Author Topic: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!  (Read 26655 times)

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Offline tszaboo

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #75 on: June 14, 2023, 08:32:21 pm »
I have a degree of sympathy for Amazon.

There was a potentially fairly serious incident (big enough to get an Amazon customer, banned from using Amazon services), being reported.  So, they rightly informed the customer, investigated it and after a reasonable period of time took reasonable actions to reactivate the customers account.
What if it was a racist remark? Is it illegal to make a racist remark in the USA?
What if you make a sexist remark to your wife as a joke, and you both laugh about it, but Alexa is there to listen to you.
What if you tell your delivery guy to shove the package where the sun doesn't shine because he stepped in the flower garden that you worked on for hours.
None of these things are illegal, and all of these things are happening on your property. Why do we let corporations dictate us what is moral and what is not?
I reserve my right to be rude to people, and I don't want corporations to 1984 me with crimestop and thought police.
 
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Offline james_s

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #76 on: June 14, 2023, 08:32:29 pm »
Keep the political opinion garbage to the Dilbert thread please. We don't need more of that here.

The delivery driver isn't the problem here, maybe he really did think he heard a racist comment. The issue is in the way Amazon handled it, guilty until proven innocent. If they were going to do anything, they should have investigated first, and taken action only once it is PROVEN that the customer committed some kind of offense that is in breach of contract and even then unless it was an actual credible threat or act of violence then the only action should be a warning. There's an old saying "the customer is always right" that companies seem to be forgetting about.

I agree its clearly poorly handled. But "customer is always right" mentality has resulted in the whole Karen phenomenon. Customer can be wrong, and they can be let go or banned.
Amazon is free to drop whoever they want if they have a legit reason to do so.
Alexa service is free, but you could argue they should refund the hardware cost of the device.

The irony is all the lip service Amazon gives about being "customer obsessed". I hope he sues them over this, and contacts all the local news media with his story.

What would you possibly sue for?
OK heres your $40 back for Alexa.

What did I say that was political? I was trying to step around any of that.

I don't know, I'm not a lawyer. Breech of contract? Defamation? Inconvenience and loss of services? He was essentially accused of racism which in today's world is a very serious charge. At the very least this should be all over the news. Also it sounds like he was likely a lot more heavily invested than a $40 Echo device, he could easily have hundreds or even thousands of dollars invested. Amazon owns Ring and iRobot among others, the latest Roombas are pushing up on $1,000.
 

Offline Zero999Topic starter

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #77 on: June 14, 2023, 08:38:39 pm »
The spelling varies depending on whether you're using UK or US English: In UK English, “behaviour” (with a “u”) is standard. In US English, “behavior” (with no “u”) is the correct spelling.
You can't blame people for just Googling Amazon ToS, getting information relevant to their jurisdiction and not noticing the spellings appear to be "normal" to them. What do the US terms of service say?
 

Offline TimFox

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #78 on: June 14, 2023, 08:40:13 pm »
The spelling varies depending on whether you're using UK or US English: In UK English, “behaviour” (with a “u”) is standard. In US English, “behavior” (with no “u”) is the correct spelling.
You can't blame people for just Googling Amazon ToS, getting information relevant to their jurisdiction and not noticing the spellings appear to be "normal" to them. What do the US terms of service say?

That was my question.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #79 on: June 14, 2023, 08:40:16 pm »
There's also no technical reason why amazon or any other company cannot create a device that functions independently and cannot be remotely rendered useless like this. It is a choice that they all made.

To a point I agree, however I don't think the Echo devices would be very useful at all if they were completely local, and even if just the most basic functionality was available locally it would almost certainly increase the price and power consumption of the hardware, especially in the early days when it was first put on the market.

I do take issue with the fact that it cannot even be used as a basic bluetooth speaker without being online and paired to an account though, but obviously those of us that care at all about local vs "cloud" are a tiny minority. Now one thing that does really annoy me is what they have done with the Roomba vacuums, I have older models that are totally standalone and work wonderfully. The latest models require an app and online connectivity to set them up, that's just stupid. The older arrangement with an onboard clock and timer was perfectly fine.
 

