This is people taking a trade off. Security for Privacy slider.
If you don't have the time or skills, and you wouldn't trust a local installer to set everything up right, you really don't have that option.
When you're in a situation where time is scarce, like dual income, kid, etc, you clearly are optimising for other things than privacy or even money spent.
If you initially pitched Ring as a device that was directly connected to the local police department MORE people would buy it, not less. In the 90s, monitored home security was a booming business. The average person wanted it but couldn't afford it. People would pay thousands for an installation and thousands more per year to have someone monitor cameras and call the police if there was an issue.
Locked boxes at the house or going to the postal service to receive your package would get rid of most of the issues regarding package stealing, right?
What's the downside of that? Is it worse than using a phone with lots of Google software on it?
The idea that simply owning a cell phone invalidates any effort or incentive to try to keep the personal details of your life from any company ever is deeply flawed.
We all make trade-offs and must decide for ourselves what amount of data we're comfortable handing over to companies who profit from surveillance capitalism. Personally, I can install a camera without giving amazon data about me. I can't get a cell phone that doesn't leak information to google or apple (although I can try to limit what I use my cell phone for and what data those devices leak)
The data companies collect from you is sold to others who collect it and sell it in turn. Dossiers are constructed about you as an individual listing your specific traits, activities, political leanings, etc. You can't see what these companies have decided about you, how accurate it is, who has access to your data, how they are using it, how (or if) they are securing it.
Sometimes when it comes back to bite you in the ass you'll know. your data will be leaked to the public internet, or you'll be a victim of identify theft.
Other times, your life will be impacted but you won't know why. Maybe you don't get called back for an interview at a job you wanted, but you don't know it was because they didn't like something saw in a report from a data broker (you bought too much alcohol for example). Maybe your insurance rates go up next year, but you won't know it's because of how often you eat out. Maybe you can't get a table at the restaurant you wanted to eat at, or maybe you're paying $10 more for a product you buy online than your neighbor, maybe you just wait on a hold a little longer than others when you call customer service, but you won't know it's because you weren't rated highly enough on your secret "consumer score".
The way the data companies collect can be used against you are myriad and subtle, but it's being done all the time, it's probably already impacted you. You just aren't allowed to know it.
Whether it's some dubious data from suspect source, or it's your gender, you might find some opportunities more difficult, premiums more expensive, interviews not bringing job offer. When it's just one isolated, it proves little, but in aggregate... We already know many of these data models are very wrong. When Amazon recommend products for me, they do so terribly. When Google and Facebook famously opened up their respective "what we know about you" pages a few years back, they were - for most in our office - dramatically and hilariously wrong. Often getting every key point wrong like gender, age group, and 9 of 10 interests. AI models are often reported to have gained or inbuilt bias and racism.
It doesn't feel obviously bad, but in the cargo cult of targeted advertising, they've demonstrated they're unfit for purpose. Yet the vast data stores influence all our lives daily -- we really need an audit to identify all those micro impacts and data derived discrimination, as it's undermining any belief in a rational basis and a fair chance in society.
The insurance argument is pretty persuasive though. Effective insurance requires a big pool. For the same reason that ultra-precise categorization for insurance ruins insurance, ultra-precise targeting of individuals ruins advertising if we want ad-supported platforms.
Regulation is more important than ever.
I don't want a chilling effect on the next generation such that every party or moment of drunkenness can be held against them in job search. Every teen has moments of idiocy -- mine thankfully were not in the age of constant surveillance, and there wasn't a smart phone or CCTV in sight. Not much freedom to grow in a world where every worst moment goes viral, or gets you on one of the "next door" neighbourhood snooping apps. Where hanging around with friends on a street corner has old folks flagging suspicious behaviour. Give us all room to breathe. Interfere via authorities when you have genuine reason to suspect. No, I don't much like where we're headed and preferred the proposition before.
Totally agree on regulation, but it seems to be coming far too slowly -- globally.
It's not making the assumption that your government is never going to be rounding people up for brainwashing/torture/gassing/etc ever again.
When that happens, all the data these surveillance companies have is going to make the future gestapo downright gleeful.