Proof that software as service/cloud based, will never work for long term ...

[PlainName]

-> Miss a Car Payment and Ford’s Patent Could Shut Off Your A/C

-> https://news.yahoo.com/miss-car-payment-ford-patent-181119638.html

Quote :

"Ford Motor Co. has filed for a patent on technology that could remotely shut down your radio or air conditioning, lock you out of your vehicle, or prompt it to ceaselessly beep if you miss car payments. "

Yep, as expected, its coming. 

Don't buy ford.
Also, make sure you choose cars with mechanical starting keys and locks.
Cut / short out all antennas / receivers connected to all MCU devices in the car.
Use only a third party car radio.

If the car cannot function under these circumstances, then choose another car.

That only works while you have a choice. Once other manufacturers see that Ford get away with this they'll want to do it too, and then your only 'choice' will be shite cars no-one would otherwise want to buy or succumbing. It's  happening with subscription software - there are some pretty good applications out there I would pay quite a bit for, but they are subscription only so I don't use them. The suppliers don't miss my custom, and eventually Ford won't miss yours.

[Nominal Animal]

Rent-seeking patterns are typical for competition-limited markets (or markets where there isn't sufficient competition).

For example, various Linux distributions have now agreed to develop a shared app store based on Flatpak.

No, I will never install standard free/open source software as Flatpaks or Snaps, but I can and will consider it for very old versions, and – especially – for commercial applications.

So, even though RedHat (Fedora) and Ubuntu are pushing towards closed gardens, their products being frameworks inside of which users operate in, with the intent of convincing proprietary partners to support them as "industry standards" and thus together garner a majority market share, the basic pressures of a healthy competitive market has even here found a technically better solution that allows fair competition among co-operating competitive entities.

True danger isn't that companies and organizations choose bad practices; it is anyone getting a high majority of the market, even if they avoid the worst monopoly practices, because it lets them skew the rules of the game in their own favour.  We need fair competition, at all scales.  That, and only that, can really thwart rent-seeking behaviour and other such, due to sheer competitive pressure.

[Karel]

Support for Nest Secure ending

On April 8, 2024, Nest will no longer support Nest Secure. We have contacted impacted Nest Secure users to help with
this transition.

Recycling your Nest Secure

We can help you recycle your Nest Secure. Our third-party recycling partner will send a postage-paid shipping label to
your inbox.

https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/10191961

[tom66]

That was at least a $400 system with a $20 a month subscription.  What a waste, economically and environmentally.   

If you don't own the infrastructure you'll never own the product, absolute crap that.  I am sticking with Zigbee for home automation, I run the cloud, not anyone else.

[coppice]

Support for Nest Secure ending

On April 8, 2024, Nest will no longer support Nest Secure. We have contacted impacted Nest Secure users to help with
this transition.

Recycling your Nest Secure

We can help you recycle your Nest Secure. Our third-party recycling partner will send a postage-paid shipping label to
your inbox.

https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/10191961

The name "nest" was a warning sign. Most nests only last a few months, and are abandoned by their first winter.

[MrMobodies]

That was at least a $400 system with a $20 a month subscription.  What a waste, economically and environmentally.   

So another case of buying the item and paying to use or see it at their say so.

On the other hand:
https://www.trustedreviews.com/news/google-to-stop-supporting-nest-secure-dropcam-products-4316375

By Ruben Circelli Freelancer April 8, 2023 1:19 am BST

Google has recently announced that it will stop supporting Nest Secure and Dropcam products by 2024.

According to a blog post from Google, the company plans to end support for its Nest Secure and Dropcam home-security products by April 8th, 2024. Google says that its partnership with ADT has prompted the company to shift away from Nest Secure products in favor of ADT systems, while Google argues that the age of Dropcam products has made them unwieldy to support in the modern-day.

However, Google isn’t just leaving Nest Secure and Dropcam users out to dry. Nest Secure users can either choose to receive a free ADT Self Setup System (which Google calls up to a $485 value) or a $200 credit in the Google Store. Affected users will receive an email with further instructions. For Dropcam users, Google is offering a free Nest Cam with a Nest Aware subscription and 50% off the Nest Cam for those without a subscription.

Nest Secure originally launched back in 2017 as a smart home security brand intended to compete with mainstays the likes of ADT, and considering Google’s more recent work with ADT itself, phasing out Nest Secure makes some sense. Dropcam launched over a decade ago and, according to Google, was “one of the first smart cameras on the market.” Now, Google notes that the early nature of Dropcam hardware makes it difficult to update them going forward, which also makes a good deal of sense even if it’s less than ideal for consumers.

Lastly, Google also announced that Works With Nest, its API system allowing for third-party integration, will be discontinued after September 29, 2023. Google promises a script editor in the coming months that will allow for “advanced home automation” and “offer new features and capabilities.”