Offline PlainName

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #80 on: June 14, 2023, 09:27:36 pm »
I think the online requirement is a simple way of enforcing subscriptions, which is the new investment scam and everyone wants a finger in the pie.
 

Offline MK14

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #81 on: June 15, 2023, 02:31:47 am »
I have a degree of sympathy for Amazon.

There was a potentially fairly serious incident (big enough to get an Amazon customer, banned from using Amazon services), being reported.  So, they rightly informed the customer, investigated it and after a reasonable period of time took reasonable actions to reactivate the customers account.
What if it was a racist remark? Is it illegal to make a racist remark in the USA?
What if you make a sexist remark to your wife as a joke, and you both laugh about it, but Alexa is there to listen to you.
What if you tell your delivery guy to shove the package where the sun doesn't shine because he stepped in the flower garden that you worked on for hours.
None of these things are illegal, and all of these things are happening on your property. Why do we let corporations dictate us what is moral and what is not?
I reserve my right to be rude to people, and I don't want corporations to 1984 me with crimestop and thought police.

When a company delivers (and/or initiates lots of deliveries), something like 7.7 Billion packages per year, Globally.

Source:
https://theconversation.com/how-many-amazon-packages-get-delivered-each-year-187587

It is inevitable that on some occasions, less than perfect customers, will sometimes (hopefully extremely rarely), be encountered.  Such as racial incidents, sexual misconduct, dishonesty, violence and other criminal acts

E.g.
Quote
Amazon Driver Killed in Suspected Dog Attack While Delivering Package

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/amazon-driver-killed-in-suspected-dog-attack-while-delivering-package/

So the Amazon employee care manager and/or team (I don't know how Amazon actually do things like that), has to handle a wide range of concerns and complaints about customers, and decide how to react.

Presumably they can decide to take no action, warn the customer, ban that customers account or even contact the Police.

Which is generally true of all businesses.
 
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Offline james_s

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #82 on: June 15, 2023, 09:38:16 pm »
These days, I suspect Amazon is beginning to slip on the customer service front.  I don't think they are still the cheapest supplier (especially for very low cost items), any more, either.

They have very much been slipping. For some time now you can no longer simply email them, you have to use their chat or phone support system which connects you to a cell center in India. They very often are not the cheapest supplier, not even close, and you have to watch out for the minefield of items that are not even fulfilled by Amazon themselves.
 
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Offline james_s

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #83 on: June 15, 2023, 09:42:03 pm »
I have a degree of sympathy for Amazon.

There was a potentially fairly serious incident (big enough to get an Amazon customer, banned from using Amazon services), being reported.  So, they rightly informed the customer, investigated it and after a reasonable period of time took reasonable actions to reactivate the customers account.

Also we need to be careful, because we are hearing only one side of the story.  Perhaps the door-bell message was somewhat abrupt, and a bit rude, without being racist as such.

It doesn't matter what happened, their response was still unacceptable, what they did was "shoot first and ask questions later", ie guilty until proven innocent. It needs to be the other way around, they must investigate first and determine that an offense did in fact take place before taking action against the person that committed the offense. You need to have proof of guilt prior to administering punishment, this was clearly not an immediate threat to life that could justify an immediate emergency response.
 
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Offline MK14

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #84 on: June 15, 2023, 09:53:55 pm »
It doesn't matter what happened, their response was still unacceptable, what they did was "shoot first and ask questions later", ie guilty until proven innocent. It needs to be the other way around, they must investigate first and determine that an offense did in fact take place before taking action against the person that committed the offense. You need to have proof of guilt prior to administering punishment, this was clearly not an immediate threat to life that could justify an immediate emergency response.

It's Amazon's decision, how to handle situations like the one in this thread.

Example/Analogy:
Let's say, another poster on here, appeared to be racially attacking another member.

It is THEIR decision, how to handle the situation (just like it was Amazons).

The member, could decide to ignore the apparently racist remark and carry on.
They could PM the person, in private, or publicly reply to the apparently racist post, against them.
They could report it to the moderator team, or even PM the mod team.

So, it is up to Amazon, how to react to such developments.

