General > General Technical Chat
Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
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Marco:

--- Quote from: coppice on June 16, 2023, 04:24:42 pm ---Are you OK with everyone banning everyone else for any minor infraction?

--- End quote ---

In the absence of massive trusts, yes I do support freedom of association.

Unfortunately this is the age of Trusts far more even than the Standard Oil days.
james_s:

--- Quote from: MK14 on June 16, 2023, 11:02:58 am ---There are LOTS of things, over many decades (and probably much, much longer), that sooner or later, have to be taken out of usage, because the manufacturer has decided to drop support for the thing.  I think we just have learnt to quietly accept these things.

--- End quote ---

Yes but that isn't what happened here. These are fully supported current products that were simply shut off without warning.

I try very hard to avoid buying anything that relies on some cloud service somewhere to work. I do have a few Echo devices and I put up with the limitations on those, but many of the other things you mention have no business relying on any kind of online infrastructure.
hans:
@MK14: and that is why people still like to "own" media. Buying CDs and vinyl has actually become quite popular again. Technically and/or convenience it is inferior to any modern alternative, like high quality FLAC distributions or streaming music from Spotify. But aren't these streaming services like Spotify, Netflix, etc. all known for suddenly pulling down a show? And so some people avoid them at all costs.

Similar things can be said from games. There is GOG, but honestly I never buy there. The convenience from a platform such as Steam is too big, of which I must admit its (large) trust seems to be assigned somewhat semi-randomly. They are one of the longer and bigger running webstores, which they seem to be doing quite well, however they also have plenty of downsides. Valve deals out VAC bans with no chance of appeal and evidence. Bans can be life-time long. The ban is accountwide for any VAC protected game. So you may play a game with friends on a drinking night using some cheats for the giggles, next thing you know and you can't play normal online matches anymore. Obviously there are several stakeholders: there is Steam, the game developer/publisher, the cheater and the rest of the online community. I think these bans are fair though, because cheating wrecks an online gaming experience rather quickly. Given how many games also feature microtransactions or DLCs, its also of best interest for game devs to have people keep playing their game. Steam also makes a cut on those sales. The loss to the 1 cheater versus potentially dozens of people that then keep playing does not weigh in favour of the cheater.

But let's draw a parallel to this Amazon case. The circle of influence of 1 guy is potentially small, however, compounded effects are potentially more important where taking offense to something is at least (semi-)subjective: not everyone's moral standard is the same, however, lowering those standards as per the letter of the law is also often not the right thing to do. So lets assume that the message (whether racist or not) was undoubtedly offense. I think it's fairly obvious that Amazons interest is also to prevent abuse of their devices, as it could give them a bad rep.

To this degree, I could establish the same conditions as are the case for an account-wide VAC ban like is the case for Steam. And I don't think such a system has received such backlash for it, even though a customer has paid, Valve/game dev makes the rules, and does not have to explain what/why they did take action. And its standards could even change without any influence of the consumer on them. It also sounds very unfair on paper. Yet in practice we seem to hold game cheaters (which can also remorse) to much higher standards than the morals people have with respect to other people.

I think (big) tech will be charged with such abuse-prevention tasks more increasingly. Social media platforms are instructed to remove fake news, hatred and scams. Google may ban accounts before any judge has concluded anything. Banks must scan transactions for suspicious activity and freeze those accounts. In general, I don't think we don't have any absolutes anymore, as they are shifting continuously at a high pace, We expect/need immediate responses in the tech world, instead of the more classical innocent until proven guilty. If you don't want that, it appears the best suggestion is to not to use (big) tech.
MK14:

--- Quote from: hans on June 16, 2023, 08:28:43 pm ---@MK14: and that is why people still like to "own" media. Buying CDs and vinyl has actually become quite popular again. Technically and/or convenience it is inferior to any modern alternative, like high quality FLAC distributions or streaming music from Spotify. But aren't these streaming services like Spotify, Netflix, etc. all known for suddenly pulling down a show? And so some people avoid them at all costs.

