You’ve just spent $400 on a baby monitor. Now you need a subscription | Once upon a time there was a company called Miku who wasn’t making quite enough money…::Once upon a time there was a company called Miku who wasn’t making quite enough money…
I forget the name of it, but a number of years ago, there was a startup that wanted to make communication devices for hikers. They could transmit short messages to each other. Anyway VCs came in and asked, where’s the MRR? We’re not investing unless there’s monthly revenue.
It’s all just greed. You can’t just have a device and be good. Investors are constantly chasing the quarterly growth.
It’s disgusting.
It’s modern capitalism.
Making 10 million a month for 10 years isn’t as good as going from 1 million a month up to 10 over five years.
The important part isn’t the total profit, it’s the increase in stock price.
This leads to a churn of companies as they’re pushed past the breaking point because by then investors have sold and moved on to the next.
The only companies that survive are huge corporations that buy up smaller ones to do the same process.
American society decided that the GE model was not only working, but needed to be generalized.
A lot of people don’t understand that GPS requires no cell service to function, so it’s no surprise that many accept that they have to pay monthly for a "service* that has no ongoing support costs to the seller.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but GPS doesn’t allow for communication. Not sure I understand what you’re saying.
I wasn’t meaning to refer to hiking situation directly, just giving an example of how people don’t always understand enough about a service to know if they should need to pay for it.
Sorry for the confusion.
That makes sense!
Aprs already exists and is optimal for hikers. A relatively lightweight base station at good height can get you hundreds of miles pretty reliably or tens of thousands of miles if you really really try and get lucky.
And even when you do make such a product, there’s overwhelming marketing spend against you to make sure no one knows about your product.
It’s massively frustrating to just want to make good products but knowing that the wider business context demands that you get recurring revenue or otherwise it is imperative that you fail. Your success would fundamentally undermine rent seeking, and that’s a bigger existential threat than any other mere competitor.
Subscriptions are a plague on our society. No wonder piracy is on the rise when even simple apps require a fucking subscription.
Or when a product requires an app to function instead of just putting some buttons on the thing. The apps also tend to want access to everything too. 🙄🤦♂️
Because the device you bought is just a gateway for the company to access the real product, you. You’re paying them so they can access your information.
The sad reality of today.
The sadder part is how most don’t seem to give a fuck about this.
Products are usually priced lower than cost and seem like a good deal to the average consoomer, they don’t think about why it’s so cheap.
See free Amazon Alexa deals for example
Solvable: just put these apps on an old smartphone with nothing else on it and that you don’t use anymore then put it on the guest wireless network without access to anything else 😁
Good luck to look for something is not there…Unfortunately they often force round trip to go through their Internet services, so the local app won’t work without Internet and their device will be a paperweight when they retire their support
No problem. The app would be able to connect to their internet services, it only do it connecting to your local guest network that is connected to internet but have not access to anything else on your local network using wifi, from a phone that has nothing else on it so so SIM, no contacts, no navigation cookies and so on. At least some other useless app like itself.
It is not the perfect solution (which would be to not need an app) but at least you neutralize any kind of spyware/data harvesting since there is no data to harvest if not the one generated by the app itself.
How does that pan out when the company discontinues that product model or product line?
A family member got a fancy device with zero buttons on it, and an app that basically provides ‘+’ and ‘-’ buttons that has to go through that companies cloud service. When their internet went down, they had to unplug it because it was set wrong and without internet, it couldn’t be set.
This wasn’t some advanced capability. It didn’t require massive data or computational power. It literally could have been handled with a 7-segment LCD panel and three buttons (+/-/Power). If you buy that device now, they require you pay a monthly subscription for the privilege of being able to do that (under the excuse that they use ‘AI’ to know the right values without being told, but conveniently even the ‘+/-’ functionality is now locked to the subscription plan.
How does that pan out when the company discontinues that product model or product line?
