Smart Speaker Novelty Wearing Off

[engine]

There's a report about Amazon's Echo smart speakers indicating a tail-off in popularity. Besides market saturation, this could be a combination of the novelty wearing off, along with other concerns, such as privacy fears.

If this is happening to Amazon's offering you can be sure, in general, it'll be happening to other smart speakers on the market, to a smaller of greater extent.

I've always like experimenting, and have used a smart speaker to gauge its value, but in the end, I rarely use the smart features, preferring to use it for the basics, such as setting timers. According to the report, this also appears to be the case with many others.

[telegraph.co.uk...]

[ronin]

I am cautiously optimistic that the surveillance capitalism which really took off in the 2010s, will be largely anachronistic by the 2030s.

I'm sure I don't want any device - not least a device that can phone home - knowing more about me, my behaviour and my preferences than I am consciously aware of myself.

Or one capable of making extrapolations with a high degree of confidence based on that data.

[engine]

by the 2030s.

I would think it'll be after the start of that decade.

The problem we all face is the onerous T&Cs which want you to agree to, before you can use the "free service" service. That's the thing that's got to change, but it won't happen in any short term.

Subscriptions might be acceptable, if the data privacy of individuals is guaranteed. That's a bit tough for big business to accept.

[graeme_p]

I think things like this are also beggining to worry people: [mirror.co.uk...]

@ronin I hope you are right, but while people are getting more aware, the suppliers are also getting more cunning at this: [mirror.co.uk...]

Think of Tesla car unlocking apps that rely on their server (that recently failed because their server was down). My daughter has a lot of apps (from her employer, university, and places she shops) that give her discounts - but they are apps, no cards, no browser. The difference? Once you give the app location permission etc. it works continuously. Also a bit of a workaround for GDPR. The big supermarkets where I leve (Leamington Spa) now require you to scan your loyalty card to use the scanners to shop. They used not to. Why the change?

[ronin]

The big supermarkets where I live (Leamington Spa) now require you to scan your loyalty card to use the scanners to shop.

Wow.

That doesn't sound great.

I've not had a supermarket loyalty card since 1998.

[engine]

The big supermarkets where I live (Leamington Spa) now require you to scan your loyalty card to use the scanners to shop.

That's bad.

I rarely use the scanners, preferring to deal with a human being on the checkouts. I, too, don't have a loyalty card.

It's all about data, eh, and if that's the case, they should pay me! :)

[NickMNS]

The big supermarkets where I leve (Leamington Spa) now require you to scan your loyalty card to use the scanners to shop. They used not to. Why the change?

WTF! you are all in the UK, what about GDPR? This seems like what GDPR is exactly meant to stop. I'm in Canada and I haven't seen anything like this here, nor do we have GDPR. Not to says that we don't have our own invasive privacy issues.

As for the "smart speakers", I find the "UI" has always been a bit wonky, you need to be near the speaker and need to ask it for something that it can respond to with a simple answer or action. The intersection of those things is actually quite limited when you think about it. The closest alternative is using voice commands on a mobile device, in which case the device mostly always by your side so it seems more natural to use it for voice commands than a speaker in a fixed location. Moreover, if the request fails to find an appropriate response the devices can easily revert back to standard web search, ie: the Siri response "here's what I found on the web".

[ronin]

WTF! you are all in the UK, what about GDPR?

Errrmm...

GDPR applies to any organisation operating within the EU, as well as any organisations outside of the EU which offer goods or services to customers or businesses in the EU.

Source: [wiley.law...]

Half the active electorate in the UK voted to Leave the EU.

I have no wish to derail this thread so please let's not talk about GDPR etc. beyond this clarification. Thanks.

[graeme_p]

@ronin GDPR was incorporated into UK law by the Data Protection Act and still applies. Very little has changed.

[ico.org.uk ]

[NickMNS]

There is a UK GDPR:
[ico.org.uk...]

[Jonesy]

I use the super market loyalty cards I find in the parking lot.

[engine]

I was just trying to imagine the massive resources behind the instruction to "...set a timer for fifteen minutes."