endlessly harassed by law enforcement entirely because their property happens to the be default result for "United States" in some databases: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/08/1...
It's an obvious slippery slope. Once the network is established, they will likely start offering something like "Amazon Mesh" where Prime subscribers enjoy "additional free WiFi coverage all over the world", because it's just a no-brainer. They might cap speeds as a fraction of what the device enjoys (e.g. 20% max), as to not "disturb" the owner, but that's it.
This has already been done by ISPs in several countries, Amazon is not breaking any ground here.
> This has already been done by ISPs in several countries
Nah, that’s not even a little bit the same. With the ISP versions they’re using _their_ bandwidth, not yours and they own every part of the user sign-on (making them, not you, responsible for abuse).
How would I go about disabling this feature? The ARS article and the Amazon web page say:
Opening the Alexa app
Opening More and selecting Settings
Selecting Account Settings
Selecting Amazon Sidewalk
Turning Amazon Sidewalk Off
What if I have never installed or activated the Alexa app? I do have some Amazon devices such as Ring and Kindle, and I don't want them exposing the networks to which they're connected.
Amazon should be payi g for the free service it is taking from users. Just like google did with Google captcha.
I can't understand why people seem to be missing this. Make it optin and give people credit for providing this service to amazon. Seriously,the lack of these two make this whole thing so shady and duplicitous
Amazon makes billions upon billions. They could have easily paid the cost to roll this out.
Streaming is not owning. Buying a cheap device as a service is not owning. This is why the companies are fighting right to repair. And they don't care about long lived open standards.
Is it clear this really shares all your internet? The initial plans were for a trickle - 100kbs or so. I mention this as I'm on 1Gbps, so this would be 0.0001 or so of my bandwidth as far as I can tell.
In terms of privacy - my current traffic is monitored by my ISP (and data is sold). They say that this does even more but what - a lot of these systems actually encrypt and hide from ISP.
This stuff is designed for low power devices sending out a kb status update every few hours, otherwise they'd just put a normal wifi radio in it, and all the people here complaining that the Amazon devices they already put on their networks are now sending more data would just connect them to their wifi networks without an issue.
Hmm. It is not a big story and it is misleading, but it is not a non-story. If Amazon grants itself a right to my bandwidth without compensating me that is not insubstantial. Not all of us ride on fiber with unlimited everything. Giant corp skimming resources off of little guy. And we don't even know if that is all they are doing yet.
It's arguable that you get compensated by having access to Alexa at no cost. Even though the two don't necessarily have anything to do with each other, Alexa is essentially a loss leader (unless it's folded entirely into the sales price of the Echo speaker, which I doubt).
In that sense, the economics seem pretty comparable to ad support on the internet to me: By letting advertisers use your internet connection, processing power, screen space, and time, you get access to content that would otherwise be behind a paywall. And ads use up data caps and congest networks as well, in some cases even more so than the actual "pay"load!
I know that some people object to ads on the internet on the same grounds (usage of one's resources without compensation or consent), but this is a wholly different story from the liability issues that operating an open wi-fi hotspot can cause.
Alexa is another sales channel for Amazon. The fact it can be used for setting timers, toggling lights, and looking up stuff from Wikipedia is all tangential to making Amazon your default choice for ordering something while cooking and paying for Prime so you can listen to music.
with 80k you can connect to a torrentswarm and seed out[slowly] what? topsite pr0n, perhaps something noone ever wants to be accused of seeding so use nieghbours bandwidth
Good try, but on the page where you ordered the hardware from, there is white-on-white text that says "By reading this paragraph, you agree to a bunch of terms and conditions that Amazon may change at any time and retroactively. You are not entitled to a copy of these terms and conditions." In those terms and conditions, it says even if Jeff Bezos breaks into your house and kills you in the middle of the night, you're entitled to a maximum of one (1) dollar of compensation.
This is a contract of adhesion, and only holds weight in Virginia and Maryland. Of course, they will argue that since the Saracens is in us-east-1, so you might still be screwed.
I’m surprised American ISPs aren’t bringing the hammer down on this, as I believe they claim they have the right to prevent users from sharing their internet connection.
I don't think they have any reason to. If a customer wants to share their connection, they're still paying for the bandwidth. If they share it with enough people that they exceed any data caps, that's more money they will need to be paying. Sounds like a win for the ISP to me.
Ah, but if the sheep don't know a chunk of their bandwidth is consumed by someone else it can be used as a dark business pattern to help upsell a higher tier of service.