Similar things can be said from games. There is GOG, but honestly I never buy there. The convenience from a platform such as Steam is too big, of which I must admit its (large) trust seems to be assigned somewhat semi-randomly. They are one of the longer and bigger running webstores, which they seem to be doing quite well, however they also have plenty of downsides. Valve deals out VAC bans with no chance of appeal and evidence. Bans can be life-time long. The ban is accountwide for any VAC protected game. So you may play a game with friends on a drinking night using some cheats for the giggles, next thing you know and you can't play normal online matches anymore. Obviously there are several stakeholders: there is Steam, the game developer/publisher, the cheater and the rest of the online community. I think these bans are fair though, because cheating wrecks an online gaming experience rather quickly. Given how many games also feature microtransactions or DLCs, its also of best interest for game devs to have people keep playing their game. Steam also makes a cut on those sales. The loss to the 1 cheater versus potentially dozens of people that then keep playing does not weigh in favour of the cheater.

But let's draw a parallel to this Amazon case. The circle of influence of 1 guy is potentially small, however, compounded effects are potentially more important where taking offense to something is at least (semi-)subjective: not everyone's moral standard is the same, however, lowering those standards as per the letter of the law is also often not the right thing to do. So lets assume that the message (whether racist or not) was undoubtedly offense. I think it's fairly obvious that Amazons interest is also to prevent abuse of their devices, as it could give them a bad rep.

To this degree, I could establish the same conditions as are the case for an account-wide VAC ban like is the case for Steam. And I don't think such a system has received such backlash for it, even though a customer has paid, Valve/game dev makes the rules, and does not have to explain what/why they did take action. And its standards could even change without any influence of the consumer on them. It also sounds very unfair on paper. Yet in practice we seem to hold game cheaters (which can also remorse) to much higher standards than the morals people have with respect to other people.

I think (big) tech will be charged with such abuse-prevention tasks more increasingly. Social media platforms are instructed to remove fake news, hatred and scams. Google may ban accounts before any judge has concluded anything. Banks must scan transactions for suspicious activity and freeze those accounts. In general, I don't think we don't have any absolutes anymore, as they are shifting continuously at a high pace, We expect/need immediate responses in the tech world, instead of the more classical innocent until proven guilty. If you don't want that, it appears the best suggestion is to not to use (big) tech.

--- End quote ---

One of the biggest problems I find (which is both ON and OFF topic, as regards this thread), is when the original 'friendly/nice' company, e.g. Steam.  Gets taken over (perhaps against the wishes of the original company, i.e. a hostile takeover), by a considerably nastier (consumer wise) company.  Who then stretch the TOS (Terms Of Service), or even change the TOS, with little or no notice.

Then suddenly, unprofitable services gets dropped, activities which were free and didn't need a subscription, now need a horrible paid subscription.  Anonymous accounts, now need to be tied to identities.

Easy/safe payment systems are dropped and nasty/horrible/unsafe ones are used instead.

Advert free things are now given adverts.

Owner for life stuff (e.g. Purchased games on steam), are given time-limits and/or need subscriptions or something.

In the case of Amazon, as some others seem to be agreeing.  They seem to be changing for the worse, all by themselves.  As time goes on.  This 'account banning' incident, seems to be just a part of those changes.

Also, these 'online cloud services', can make it extremely difficult to change providers.  E.g. If someone has accumulated hundreds of games on steam and paid hundreds or thousands of dollars/GBP's/Euros for them.  You can't transfer them to a new company, even if the current 'steam/Valve' company gets taken over by a nasty company or has a change of management for the worse.

Intel use to keep support for vintage Intel products on their website.  In modern times, they literally delete older stuff (which actually is not that old).  I don't know why they now do that (change of management, crazy marketing department?).  But it means that it can be difficult to get support for some older Intel things, such as development boards and stuff.  Just because they are older than some threshold (5 years or maybe 10 years, I'm not clear).

Which combines VERY badly with the fact that you need to go online to 'enable' the development board in the first place (firmware update, OS download etc).  Making a once semi-expensive development system, potentially worthless junk.  Even though it is not that old.
SiliconWizard:
They are basically acting as companies that are near-monopolies, at which point the customer doesn't matter anymore, as they have an almost infinite stream of them.
This is short-sighted though, as it can spiral down very quickly.

As a customer, don't use online services if you can, or only for very non-essential stuff. In that regard, you should act as an investor: only invest the money you're ready to lose. So, only subscribe to services you're ready to be cut of off at any point with no, or only minor consequences.
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