Sure, you can criticise and disagree, with how Amazon handled it in this situation.  But since you and everyone is free to either do business with Amazon, or not.  That shouldn't be a big problem (possible Monopoly aside).
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #85 on: June 15, 2023, 09:58:07 pm »
It's Amazon's decision, how to handle situations like the one in this thread.

Example/Analogy:
Let's say, another poster on here, appeared to be racially attacking another member.

It is THEIR decision, how to handle the situation (just like it was Amazons).

The member, could decide to ignore the apparently racist remark and carry on.
They could PM the person, in private, or publicly reply to the apparently racist post, against them.
They could report it to the moderator team, or even PM the mod team.

So, it is up to Amazon, how to react to such developments.

Sure, you can criticise and disagree, with how Amazon handled it in this situation.  But since you and everyone is free to either do business with Amazon, or not.  That shouldn't be a big problem (possible Monopoly aside).

Sure, it's up to them, there's no law against being a fucking idiot, but it is economic suicide to behave in such a heavy handed totalitarian way. It's extremely unethical to punish a paying customer prior to determining what actually happened and it won't take too many incidents like this to irreversibly tarnish the brand.
 
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Offline coppice

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #86 on: June 15, 2023, 10:01:34 pm »
Sure, it's up to them, there's no law against being a fucking idiot, but it is economic suicide to behave in such a heavy handed totalitarian way. It's extremely unethical to punish a paying customer prior to determining what actually happened and it won't take too many incidents like this to irreversibly tarnish the brand.
"1983 other customers also bought this item." :)

Does Amazon yet classify the works of Orwell under "instruction manuals"?
 

Offline MK14

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #87 on: June 15, 2023, 10:08:42 pm »
Sure, it's up to them, there's no law against being a fucking idiot, but it is economic suicide to behave in such a heavy handed totalitarian way. It's extremely unethical to punish a paying customer prior to determining what actually happened and it won't take too many incidents like this to irreversibly tarnish the brand.

You're right.  But there is always the possibility, that it is a mistake, and because of confusion and/or incorrect or missing paper-work and/or a bad/mistaken manager or worker etc.  Amazon messed up in that case.

Great/fast/easy customer service, use to be a big hall mark of Amazon, compared to most of the competition.  If that disappears and is considerably watered-down.  Which some people seem to be indicating (including you, it seems).  Then sooner or later, customers will learn about it, and that will tend to tarnish peoples view of Amazon.

These days, a bad story like this, can travel round social-media and the wider internet, very rapidly.

I wonder what Amazon, are thinking about the situation, now?
 

Offline tszaboo

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #88 on: June 15, 2023, 10:12:03 pm »
It doesn't matter what happened, their response was still unacceptable, what they did was "shoot first and ask questions later", ie guilty until proven innocent. It needs to be the other way around, they must investigate first and determine that an offense did in fact take place before taking action against the person that committed the offense. You need to have proof of guilt prior to administering punishment, this was clearly not an immediate threat to life that could justify an immediate emergency response.

It's Amazon's decision, how to handle situations like the one in this thread.

Example/Analogy:
Let's say, another poster on here, appeared to be racially attacking another member.

It is THEIR decision, how to handle the situation (just like it was Amazons).

The member, could decide to ignore the apparently racist remark and carry on.
They could PM the person, in private, or publicly reply to the apparently racist post, against them.
They could report it to the moderator team, or even PM the mod team.

So, it is up to Amazon, how to react to such developments.

Sure, you can criticise and disagree, with how Amazon handled it in this situation.  But since you and everyone is free to either do business with Amazon, or not.  That shouldn't be a big problem (possible Monopoly aside).
And the next thing you will see is that they shut down your internet and electricity if you are suspected of some wrongdoing.
We already see cases when Paypal refuses to serve people because of their political opinions. Banks as well. Your judge and jury is a pink haired they/them.
We really shouldn't let billion dollar corporations that are in monopoly to dictate what's acceptable and what's not. That's the job of the legal system. It doesn't matter why they are doing it, it's a slippery slope.
 
