The Datacultr app mentioned is a particularly barefaced example of efficiently extracting small amounts of money from many users through hardware control.
There's also the idea of (effectively) embedding loans in smart hardware so they follow whoever's actually trying to use it. (Also already thing with cars.)
Both techniques seem likely to have many other applications. Probably very unpleasant ones.
In automotive, "buy-here-pay-here" lots have been using tricky devices to disable and locate cars when payments are missed.
But applied to cars, this technology seems like an unalloyed good.
Just like offering your kneecap as a surety can allow people with limited traditional collateral get a loan, this technology broadens who can get loans. (Without the risk of physical injury.)
Data is being used as collateral in this case, so this model literally treats data as "property", which IMO is not a good way of thinking about data.
If a person engages in these manipulative tactics, they'd be called psychopaths. But for a faceless corporate entity it's of course totally fine.
Surveillance capitalism continues the war on it's users.
In some parts of the world they are the same thing