| I think it's hard to dispute that networked sensors/controllers can have tangible benefits. My issue with the current trend is that 'IoT'/Internet-enabled is a way to both sell a product, and then effectively rent access to it via the 'cloud' interface. If you stop paying, your device is (mostly) useless. If they stop supporting it, your device is (mostly) useless. The actual whereabouts of any data produced by your device is probably unknown, as is its security and usage. It's the same tired old "If you're not paying..., you're the product", except that you're actually paying. Many of these abuses are much harder to do if you don't expose your exciting new Thing of Internet directly to the entire global communications infrastructure, but then we're back in the bad old days where people had to use software that wasn't a thin client in a browser[1]. I'd really really like a LAN of Things, or a VPN of Things, that still functions after your service has gone bankrupt or sold their souls to Oracle or something. But of businesses, especially those riding the wave of 'your data is feedstock to our deep-learning quantum magic pixies, and we'd never ever sell it all for a cheap buck[2]' would find it much trickier if that sweet sweet data wasn't coming their way. Development & distribution, as well as actually charging for for things, become harder problems though, which means everyone wants to head to the promised land of *aaS, where A/B unicorns frolic in the fields and green/blue munchkins guide your clueless users down the yellow brick upgrade pipeline. [1] Only mostly sarcastic.
[2] unless someone offered |