In the past we would hate the idea of anyone listening in on your personal conversations. In fact, i bet it scares you know. So why are we inviting Amazon, Google, Apple, Samsung and others into our homes to listen and watch our lives? These companies are “marketing” their way into our homes and we love it. Well, most of us do. And that’s scary. They sell devices that listen to us and act on the data they process. But it’s not just listening.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is intended to make our lives more convenient but the costs are high. The costs are our private lives and our physical lives.
These big businesses want to know you better. Google knows so much about you that arguably they know more about you than you do. They know what you search for and that includes things you don’t even tell your family and best friends. It’s not just Google that knows a lot about us, so does Facebook (because we tell it) and Amazon (because we search for books and products that we’re interested in) and Microsoft (because we talk about ourselves in Emails).
Now we’re able to purchase products that allow these big businesses to listen to us and even watch us and control our door locks. Amazon has a protocol for door locks that allows them to lock and unlock homes that are participating. The idea being that couriers can “safely” deposit your online orders inside your home.
So they can watch, listen and touch. Two more senses and they’re right up their with humans. Give smell and taste and we done.
We’re fast becoming the product and we’re being sold.
So why do they want in on our lives? Knowledge is power. The new currency is knowledge about the masses and we’re the masses.