It does not, but that is not the problem my suggestion would solve. The solution to this problem is to not buy these “advanced” devices
A family member got a fancy device with zero buttons on it, and an app that basically provides ‘+’ and ‘-’ buttons that has to go through that companies cloud service. When their internet went down, they had to unplug it because it was set wrong and without internet, it couldn’t be set.
This wasn’t some advanced capability. It didn’t require massive data or computational power. It literally could have been handled with a 7-segment LCD panel and three buttons (+/-/Power). If you buy that device now, they require you pay a monthly subscription for the privilege of being able to do that (under the excuse that they use ‘AI’ to know the right values without being told, but conveniently even the ‘+/-’ functionality is now locked to the subscription plan.
Wrong choice in my opinion. And also terrible design of the device itself. But as long as people will look more to the design than to its usability, companies will continue to do these kind of devices.
And I don’t buy the “but all the companies do this and that, there are no alternatives”: alternatives are present, people are just ignoring them to buy the last device sold with the lastest buzzwords.
Don’t use a baby camera that is connected to the internet. Use one with a monitor that is connected to the camera with a local encrypted signal.
The one we had isn’t available anymore, but I am sure there are more modern equivalents.
There are. We only use a local analog camera/monitor for our youngest one now, fuck the internet-enabled ones.
For our first baby, we had an Owlet setup originally because of the smart sock for newborns (the sock monitors the baby’s heart rate/oxygen levels and alerts you if it drops below a certain bpm/%) and it came with a camera as well. While it was nice to be able to remote view the camera from anywhere whenever family members were babysitting for us, it was so damn glitchy and unreliable (the camera, at least the sock never gave us issues). I can’t tell you how many god damn times that shitty camera would simply just die and you’d have to sneak into the nursery to manually reset the camera like a ninja in order not to wake the baby you just spent an hour trying to get down only to get back to your room and realize the fucking monitor isn’t working… Fuck Owlet.
Oddly, there was no monthly subscription, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s changed now.
We have an owlet with the camera and sock. No subscription yet but also no problem with the camera.
That’s good they seem to have fixed the camera. This was over 4 years ago when we got ours. We still have the sock + sock base station for our new baby, but yeah we got rid of the camera. I think part of the problem was the camera only supported 2.4ghz wifi, and where we lived at the time was pretty housing dense, so there was lots of interference. However, that didn’t explain why it’d just stop working entirely until we unplugged/replugged it. Oh well, our new monitor system works reliably so no use fretting over the past. Good luck with your kiddos, may your nights be long and restful! 🙂
If you ever need to reset it, based on what else is in the room, I’d just flip a breaker instead.
I’m not sure if you’re joking or not but there were times where I literally contemplated doing just that. Unfortunately the nursery’s white noise sound machine would also get caught in that crossfire, which ultimately would stay my hand, heh.
It wasn’t in jest, but it sucks that wouldn’t work. I was throwing it out there because I know how little sleep can mess with the mind.
I don’t really feel baby monitors are really even needed unless you have a large house . With my son I used an old phone as one when I would go across the hall to my neighbors apartment for a couple of minutes. If I actually bought one it would of been a big waste of money. I used to work for a company that did warranties for toys r us and alot of people would speed hundreds on special chairs it a machine that mixes and heats up formula . I used a little chair I got for free and a bottle warmer that was like $15 .
We never even warmed bottles. Some people were shocked to see us pull a bottle straight out of the fridge and give it to our daughter but I didn’t see any reason to warm them when she was perfectly happy with cold milk. I’d rather not have to worry about overheating it or having to lug around a bottle warmer when traveling.
I do like the monitor though but it’s more of a convenience and piece of mind thing than a necessity. Being able to see her means we know if that big thud was her kicking the wall vs falling out of her crib without getting up and running into the room. We almost always keep the volume muted though, it’s a small house and we can can hear her just fine except for if we’re both outside.
The advice I give other parents is to not buy anything but the absolute basics until you really need it because a lot of things you think you’ll need you probably don’t.
