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Comment by tdb7893 | Hacker News Reader

I think the main barrier is that people are generally unwilling to pay for these products now so it's hard to fund things with anything besides ads. If someone finds other ways to fund it I could see it but for now even with them vulnerable it would be hard to compete with them if you also were funded via ads.

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People are paying $1000+ for Pixel phones. I think that should cover the cost of an alarm app.

Alarm apps don't need tracking. Asking Google Assistant to set an alarm needs tracking.

I wish there was a SaaS application which provided assistant capabilities by a monthly subscription. You can see all the data stored, you own the data the service just creates models to enable use. And you could stop the subscription which wipes all the data including the models. Perhaps some startup founder is reading this?

I'm expecting good things from Snips; they're already build a device like Alexa that runs all recognition locally: https://air.snips.ai/

Making an Android frontend seems easy enough.

(You can also DIY by installing Home Assistant and Snips on a Raspberry Pi or other computer)

Yes, snips is pretty well known in the maker community. They're adding blockchain tech to double down on the whole privacy aspect of it, it seems. Wonder if they can break through to the mainstream.

This looks promising! Thanks, I'll check it out.

The problem is, how does the saas prove to you that you own the data and privacy is not violated? I see no way of doing it unless the customer owns the server.

TOS/Contract. Something like Dropbox. You do believe you own the data on Dropbox right? This is something Microsoft can do as an Azure service to counter Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant maybe.

The thing is, you don't only need an alternative for the alarm app if you want to get rid of GApps.

The hidden costs of apps Google gives you for "free" is probably above $1,000. I guess the majority would give away their privacy for that amount these days.

Do you find it likely that Google is earning over $1,000 from each user? How are they getting that? I'd say the real cost is probably a couple of orders of magnitude lower.

This makes absolutely no sense. How is bunch of very basic userspace programs cost >$1000? Google doesn't even make its own kernel, they just make the userspace. For reference OSX and Windows are much cheaper than $1000 and most linux distros are for gratis and all these systems include more complex programs than a basic alarm app, calculator etc.

They pay for similar services when they buy an Apple device. That’s why Apple Maps exists: to give people reasons to buy their hardware. iWork is free and not ad supported when you buy a Mac. Yet, when you buy a Chromebook, are Google Services ad-and-tracking free? Apple has proven that you can do “free” and respect privacy. Is ad-targeting/tracking happening when you use Google Services on a Pixel?

I don't defend Google long slide into hard-core-stalkerdom, but there is a slight price difference between a Macbook Air and a Chromebook. Apple uses hardware income to support software dev costs; Google uses tracking and ads to pay for same and keep device cost low.

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