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Offline MK14

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #89 on: June 15, 2023, 10:19:19 pm »
And the next thing you will see is that they shut down your internet and electricity if you are suspected of some wrongdoing.
We already see cases when Paypal refuses to serve people because of their political opinions. Banks as well. Your judge and jury is a pink haired they/them.
We really shouldn't let billion dollar corporations that are in monopoly to dictate what's acceptable and what's not. That's the job of the legal system. It doesn't matter why they are doing it, it's a slippery slope.

Or worse still, some kind of future ChatGPT is the judge, jury and ONLY contact point for getting it resolved.

>>Sorry, I've decided to cut-off your electricity and internet

==Why?

>>I can't tell you that.

==What can you tell me?

>>Don't worry, I've already told you everything you need to know, any more questions, about other matters?

==Please reconnect me, NOW!

>>You seem to be a bit angry, I'm putting you on hold for 30 minutes

=={30 minutes later} Please consider reconnecting my electricity and internet

>>Sorry Dave, I can't do that

==Please?

>>Don't worry, you will be reconnected in 3 months time

==Look you made a mistake

>>I'm the cHAL9000GPT, who never makes mistooks

==You just misspelled a word

>>No I didn't, anyway see you in 3 months, cutting off in 5..4..3..2..1..
 
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Offline AndyBeez

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #90 on: June 15, 2023, 10:19:53 pm »
Tarnishing the brand? These companies spend millions on polishing their own turds. I suggest there was an AI automation in the suspension process. Rather like the YouTube randomness. Maybe Mr. Jackson was auto identified as a 'dangerous' microsoft employee? I was going to suggest Bezos should stop paying peanuts to Amazon staffers as he's getting nothing but monkeys. But someone somewhere might identify themself as a 'minority' Amazonian primate.

 
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Offline tggzzz

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #91 on: June 15, 2023, 10:36:08 pm »
Sure, it's up to them, there's no law against being a fucking idiot, but it is economic suicide to behave in such a heavy handed totalitarian way. It's extremely unethical to punish a paying customer prior to determining what actually happened and it won't take too many incidents like this to irreversibly tarnish the brand.
"1983 other customers also bought this item." :)

Does Amazon yet classify the works of Orwell under "instruction manuals"?

There's "history" between Amazon and Orwell...

http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/25/74#subj3.1
Quote
Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle Devices (Brad Stone)
Sat, 18 Jul 2009 14:42:33 -0400
In George Orwell's "1984," government censors erase all traces of news
articles embarrassing to Big Brother by sending them down an incineration
chute called the "memory hole."  On Friday, it was "1984" and another Orwell
book, "Animal Farm," that were dropped down the memory hole - by Amazon.com.
In a move that angered customers and generated waves of online pique, Amazon
remotely deleted some digital editions of the books from the Kindle devices
of readers who had bought them.

An Amazon spokesman, Drew Herdener, said in an e-mail message that the books
were added to the Kindle store by a company that did not have rights to
them, using a self-service function. "When we were notified of this by the
rights holder, we removed the illegal copies from our systems and from
customers' devices, and refunded customers," he said.

Amazon effectively acknowledged that the deletions were a bad idea.  "We are
changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from
customers' devices in these circumstances," Mr. Herdener said.  [...]
  [Source: Brad Stone, *The New York Times*, 18 Jul 2009]
  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html

  [Lots of media coverage on this one, especially the 1984 connection.  See
  also an item from David Pogue's Posts: Some E-Books Are More Equal Than
  Others, 17 Jul 2009.  PGN]
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/17/some-e-books-are-more-equal-than-others/
There are lies, damned lies, statistics - and ADC/DAC specs.
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Offline TimFox

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #92 on: June 15, 2023, 10:38:08 pm »
If I remember correctly, the deletion of the contraband edition of 1984 included deletion of notes that individual students had made in their copies for writing term papers about the book.
 

Offline PlainName

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #93 on: June 15, 2023, 11:15:26 pm »
It's Amazon's decision, how to handle situations like the one in this thread.

Example/Analogy:
Let's say, another poster on here, appeared to be racially attacking another member.

It is THEIR decision, how to handle the situation (just like it was Amazons).