All told, seeing products already in the hands of customers get phased out is never good news, but when it comes to Google, Nest Secure, and Dropcam, it’s easy to understand why this is happening. However, you’ll still have a year to use these home security products before they go offline.

[coppice]

That was at least a $400 system with a $20 a month subscription.  What a waste, economically and environmentally.   

If you don't own the infrastructure you'll never own the product, absolute crap that.  I am sticking with Zigbee for home automation, I run the cloud, not anyone else.

The main reason so many of these things use the cloud is the lack of robust widely deployed ways for you on the move to communicate with things in your home. So the cloud services sits there as a server intermediary between a client in the device being monitored and a client in your phone/tablet/notebook. Zigbee doesn't provide a solution for that. Now if home routers came with a zigbee gateway and a public facing server, which could be contacted cheaply through a dyndns account, we'd be getting somewhere. I've seen a couple of routers that mentioned zigbee functionality, but when I looked in the manuals it was all pretty vague.

[tom66]

That was at least a $400 system with a $20 a month subscription.  What a waste, economically and environmentally.   

If you don't own the infrastructure you'll never own the product, absolute crap that.  I am sticking with Zigbee for home automation, I run the cloud, not anyone else.

The main reason so many of these things use the cloud is the lack of robust widely deployed ways for you on the move to communicate with things in your home. So the cloud services sits there as a server intermediary between a client in the device being monitored and a client in your phone/tablet/notebook. Zigbee doesn't provide a solution for that. Now if home routers came with a zigbee gateway and a public facing server, which could be contacted cheaply through a dyndns account, we'd be getting somewhere. I've seen a couple of routers that mentioned zigbee functionality, but when I looked in the manuals it was all pretty vague.

I've got public internet access to my Zigbee system working just fine (obviously, it is a password-protected system, but I mean I can access it anywhere with internet.)  It wasn't necessarily trivial to set up because you need to sort out your own SSL certs, open a port on your router and of course your gateway needs to be running actual hardware capable of serving webpages (I'm using Home Assistant.)  This has allowed me to do all sorts of smart things like set up my heating to turn off when I leave the house and on a room by room basis, so it was well worth doing.

The reason Wi-Fi smart home devices are so prevalent is you don't need a gateway, and because the bulb/whatever opens the connection via your router, it doesn't need you to expose a port on your router or set up a home server.  The issue is that this method requires the server to be always available.  And it also means if the company providing the service (in the majority of cases this is Tuya, a large Chinese IoT firm) is required to continue supporting your devices.  It's not clear to me what happens when Tuya tries to stop supporting these devices, or how they collect revenue from customers, because the server infrastructure to support these devices is very not trivial.  Maybe their hope is that the sales of new devices subsidise existing ones, as every Tuya compatible manufacturer pays a royalty fee, but that sounds very Ponzi-esque to me.

There's also the big privacy headache.  Do I really want this company knowing when my lights are on?  When I'm in the house?  When the alarm is activated?  Do I trust them to keep the data safe and not to monetise it?  How secure is their platform?

[Marco]

The main reason so many of these things use the cloud is the lack of robust widely deployed ways for you on the move to communicate with things in your home. So the cloud services sits there as a server intermediary between a client in the device being monitored and a client in your phone/tablet/notebook. Zigbee doesn't provide a solution for that. Now if home routers came with a zigbee gateway and a public facing server, which could be contacted cheaply through a dyndns account, we'd be getting somewhere. I've seen a couple of routers that mentioned zigbee functionality, but when I looked in the manuals it was all pretty vague.

Just join the evil empire ... by which I mean Apple.

[mendip_discovery]

Regards to the Ford comment. I personally feel that cars in the future will be for hire rather than owned. Who will buy and 10 year old electric car with a battery that has almost had it. But I have already heard that companies are looking to have optional extras move to a subscription model. You want the extra power or the heated seats etc then you will have to pay for it. Now what are the chances they will find a way to obsolete these extras making the cars next to impossible to sell.

I am no great lover of the cloud. I do like to have control over my stuff. I guess its cus I am a grumpy old git.

[coppice]

That was at least a $400 system with a $20 a month subscription.  What a waste, economically and environmentally.   

If you don't own the infrastructure you'll never own the product, absolute crap that.  I am sticking with Zigbee for home automation, I run the cloud, not anyone else.

The main reason so many of these things use the cloud is the lack of robust widely deployed ways for you on the move to communicate with things in your home. So the cloud services sits there as a server intermediary between a client in the device being monitored and a client in your phone/tablet/notebook. Zigbee doesn't provide a solution for that. Now if home routers came with a zigbee gateway and a public facing server, which could be contacted cheaply through a dyndns account, we'd be getting somewhere. I've seen a couple of routers that mentioned zigbee functionality, but when I looked in the manuals it was all pretty vague.