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Your 1-day old babies went completely unsupervised? Or just not with baby monitors? Because those are pretty different things.
Completely unsupervised. Shocking they could be in one room while I was in another. How did they live? They should be mush on the road.
Your house must be very small, quiet or have thin walls. That, or you didn’t get bothered by babies crying in their rooms.
I actually agree with this. We use a big fan at night that’s really loud. With the baby’s door closed and the fan on, I wouldn’t hear her unless she cried super loud or screamed. I personally think it’s nuts that some people never used a baby monitor. There’s no way I wouldn’t have one.
its really not that nuts though, unless you make assumptions about people’s houses being too big or soundproofed or whatever. never had them, never needed them for 3 kids
It’s amazing that humans survived so long without monitors honestly. Like how did they ever do it…
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Our camera was a wireless IP cam that connected to the LAN but not the greater internet.
We felt this sting, we purchased the miku because of the monitering and now they want 10 bucks a month for what used to be included in the purchase of the device. Now all the features are blocked.
Can you return it? Or write thr company and request a refund?
This is a bait and switch, which a judge would award damages on if you bothered with a small claims filing.
If you used a credit card you should contest the charge on your card and throw the thing out.
You can get an old version of the software without the features blocked.
The real problem is the government not protecting consumers from such predatory business practices. It’s almost certainly not legal, and if it is then it shouldn’t be. After 3-4 companies are absolutely destroyed, companies will stop doing it.
Why would it not be legal?
One could argue that if you buy a device that work “as is” and then with a later update it start to require a subscription to work, this change could not be that legal.
To make an example: you buy a full optional car. 1 year later, an update make one of your option (let’s say, the cruise control) a subscription service. That could be argued should be illegal.
The problem is when the subscription model is introduced to the alredy sold devices, not on the new ones, like in this case.
I’m not in favor of this bullshit. I just want to know why OP thinks it’s probably illegal. This is far from the first time this BS has happened.
Probably something along the line of breach of contract. You buy something with an implicit understandement that it work as inteded and advertised and that it should continue this way unless it broke (or it assolve its functions if it is the case).
Sadly, most T&C or EULA say they just have to notify you of changes in advance.
Here the question become complex.
While it is true what you say, it is also true that they must give you an option to not accept the changes.
And if you do not accept the changes, then they cannot apply them.Now, if we are talking about a service, then the normal result is that I, as consumer, have the option to terminate the contract without any additional fees even if expected. In this cases people normally accept the changes since most of the time is more a mess to change provider than the gain. It is not the optimal way in my opinion, but at least it have a logic: the new contract is this, you have 30 days to accept or refuse it and if you refuse it we have no contract. In my opinion the correct way should be “ok, no new contract, keep the old one with its goods and bad” but at least I have a choice if the new condition are really bad (for me of course)
On the other hand, when we talk about hardware it is debatable what you can do on a device that is my property and especially if I bought it with a given amount of working features.
And, BTW, here we have the concept of vexatious clauses, which are void by default even if I accept an EULA that has them.
I’m cancelling subscriptions like crazy, I don’t have any streaming TV subs left at all. I replaced them with something that gives actual value:
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Kagi search engine. This wonderful thing has made me discover how much good sites there are out there!
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Fastmail. Really fast and lots of actually useful features.
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Jetbrains editors. I actually like the new user interface. :)
Yep, the problem with subscriptions is the subscribers
There are very few services worth paying for monthly, but if people keep paying, companies keep moving to subscription models
I got rid of Reddit!
+1 to JetBrains.
I started using them like 8 years ago and have never looked back. My dad introduced them to me when I was doing some homework on a family trip and my laptop was dead. After that, I used them for every class in college, then used them at a job where they didn’t provide an IDE but I had the subscription.
Even when I’m not developing at home consistently, it’s just so much better to have it than not.
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I’m not sure why people bother with these. I used a wireless IP camera that could be viewed from pretty much any device, required no subscription and had better quality than most baby monitors.