The member, could decide to ignore the apparently racist remark and carry on.
They could PM the person, in private, or publicly reply to the apparently racist post, against them.
They could report it to the moderator team, or even PM the mod team.

So, it is up to Amazon, how to react to such developments.

Completely wrong analogy. The member has zero sway over the other member - the very worst they could do is ignore them. If you're intent on using that analogy then Amazon should push their complaint to the police or other responsible authority (which would be akin to the mods here) and let them deal with it.
 
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Offline MK14

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #94 on: June 15, 2023, 11:57:15 pm »
There seems to have been a development, on this story.  Amazon have apparently confirmed the story, and issued a statement about it.  Here:

https://dailycaller.com/2023/06/14/amazon-confirms-shut-down-smart-home-false-racism-claims/

Quote
Amazon confirmed to the Daily Caller Wednesday they shut off a man’s smart home because one of their drivers claimed an automated doorbell said something racist.

A video shared Monday by YouTuber Louis Rossmann alleged Amazon shut down one of his viewers’ smart homes. He subsequently detailed the process he had to go through to get his devices back up and running. It all started when an Amazon delivery driver dropped off a package at the man’s home. The smart doorbell said something to the driver like “can I help you?” But the driver — who allegedly had headphones in — alleged the device made a racist remark.

Following the allegation, Amazon shut down the homeowner’s smart home products. After a significant amount of back and forth and an internal investigation, the company decided to release control of them.

The Daily Caller contacted Amazon to confirm the veracity of Rossmann and his viewer’s claims. The company was asked whether the content of the video is accurate, if the company restricts the use of purchased products based on uninvestigated claims and whether they have a solution if any of this is true.

“We work hard to provide customers with a great experience while also ensuring drivers who deliver Amazon packages feel safe. In this case, we learned through our investigation that the customer did not act inappropriately, and we’re working directly with the customer to resolve their concerns while also looking at ways to prevent a similar situation from happening again,” Amazon spokesperson Simone Griffin told the Daily Caller in a statement. (RELATED: Europe Threatens To Ban Twitter For Allowing Free Speech)

Amazon did not immediately respond to follow-up questions.

Watch the original video from Rossmann here:
 
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Offline MK14

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #95 on: June 16, 2023, 01:30:14 am »
Completely wrong analogy. The member has zero sway over the other member - the very worst they could do is ignore them. If you're intent on using that analogy then Amazon should push their complaint to the police or other responsible authority (which would be akin to the mods here) and let them deal with it.

I can accept, it wasn't the best choice of analogy.  Different peoples, interpretation of it, can vary.

Sometimes posts on here are misinterpreted, leading to complaints between users, which are really just caused by significant misunderstandings rather than intentional mayhem.

A simple misunderstanding, shouldn't lead to various items in a person or families home, to suddenly stop working.  So I can understand why so many people, are worried by this incident.

I wonder what would happen, if Amazon sold automated temperate controlled heating/radiator (control valves), for UK central heating (i.e. Like Google Nest) in the middle of Winter.  Then suddenly disabled that system, because of a similar misunderstanding.  If it was a vulnerable person and/or someone who is so technically limited, that they wouldn't know how to quickly fix the situation and get their heating system back on.  That would be bad, and possibly even dangerous, for certain very vulnerable groups.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #96 on: June 16, 2023, 03:59:18 am »
The thing about this is when people buy these gadgets nobody expects them to get shut down without warning over a misunderstanding prior to any investigation to determine guilt taking place. While it may be in the TOS that nobody reads that they're able to do this, nobody would buy the devices if they thought it would actually happen so people are going to feel ripped off if it does.
 
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Offline PlainName

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #97 on: June 16, 2023, 08:44:56 am »
Quote from: MK14
Sometimes posts on here are misinterpreted

No kidding!

And on reflection I should have written 'inappropriate' instead of 'completely wrong'.
 
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Offline MK14

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #98 on: June 16, 2023, 11:02:58 am »
The thing about this is when people buy these gadgets nobody expects them to get shut down without warning over a misunderstanding prior to any investigation to determine guilt taking place. While it may be in the TOS that nobody reads that they're able to do this, nobody would buy the devices if they thought it would actually happen so people are going to feel ripped off if it does.