I know they say Ring devices are included in this. But can anyone confirm whether this applies to extremely old Ring devices? Mine can barely stay connected to my wifi, so wondering how it can reliably stay connected or send anything to Amazon's servers.
I very briefly looked into this when I was refurbishing a house[1], and didn't see anything that wasn't ludicrously expensive, a scam, or both. Is there even a practical way of doing this? We've actually got a wire mesh in most of the walls due to the building materials used, but you can still pick up a (fairly weak) signal outside, mobile phones work, and windows defeat it (connection possible at >100m with generic hardware if you have line of sight through a window).
[1] Just to reduce interference from external WiFi, mostly as a curiosity
Oh this is definitely already a thing among conspiracy theorists, I saw an episode[0] of Grand Designs New Zealand recently in which a couple paid thousands of dollars for paint and wire mesh to block electromagnetic radiation. I guess there's still room for improvement though, because in the end, you could still make a cellular call inside.
They actually purchased drapes for the bedroom that were (allegedly) to address this! But yeah, not a great way to spend 15k. The home was on a large, rural property, so at least they'll escape the Alexanet.
OpenBSD for many of them, MSDOS for the more hardcore, and things like CP/M or older operating systems depending on obscure hardware for the true freaks.
Alphas were good for that, but the financial industry (at least) wanted them too.
This is becoming more difficult as Alexa services are being built into more and more consumer goods. I've seen microwaves, thermostats, headphones, clock radios and more with Alexa inside.
I know this is cynical of me, but it’s 2021, and I’ve read enough apology emails from companies saying “whoops we didn’t mean to exfil your data, so sorry!” to know that this checkbox only means “don’t exfil my data right now.”
playing devils advocate, and to put it mildly, there are some neighbours that are not exactly the kind of people i want to have in my network or on my WAN.
I hope amazon has some way of making sure that the person being raided searched, and interrogated is the person actually guilty of the crime, and some way of clearing up spoofing or proxying.
that's giving them access to your network. there is no guarantee except through Amazons 'good word' that these device and connections cannot in any way ever be exploited to do something other than connect to awass.
the intern may have coded it to only communicate with awass but the exploit that will undoubtedly drop soon will not care.
How is asking another device to make a call for you to Amazon’s servers in anyway worse than if they gave you a direct connection to someone else’s internet?
Mostly, though there are quite a few differences. xfinity doesn't charge the network owner, and you need to pay and have an account to use it. It also doesn't have a restriction on speed or bandwidth.
Great. So when my device suddenly torrents 10 TB of warez from the tracker at bombasswarezpimps.org I can point to Amazon when the feds come knocking, because clearly it wasn't me. Thanks, Amazon!
Isn't this very similar to how Apple uses your phone and laptop to locate airtags, even if you don't own any airtag. Same deal. They are using my battery life, my CPU time, my internet connection to provide services to their customers. Not surprised to see Amazon follow suit after Apple normalized the practice, kind of like removing the headphone jack and charger.
1. You already are giving Apple your CPU time, battery life, and internet bandwidth by using their software in the first place. If air tags need to download 100 GiB of data to function then maybe you should ask Apple to improve that.
2. Headphone jacks were never removed. They just replaced the legacy outdated 3.5mm jack with a USB C port instead. Both can handle the exact same analog audio, but one of them can handle much more.
> You already are giving Apple your CPU time, battery life, and internet bandwidth by using their software in the first place.
No, why do you think so? I have bought my hardware from them to fulfil some purpose of mine. That doesn't give them the right to abuse my hardware for their profit.
What Comcast is doing is different because they're the ISP and they're managing the sharing. So the bandwidth that is used by outsiders is not counted against your data cap. Also, the sharing doesn't count against your maximum allowed upload/download speeds.
It's possible that Comcast's sharing could contribute to congestion, but this is different from having devices that your ISP doesn't know don't belong to you taking up some of your bandwidth and monthly caps.
Except I don't have any Amazon devices, and I won't ever be buying any. No way I'm exposing myself to that kind of liability by "sharing" my internet with complete strangers.
They can't keep counterfeit items and scams out of their store, what makes you think they can manage who your internet is shared with?
I give it less than a year until someone develops an exploit that lets you piggy back off this sidewalk for free internet access so longnas the sidewalk device hasn't been patched. and we know often people update their iot...
Why does everyone think this Amazon essentially handing out your Wi-Fi password? It’s Amazon’s FindMy network but slightly more general purpose where the pings can carry a data payload and are directed to a lambda.
Say hello to the next phase in IoT/"smart" anything madness: Devices that are hardwired to the Sidewalk network and are practically impossible to take offline...
