[Thriptic]

You set your camera system up yourself. A lot of people aren't going to be willing or able to do that if we are being real. Do you see the average person wiring up a bunch of cameras or troubleshooting networking, configuring a DVR, standing up a web server to view things, setting up off site backups, ensuring their cameras don't go down if power is lost, configuring mobile alerts, etc?

People want a plug and play solution. At least systems from Google and Amazon will probably be reasonably secure so they won't get roped into the next botnet when their owners forget to change default creds.

[dbalan]

That's the central problem, isn't it? Technology only gets more complicated, and we have never bothered much about giving general population effective tools and skills to make informed decisions for themselves. A well-known company vouches for something, and that's all I'd know if I was buying a ring device.

[deogeo]

There's no reason the setup has to be any more complicated - it could work exactly as it does currently, only with the option of pointing it at your own server, instead of Amazon's, or even keep using Amazon's server, but end-to-end encrypt the data, with only you possessing the key.

Amazon and others know this. They don't offer it on purpose, because they want to retain control and a new revenue stream.

[Thriptic]

Sure, I agree we should have a local storage option: however, if we are concerned about population level problems then a local storage option isn't going to help because the vast majority of people wouldn't use it.

[chaostheory]

it’s not just revenue. It’s also support. There’s a lot more support involved and it also increases the upfront cost making it even less accessible to people.