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.

Games consoles, that when they reach a certain age and/or the new version comes out, the company(s), stop producing games for the older consoles and at some point tend to even stop its abilities to play online with other people.

Gadgets, which need online access in some cases, where the company goes bankrupt so the services stop.  E.g. The Pebble Smartwatch.

TiVo (and probably others).  Whereby their paid for, 'lifetime' subscription (if you paid quite a lot of money for it, something like $175 .. $200).  Ran out, too soon for a number of people, with the company being taken over, I think.

Cars, which can cost a lot of money.  Then the car company can go bankrupt and/or disappear.  Making used sales values drop like a rock and the spare parts situation and dealer support network (for servicing, repairs and spare parts), disappear, possibly overnight.
E.g. Rover in the UK (technically speaking they got taken over, by various entities.  But the slightly older cars were somewhat abandoned, as a result).
Or Saab etc.

Google seem to be happy to do various projects, which lots of people can use.  Then suddenly announce, the fairly imminent closure of such services, in the coming future.  Even for paid services.

Don't get me started about Microsoft Windows, declaring various versions of their OS, as no longer being supported and/or refusing to support, even very modern/recent CPUs, in their latest windows products (win 11).

Apple seem to do similar, where slightly older products, refuse to load recent versions of their OS.

It is annoying that many products can be kept/used and will electronically be working just great, for perhaps 10 years.  Yet the manufacturers may stop updating the software and/or even stop the services for that device, after just 3 years.  E.g. Google Android specific versions, only updated for a limited time (or so I heard).

Even the modern trend of games being digital downloads, makes one wonder what happens if you want to play that game, in perhaps 5 or 10 years time, will it be possible?

On the other hand.  TV and radio transmission standards, can change over the years.  So eventually, various older standards, can get switched off, to allow better use of the available (RF) bandwidth.

E.g. In the UK, various older TV standards have been switched off.  Such as black and white analogue 405 line transmissions, teletext, and much later 625 line analogue transmissions, and there has at least been talk of the older AM/FM radio signals being switched off (rumours rather than actual cut-off dates), due to DAB/DAB+ and later standards, existing.

I suppose 'analogue' internet phone connections got switched off, but was probably done at a time when almost everyone had moved over to broadband/ADSL anyway, so went unnoticed.

Sooner or later, supplies of Petrol/Gasoline, may either be switched-off, or it may be a nightmare to find a refilling station, vaguely near-by.  My guess would be, perhaps 10 years, after electric vehicles become mandatory (for new sales), they may start disallowing or controlling car fuel sales.

Anyway, who would create/open a brand new site for being a Petrol/Gasoline station, these days.  With their closure and/or getting fewer and fewer customers, getting ever closer.  Unless they shift the various countrywide ban on ICE (Petrol/Gasoline/Diesel) car sales, in the not too distant future, depending on which country you live in.

I try and avoid cloud services (even if free), like the plague (with some exceptions), because of privacy concerns and the service(s) suddenly being switched off (plus expensive subscriptions, adding up over a period of time).  I suppose this forum, sort of counts as one.  But if it disappeared, there would be alternatives and it wouldn't break (stop) any services I get.
« Last Edit: June 16, 2023, 11:19:21 am by MK14 »
 

Offline tggzzz

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #99 on: June 16, 2023, 11:50:10 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.

True, but not relevant to this case. This is about someone being incorrectly singled out for "item insertion".

Having said that, I wonder how long it will be before the whole "cloud control of my home" becomes discredited by such antics. Or, for that matter, people upgrade their "how does this work" mindset to the engineering ""how does this fail" mindset.


Quote
Don't get me started about Microsoft Windows, declaring various versions of their OS, as no longer being supported and/or refusing to support, even very modern/recent CPUs, in their latest windows products (win 11).

The canonical example of that is MicroSoft PlaysForSure [sic].

OTOH, there are apparently Win3 (and later) dialog boxes still lurking in the latest Windoze. Something to do with ODBC config, IIRC :)
There are lies, damned lies, statistics - and ADC/DAC specs.
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