[rochellle]

How many personal possessions can you think of that cannot operate unattended, but should?

Given that my personal possessions are few to begin with, I have a short list to review.

I honestly can't think of a single one, save my refrigerator, which I do not want buying food for me. To be honest, I don't even like owning a refrigerator. I didn't need one in college, and still don't need one. I don't use DVR, because I don't subscribe to cable TV.

My arms aren't broken. I can get up and turn a light on. Self-driving cars are technically beyond the scope of IoT, even though the "T" in IoT is deliberately vague.

But these are the things in my life, as it is, and not how it could be. The way my life works right now, I spend (at best) 10 hours away from my home, and maybe 8 hours asleep. So possibly 6 hours to reap the benefits of more clutter, automating... whatever.

Even though arranging and aligning the automated systems that hypothetically support the maximization of my free time, consumes time in order to perfect. But wait! Planned obsolescence promises me that if I step onto the product treadmill, it will be harder to exit, ensuring that there will be cycles of realigning and integrating new IoT systems, into my own private ecosystem of personal automation!

We know this, because look at how often we discard our mobile devices, and even our laptops and desktops.

But nevermind that. Maybe I'd value my free time more, if I had more of it. Maybe if I wasn't lashed to a desk all day, working for someone else, living paycheck to paycheck, I'd have more freedom to expound upon all the nothing I can't imagine not doing at the moment, because I'm consistently busy on someone else's terms.

I don't want robots buying shit for me. I don't need robots telling the world which room I just walked into. I'm sick of going to work all day, and sitting in someone else's chair. Fix that, before wasting my paycheck on lightbulbs that change themselves, but never go out anyway, because I'm not even at home 40 or 60 hours a week, and I'm asleep in the dark for another 50 besides.

[virmundi]

There are at least two issues you raise in this response, neither are directly an answer to IoT as an absolutely retarded idea.

First, you say you don't own much, therefore IoT won't help you. That's fine, but it doesn't generalize. It especially doesn't generalize to non-consumer tech of which you'd have little part even if you wanted to own things.

Second, you're life appears to be stuck in dire straights. I have no idea why your stuck in the life you're in. As a result, I have no idea how automation might help or hinder you. Again, it is not a real argument against IoT.

[rochellle]

Oh, except it is, because the only reason we constantly see all this IoT press, is because there's a PR machine pushing the idea of consumer-oriented IoT devices. More devices in more homes means more analytics inputs, which means more targeted marketing, which means more brand loyalty and lock-in for key purchases, which secures cash flow for established businesses.

We never see non-consumer IoT tech stories. It's always more bullshit, in aggregate, because the consumer market is huge. So, web-enabled security camera gadgets, refrigerators, light bulbs.

Never industrial control and automation. No SCADA. But honestly, critical systems are the things we DON'T want to see on the IoT, because that's where the IoT fuck-ups wind up causing the most pain.

We DON'T want to see hotel heating and ventilation systems reversing flow, and start sucking car exhaust from the parking garage at 3AM, when most are asleep in their rooms, because there's a default port open, because of a bug, and some asshole thought it would be cool to do that.

We DON'T want to see a dishwashing system's filter check go ignored, because the filter purchasing sub-system fails an SSL handshake, because an old CA is no longer available and a new CA is untrusted, and 200 people get sick because their plates were washed with grey water.

We DON'T want to see a sensor fail on a specific model of water pressure gauge, but, due to the nature of the failure, a recall is eluded, and aquifers are drained because of constant leakage gone unnoticed, because no one was paying attention anyway, because everything's automatic now, and there's no staff to support such a massive wave of recall repairs, because automated plumbing has produced a shortage of plumbers, and there are too few specialists to change the valves and sensors out, and the drought hits, and irrigation fails, and then crops fail, and there's no harvest and then people starve, and then children die, and then, and then, and then...

No seriously. IoT is retarded.

[123456qwerty]

That last paragraph is the real important one to me, concerning automation in general, be that IoT, self-driving cars, or other kinds of connected devices that do jobs previously done by more humans with fewer.

Case in point: Someone snips the wrong cable and a system that has replaced human operators who would route in-field nurse calls goes down. This is a small system for now with low volume, so an improvised manual process is in place in a matter of minutes. But what if this system was serving 100x more users? This process would not be scalable, and said provider would not have the infrastructure or man-power in place to handle that situation.

Similarly with the idea that in the near-term self driving cars will reduce the need for drivers, not eliminate them completely. It's like some fallacy of averages. What about that week with so shitty visibility that the sensor-suites are blind? Does the world completely stop for a few days?