I've got public internet access to my Zigbee system working just fine (obviously, it is a password-protected system, but I mean I can access it anywhere with internet.)  It wasn't necessarily trivial to set up because you need to sort out your own SSL certs, open a port on your router and of course your gateway needs to be running actual hardware capable of serving webpages (I'm using Home Assistant.)  This has allowed me to do all sorts of smart things like set up my heating to turn off when I leave the house and on a room by room basis, so it was well worth doing.

The reason Wi-Fi smart home devices are so prevalent is you don't need a gateway, and because the bulb/whatever opens the connection via your router, it doesn't need you to expose a port on your router or set up a home server.  The issue is that this method requires the server to be always available.  And it also means if the company providing the service (in the majority of cases this is Tuya, a large Chinese IoT firm) is required to continue supporting your devices.  It's not clear to me what happens when Tuya tries to stop supporting these devices, or how they collect revenue from customers, because the server infrastructure to support these devices is very not trivial.  Maybe their hope is that the sales of new devices subsidise existing ones, as every Tuya compatible manufacturer pays a royalty fee, but that sounds very Ponzi-esque to me.

There's also the big privacy headache.  Do I really want this company knowing when my lights are on?  When I'm in the house?  When the alarm is activated?  Do I trust them to keep the data safe and not to monetise it?  How secure is their platform?

Personal solutions like are fun, but they just won't scale. Most routers can be configured to allow the highly competent to do an interesting range of things. The only way the average person could do that is by paying a considerable amount to someone competent, and being as beholding to them as they are to the cloud people. We really need our routers to provide some measure of gateway functionality by default, or with very minor configuration the average person can easily handle.

[Marco]

Personal solutions like are fun, but they just won't scale. Most routers can be configured to allow the highly competent to do an interesting range of things. The only way the average person could do that is by paying a considerable amount to someone competent, and being as beholding to them as they are to the cloud people. We really need our routers to provide some measure of gateway functionality by default, or with very minor configuration the average person can easily handle.

We need more high end ecosystems with strict quality control by a central power not dependent on advertising for income ... at the moment there is only Apple.

Apple Homekit certification keeps the vendors honest, because Apple can treat Homekit support as somewhat of a loss leader. Nickle and diming and datamining customers costs them far more in reputational damage than the income it generates.  When another brand tries to compete at the high end of home automation, such as Loxone, they have an uphill battle. They have to make all their money with those products, they can't rely on the inherent profit of ecosystem lockin driving other hardware sales and app store profits.

Apple's consumer electronics ecosystem is right up there with Standard Oil for non government created monopolies, other than that it has no equal.

As a consumer, there is little rational reason not to go with Apple. I refuse out of obstinacy.

[coppice]

As a consumer, there is little rational reason not to go with Apple. I refuse out of obstinacy.

There are excellent rational reasons for not trusting any monopoly. However benign it might look at one point, it can turn evil at any moment and have you looking for an exit door which has been close and sealed.

[PlainName]

What we need is a protocol standard (like onvif, for instance). Then you can buy whatever cloud or router or server or ISP service you want and whatever it is will talk to whatever kit you've bought. Absolutely we don't need a gatekeeper, whether that's Google or Apple or Tuya.

[Someone]

Personal solutions like are fun, but they just won't scale. Most routers can be configured to allow the highly competent to do an interesting range of things. The only way the average person could do that is by paying a considerable amount to someone competent, and being as beholding to them as they are to the cloud people. We really need our routers to provide some measure of gateway functionality by default, or with very minor configuration the average person can easily handle.

Or over here in Australia where the largest internet service providers refuse to support 3rd party routers/modems and will only provide the network credentials baked inside their own locked down (and insecure) hardware....  free use of the internet relies on good actors all the way along the chain and while that has mostly held so far its not guaranteed or even a concern of most people.

[SilverSolder]

Regards to the Ford comment. I personally feel that cars in the future will be for hire rather than owned. Who will buy and 10 year old electric car with a battery that has almost had it. But I have already heard that companies are looking to have optional extras move to a subscription model. You want the extra power or the heated seats etc then you will have to pay for it. Now what are the chances they will find a way to obsolete these extras making the cars next to impossible to sell.

I am no great lover of the cloud. I do like to have control over my stuff. I guess its cus I am a grumpy old git.

That does seem very likely to happen.  Cars are getting incredibly expensive, far beyond what the median income can afford. Nowadays, there is oceans of capital looking for a return....   and you, dear monthly subscriber, are the one providing that return!

[Someone]

Cars are getting incredibly expensive, far beyond what the median income can afford.

Baloney!
https://www.carexpert.com.au/car-news/cheap-and-generally-cheerful-three-decades-of-australias-cheapest-car
Cheap cars have more capability/safety/features/functions than ever and still remain cheap.

