Amazon Key is Silicon Valley at its most out-of-touch

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Date: October 26, 2017 at 11:34:34 AM EDT
> To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Amazon Key is Silicon Valley at its most out-of-touch
> Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com
>
> Amazon Key is Silicon Valley at its most out-of-touch
> By Christine Emba
> Oct 25 2017
> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2017/10/25/amazon-key-is-silicon-valley-at-its-most-out-of-touch/>
>
> Amazon wants to let strangers into your house and train a surveillance camera on your front door. Oh, and they’d like 
> you to pay them $250 for the privilege.
>
> Skeptical? So are many who saw today’s announcement of “Amazon Key,” a new service to make home deliveries even more 
> convenient, available exclusively to Amazon Prime members.
>
> Here’s how it works: Starting today, members of Amazon’s two-day delivery service can pre-order a kit that includes 
> an Amazon security camera called the “Cloud Cam” and a compatible smart lock. Once you install the lock and the 
> camera (inside your house! Within 25 feet of the door!), you’ll be able to access an “in-home” shipping option for 
> your Amazon purchases. When a delivery driver arrives, Amazon will verify the address and time and let them in. 
> Amazon Key owners will be able to watch them from their phones, as the camera records the whole thing. They plan to 
> expand this access to professional service providers such as dog walkers and maids.
>
> Brilliant, right? So convenient. Now you’ll never have to wait around to meet the mailman or worry about getting a 
> package stolen off your porch. What else could you possibly want?, asks your benevolent e-commerce overlord. (Note: 
> The Washington Post is owned by Amazon founder and chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos. JB, if you’re reading this, I am 
> a Prime member!)
>
> As it turns out, I want a lot more than that.
>
> The thought processes of Silicon Valley innovators are a curious thing. Many observers have noted that the most 
> common proposals seem to fall into the category of “things that I, a 25-year-old man, wish that I could still get my 
> mother to do for me.” But even more eyebrow-raising is the fact many of these ideas share a curious misunderstanding 
> of the average person’s hierarchy of goods — what things matter to them, and how much. It may come as a surprise to 
> those who are willing to live in Google’s parking lot and drink Soylent meal replacement instead of eating real food, 
> but some of us care about more than just convenience.
>
> Examples of this mismatch abound. Take Bodega, a start-up idea that was floated (and promptly sank) just a few weeks 
> ago. Its object was to put mom-and-pop corner stores out of business by selling nonperishable convenience goods out 
> of unmanned “pantry boxes” (read: vending machines) that would be located in high-density areas such as college dorms 
> and apartment buildings. So convenient, right? It’s fast, it’s cheap, and you wouldn’t have to make eye contact with 
> a judgmental cashier as you paid for six pounds of candy corn, not that your correspondent has any experience with 
> that.
>
> Except it turned out that convenience and anonymity weren’t everyone’s highest goods. Apparently some people wanted 
> to walk down the street and interact with others. Maybe they weren’t interested in killing local jobs in service of a 
> giant machine that would sit in their lobby. Perhaps they even valued the diversity and sense of community that a 
> neighborhood mom-and-pop could bring over innovation for innovation’s sake.
>
> Then there was the ignominiously recalled Juicero, a machine that would make individual pours of cold-pressed juice 
> using home-delivered produce packets and WiFi-enabled home machinery. Admittedly convenient, if juice was your thing. 
> But it turned out that the average person valued having a non-exorbitant grocery budget (the Juicero machine cost 
> $400, and each juice packet $5 to $8) and not feeling like they’d been scammed by overeager marketing teams (it turns 
> out that the Tesla-strength machine wasn’t even necessary to squeeze the packets) over a convenient glass of juice. 
> Who could have guessed?
>
> [snip]
>
> Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/
> Twitter: https://twitter.com/wa8dzp



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