The baby monitor passed down through our family was said to have been excavated from Pompeii and has cost us $0 dollars over several generations, not counting electricity cost of charging eneloops and Ikea ladda batteries.
I have a baby monitor, and considered using an IP camera before buying it. The reason I like mine is because I’ve got a separate little handheld monitor on RF instead of wifi. There’s a handful of situations where it’s fine in very handy. Our nanny could use it without us having to set her up with any tech. Works while traveling without having to deal with hotel Wi-Fi or hot spots. Works outside much further than my wifi reaches. I like the RF.
I used an IP camera for my first two, using a baby monitor like yours for the third. I prefer the non-IP monitor too. All the reasons you list, plus reliability. I don’t have to worry about my baby monitor crashing in the middle of the night like I did with the IP cam app.
Because there’s massive marketing spend to make everyone feel like subscription services are the only option. Because all the investment in development is only in efforts with rent seeking subscription crap.
We could have easy plug and play local interaction or for remote operation, a self hosting platform. Instead you generally have to carefully research until you find some brand that is amenable, maybe flash over their firmware with a custom image, and put the pieces together yourself in something like homeassisstant. There’s nothing preventing companies from making local management as easy as cloud management except the rent seeking.
We did the exact same thing. The night vision worked well and it gave me peace of mind every night and every morning.
I had 3 babies and spent $0 on video monitoring. Your baby will be fine. Don’t fall for the advertising drama. Babies have been fine for thousands of years with no electronics.
They’ve also not been fine.
SUID Death rate for infants has decreased even since 1990. Baby monitor likely had a role in that.
FYI not supporting subscription for features a device has in hardware, just saying I’d rather have a monitor that never went off than no monitor and a dead child. There are plenty of alternative devices without subs that cost a lot less to begin with.
You know what else happened in the 90s? Leaded gas was banned. I’ll attribute it to that. Anecdotes don’t mean much.
You need to publish a scientific paper on your SIDs discovery. Don’t let this major work languish in some technology comment on Lemmy!
Leaded gas was banned in the 70s.
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/gasoline/history-of-gasoline.php#:~:text=Unleaded gasoline was introduced in,using leaded gasoline in vehicles says otherwise. Unleaded gas introduced in the 70s and lead gas phased out in 96.
I’m not saying baby monitors are the only reason for improved SUID rates. I’m saying they likely played a role. Despite your sarcasm, you might also be right that lead could have adversely affected unexplained infant mortality. The point I was trying to make was that baby monitors are not useless devices designed to extract money from you as implied by OP, whose comments by the way, were anecdotal.
$400 is excessive though. As is a subscription.
And data on SIDS is freely available. https://www.cdc.gov/sids/data.htm
I used a wireless webcam to monitor my baby and, honestly, I was so paranoid that I don’t regret it. Seeing her breathe or move before I went to bed and when I woke up was a comfort and relief.
And only a few children were kidnapped by the Fae.
I can just hear some people going, “WHAT? Are you crazy?”. I was a little tike in the early 60s and the only monitor my mom had was me screaming or the “THUNK” of me falling and hitting the floor.
What about the ones that were left in the cold for being sickly?
Same enshittification that got Drawboard PDF
This really irks me. Paid, and then they make the app shitter and put basic functions behind the paywall.
I would gladly pay for a new and improved version of the app (likely every now and again I admit).
I will never pay for a PDF editor on a subscription basis.
Yeah, absolutely not. Drawboard was cool. It was a real loss. And also infuriating that I “bought” it, only to have the app lock me out of “premium” features later.
They absolutely would’ve been able to grandfather users that paid before the subscription was added. Pure greed and they know you can’t do anything about it aside from leaving a bad review.
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Louis Rossman did a video on this
Good bot
In Soviet Russia, baby monitors you!
Just buy a non Internet-based product that uses wireless radio and a dedicated display about phone sized.
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