Hey Poindexter, I saved a hell of a lot more than $60 on our power bills this winter using the echo devices and accessories in the way that I described. It was very cold out... I estimate that we saved several hundred dollars. And it was very nice to arrive at a warmed up house at each location. There are other ways that I could probably have done this, but our schedule is highly variable and this was the cheapest way. Every echo device has been on some type of special, most of them cost me between $15 and $20 and the alexa enabled switches and outlets were all around $10 on sale, and they work with our cell phones as well as the echo dots.
Your arguments are based on a combination of ignorance and paranoia. If we were having a discussion about something that absolutely needed to be kept secret I would unplug the echo dot and put my cell phone in a different room. How does that make me owned?
If we were having a discussion about something that absolutely needed to be kept secret I would unplug the echo dot and put my cell phone in a different room. How does that make me owned?
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What you consider need-to-know and what the data miners consider important are variable. Lots of information about us all can be inferred from our schedules, our casual comments/vocal patterns, the names we casually drop in everyday conversation.
Today, they’ve monetized our preferences and buying habits. Tomorrow, it could be our emotional patterns. The day after that, perhaps they will be alerted to the circumstances which cause their devices to be silenced and the next week, they will have fixed that problem.
DH has a cell phone. I do not. Yet, I am his most frequent contact. I don’t use gmail, either, but he does and, again, I am his most frequent contact. So: the cell and gmail is my leash, as well as his. Government still needs warrants to get at our stored conversations. Big Tech has access instantaneously, in real time. We learned from zer0 and Hellery that the nexus between government and tech is not bounded. It is breached constantly and consistently.
Oh, and if you have those electronic energy meters, the energy company knows exactly when your power is being used or not.
As I’ve said here before: maybe we should just relax and learn to love the algo, since we have no control over it, its owners or their alliances.
Remember that in China, your Social Credit score controls your freedom of movement, the prices you pay and what you are allowed to access. We are one to two ‘elections’ away from a similar set-up here.
Using Alexa (or Cortana or Siri or....) just brings that inevitable day a little closer.