I pay for all of this stuff. Amazon wants to resell it without asking me. NO.
All the megacorps have gone this direction.
Amazon is going to give you a constantly improving Alexa system and ecosystem and in return you are going to let them use sidewalk in most cases.
You need to be careful about open wifi which despite the claims is different - traffic will egress as you - so if someone jumps on and does some stupid stuff, you can create a fair bit of pain for yourself.
Most folks experience free improvements to echo after purchase. That is part of the value people see in these devices. The network effects get stronger with time. All of the use of these systems requires agreements to TOS that mean you really don't own / control the device, amazon does. Worst cast, when the megacorps close your accounts, you can actually lose access to lots of stuff that it feels like you "own". All your photos, all your email, maybe media content, books etc.
Amazon are using their devices to get a lead on the competition, and in a way which consumers are unlikely to think is fair.
If a company approaches me wanting to put infrastructure in my house (that only benefits them and may incur charges to me), they should normally expect to pay rent.
Everyone pays for their own household now, only because of general corporate scaremongering and specific lobbying to claim that the owner is liable for misuse.
I remain surprised there isn't a bigger movement and open source infrastructure for sharing connections locally.
If I was able to share a few connections with my apartment-neighbours, that would be cheaper and more reliable than my current setup.
Personally, I'd be happy to share my connection with another human being
This isn't really the same thing though, it's Amazon treating all its customers like a harvestable resource, and reselling that resource as a value-add for their other products
Most of the articles I've seen that argue that it 'isn't scary' are along the lines of.
- It's not a lot of bandwidth.
- It seems pretty secure.
For me the concern is that if either of those become not the case, intentionally or not... that's a very bad thing.
What's next? How about, hey, we'll mine bitcoin while your Echo is idle.