This is just what happens with a market where you can purchase records of people's personal business. Like any other market, it will seek opportunities to grow.
Super surprised Eero devices aren’t part of this lineup. Seems like a natural fit for illegally sharing your internet would be a mesh WiFi network device.
Given the amount of control the Eero team has apparently retained over their product since the acquisition, I'm not surprised at all. I'm heavily invested in Eero and would throw them out if they did this without an opt-in (not opt-out).
Eh, it’s not really that insane. All you get with this service is essentially a VPN tunnel to Amazon. There’s no risk to your network unless you believe your device is compromised. So technically it’s worse just because it’s more surface area for an attacker but that’s pretty minor by far usual standards.
this feels like it should be opt-in and not opt-out
we have communal low bandwidth wifi in my area following openwireless.org ideals. That requires trust from both parties. This is trust I couldn't have in Amazon/FB/Google to not fuck me over with a "free" service they provide
love this comment. this is so true, not just with Amazon, but with all the major tech garbage out there. I wish there were other options, I'd pay significantly more for a phone that isn't a tap that walks with me everywhere I go.
so true, I ended up going a "dumb phone" for my day to day and have just started to tell people I only check email from work. I think it confused more than pissed anyone off. I tried to have back my work phone but still need to take calls when not physically in the office on a work day.
While I love the idea of the librem5, I don't love it $1200 more than my dumb phone.
That is one reason why I don't rent routers from Comcast (because they do share your internet, too)... I buy my own instead and I save $10 a month as a bonus.
Soon, every connected device in your home will share your internet?
Last I heard, it was $15/mo. Even more reasons not to rent routers from Comcast!
The only downside is that if you use your own equipment, the first thing they will do when you call for tech support is tell you that it is the fault of your equipment.
> The only downside is that if you use your own equipment, the first thing they will do when you call for tech support is tell you that it is the fault of your equipment.
I would rather buy a second brand new one then pay Comcast an extra $15 per month... and that second router will pay for itself in just a few months. But most of the time, I don't have to do that.
In my experience, there's never been a problem with my equipment. So I've never had to buy a new modem as a result. The annoyance is that this is their go-to excuse, and it's a waste of time to deal with this excuse every time I call in.
It stinks, but they have a monopoly if you want high speed internet, so they can do whatever they want... because the government gave them a monopoly. I wish the Government would create free ultra high speed Internet for all citizens while the Government is printing all this money.
I don’t have any Amazon network devices at the moment and would probably never turn on, in my home, an Amazon device that contained a microphone.
However, I view this as a fantastic development and will probably buy at least one Amazon network device (IF I can find one without a microphone) because it enables some really useful functionality that I would love to see catch on.
It’s easy to bash it. But I hope it achieves critical mass for supporting IoT in most populous areas. If anyone has a hope of pulling this off, it would be Amazon.
Sure. On paper a mesh network that is open to several devices is really cool with a ton of potential.
But as you yourself know because you specifically don’t want an Amazon device with a microphone that the positives are for many outweighed by the part where it’s owned and operated by Amazon.
Worse, you’re right Amazon is in the limited group that can pull this off (largely because this is explicitly opt-out instead of opt-in) but it’s also this behavior that makes the whole thing gross and unpalatable.
We shouldn’t be paying for corporate spy robots in our own homes. We shouldn’t be subsidizing an Amazon-specific mesh network to make Amazon’s products work better. Even if this gets extended to third parties those third parties are going to have to play ball with Amazon to use it.
There is a version of this that could benefit everyone but as it is this really only benefits Amazon and that’s a net negative for everyone in my opinion.
This sounds extremely cursed but I still expect the actual impact is ridiculously minimal.
For most (>75%) of households it will be a under two dozen megabytes. For urban dwellers who see a lot more devices pass them by, I'd back-of-napkin estimate 99.9% will see under 100MB.
It's a feel-bad situation, but this IS an example of the press riding what ought to be a non-issue. This really isn't much of a problem.
Alas Amazon is also not doing themselves any favors. There doesn't seem to be any visibility afforded to those whose networks they are using. There's no charts, no bandwidth used, nothing. Amazon seems content to just take. I really think Amazon's ask here is very small, especially/at least for the first couple years, and I'm even ok with them just taking- net bandwidth will look like a firmware update or two- but there should at least be some respect, some visibility into what is happening, somewhere.
Without being able to see anything, no one is fit to judge whether it's a problem or not. By just taking, by not making a view, Amazon is turning a non-issue into a real issue.
There is no way I am exposing myself to that kind of liability and Amazon won't be selling me or my family anything.