[Marco]

What we need is a protocol standard (like onvif, for instance).

An industry standard and certification system won't be created the same as Homekit. Apple creates it partially to protect it's high end image, an image incompatible with nickle and diming and forced cloud. The industry creates it for short term gains. Because Apple can deliver a full ecosystem it can have a relatively soft touch towards monetization and cloud lock in, lesser players will be far more aggressive.

The only alternative to ecosystem driving somewhat customer friendly standardization is government.

[Psi]

The worse things get with "software as a service" the more open source software will take off.
It's a self fixing problem with one exception, when the government mandates that you must use software X.

In fact, what may happen is that some open source software also goes to a "software as a service" model. However because you are only paying for support rather than access to the use the SW, and since it only needs to keep a few developers funded rather making software firms rich, the cost would be super low comparably and very attractive over traditional companies.

[Karel]

The worse things get with "software as a service" the more open source software will take off.
It's a self fixing problem with one exception, when the government mandates that you must use software X.

In fact, what may happen is that some open source software also goes to a "software as a service" model. However because you are only paying for support rather than access to the use the SW, and since it only needs to keep a few developers funded rather making software firms rich, the cost would be super low comparably and very attractive over traditional companies.

For example, like what Git did with the (commercial) alternatives.

[SilverSolder]

Cars are getting incredibly expensive, far beyond what the median income can afford.

Baloney!
https://www.carexpert.com.au/car-news/cheap-and-generally-cheerful-three-decades-of-australias-cheapest-carCheap cars have more capability/safety/features/functions than ever and still remain cheap.

You can argue with me, but you can't argue with the facts!


According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median individual income in 1976 was $6,617 which is $32,572 in 2023 dollars, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator.

Consumers paid an average price of $5,450 ($29,586 in 2023 dollars) for a new car in 1976, according to National Automobile Dealers Association numbers.

So, in 1976 Joe Average could buy  $32,572 / $29,586  =   1.1 average new cars per year for his Joe Average wage.

In the year 2022, the median individual income was $46,001 and the average price of a new car at the end of 2022 was $49,388!   

So in 2022, Joe Average can now only afford 0.93 new average cars per year on his Joe Average salary.

That's almost a 20% increase in price, on average, compared to median salary.   The only reason Joe Average can afford these increases is...   increased debt, paid off over longer time.   Cars as a service, essentially!

[TimFox]

Somewhat counteracting that trend is the longer lifetime for autos.
A quick search found that the average age of cars on the road in the US went from 11.0 years in 2011 to 13.1 years in 2022, or 19% in only 11 years.
It would be interesting to go further back to your 1976 start point for such data.

[CatalinaWOW]

The cars of that era would have had power steering, power brakes, probably A/C and auto transmission and a radio, but no antilock brakes, computerized emission controls, GPS, hands free phone connection, back up camera .....

But on the other hand fuel economy has improved enough to offset much of the increase in cost.

[nctnico]

Cars are getting incredibly expensive, far beyond what the median income can afford.

Baloney!
https://www.carexpert.com.au/car-news/cheap-and-generally-cheerful-three-decades-of-australias-cheapest-carCheap cars have more capability/safety/features/functions than ever and still remain cheap.

You can argue with me, but you can't argue with the facts!


According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median individual income in 1976 was $6,617 which is $32,572 in 2023 dollars, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator.

Consumers paid an average price of $5,450 ($29,586 in 2023 dollars) for a new car in 1976, according to National Automobile Dealers Association numbers.

So, in 1976 Joe Average could buy  $32,572 / $29,586  =   1.1 average new cars per year for his Joe Average wage.

In the year 2022, the median individual income was $46,001 and the average price of a new car at the end of 2022 was $49,388!   

So in 2022, Joe Average can now only afford 0.93 new average cars per year on his Joe Average salary.

That's almost a 20% increase in price, on average, compared to median salary.   The only reason Joe Average can afford these increases is...   increased debt, paid off over longer time.   Cars as a service, essentially!

Same has happened in the NL and even worse. 10 years ago you could buy a car starting at 9k euro. Nowadays the cheapest car sets you back around 18k. Corrected for inflation the increase is 30%. The claim is that adding required safety features is driving the costs up.

[tom66]

Same has happened in the NL and even worse. 10 years ago you could buy a car starting at 9k euro. Nowadays the cheapest car sets you back around 18k. Corrected for inflation the increase is 30%. The claim is that adding required safety features is driving the costs up.

Is that pollution tax?  In Norway, a VW Golf diesel isn't much cheaper than a Model 3 for similar reasons (389,000 NOK vs 499,000 NOK)  whereas in the UK the difference is much bigger, about 100% more expensive to get the Tesla.