Comment by patcon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by patcon | Hacker News Reader

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First off, I say the following as kindly-spoken words :)

I'm grateful that you and I both know to be critically-minded, and we understand the difference between essential features and data-grabs, but honestly... my Dad needed me standing over the sketchy wifi thermostat (that required an app and Facebook login), loudly complaining about how invasive it was, to even understand that this was not OK and worth returning the product. And he's spent years osmosing conversations with his tech-savvy, upper-middle class son. Further, many people take for granted that they can trust a brand like Sony, so they're not in critical-thinking mode about this stuff -- it's quite confusing to know what is reasonable when you're just trying to get the thing done that was literally just a male-female plug before.

I do believe you're a caring person (most ppl are), but the practical effect of your position would lead someone to judge that you don't actually care about the data of the vast majority of normal people across many demographics. I kinda suspect that isn't true, so I'm wondering if maybe you'd find some dissonance in your own views on closer inspection <3

I do care about people's data in general, but also I don't recall the documentation for the device pushing the app much or at all and instead just suggesting you use whatever your device's way of connecting to bluetooth devices is, though I might be wrong there. If it did then it is a bit worse than I recall.

However if the app isn't really pushed at all then this is so minor an infraction compared to so many others happening in the technology space it honestly doesn't really illicit a response from me.

I do want to point out that not really giving a damn isn't the same as thinking it is a morally ok thing to do. I definitely agree that they shouldn't be doing it, but again given the state of the industry I'm honestly just glad the app isn't required.

Lastly I do kind of think personal responsibility has to enter into things somewhere. I understand that the average joe doesn't really understand how these work, and that the information you share is greater leakier than you might think it is given how things are phrased - and I absolutely agree that it is terrible. However for years now high profile data breaches have been a thing. The fact that the average joe hasn't defaulted to a "I don't understand why this device/app wants X information or how it could use it, therefore I won't use this app" is what is letting companies get away with this kind of thing in the first place. You don't need technical competence to be wary of this stuff (in fact I know someone who isn't technically competent who is concerned and they ask my opinion on things).

> this is so minor an infraction compared to so many others happening in the technology space...

Ah ok, that's understandable. I get desensitized to a lot of this too :)

> I do want to point out that not really giving a damn isn't the same as thinking it is a morally ok thing to do

Good point. I'm glad to be reminded of this :)

> Lastly I do kind of think personal responsibility has to enter into things somewhere.

Ah, this is prob the root of much of our divergence. I recognize that tons of my view emerge from my skepticism of what seems to me a cult of personal responsibility in the west. I lean much more toward collectivist mentalities, and suspect individualistic perspectives in USA are it's achilles heel.

The content and information flow of the world (and so a single life) has become densely packed with so much more context compared to 100 or so years ago when these ideals took form and served us. A founding principle of personal responsibility will increasingly fail us as we become emmersed in an ever-complexifying data and knowledge landscape. imho we can choose to be darwinian about that, or we can insist that our duty is to push knowledge and learning up through the system to _shared_ strata, to higher levels of societal abstraction beyond individual daily affairs. At least that's my hot take :)

Anyhow, thanks a ton for engaging! We may disagree, but your perspective got a lot more "real" to me as you shared :)

I'm definitely a collectivist when it comes to many things, and this is one of them. I just explained myself poorly. I think we should have legislation that prevents this kind of data vacuuming, or at least makes it more transparent to lay people. I'm from Australia too, not the US and we definitely are more collectivist in general than the US is.

The comment about personal responsibility is more representative of why I don't especially feel sympathy about this stuff on an emotional level anymore. We've had multiple, huge, public data breaches in years and the average citizen does not care. Hell in Australia we have some of the worst data privacy laws in the world. I wrote my member about it and only know one other person who did. The "personal responsibility" thing isn't a comment on people not reading the T&Cs, it is a comment on them letting the entire industry get away with this shit time and again.

The fact that people on the whole don't seem to care makes it hard for me to feel a good deal of emotional sympathy when it bites them at this point, even if I do feel they shouldn't have been bitten.

Just wanted to say thanks again for the exchange :)

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