The post-ownership society
The smart home market is experiencing growing pains. There’s a disconnect between Silicon Valley — where everything from living quarters to companies are fleeting and cash-burning — and the average homeowner, who cannot afford to fail fast because the only money we were given was a 30-year mortgage with our home as collateral.
The software-is-eating-the-world mentality is now being applied to hardware in the worst ways. Products suck away data to their brains in The Cloud and then shut themselves down. Perhaps tech companies have fooled themselves into thinking that this was okay because we’ll pay $800 for a new smartphone every two years.
But these innovators are altering our relationship with home objects that we normally rarely think about. Previously unheralded yet critical functions of our homes are being turned into gadgets. Modern gadgets challenge traditional notions of ownership, and that creates some issues.
Reality: you may have to agree to new licensing terms to continue using your object (see: Nest), or code critical to the function of your object can disappear at any time (see: every smart product ever). Did you buy the product, or just an empty physical vessel that is given life by the grace and financial stability of its manufacturer?
It’s accepted that software has a shorter service life than most products, but if we’re going to see technology integrate into our homes in a meaningful way, contingencies are necessary. A company should be prepared to remove dependencies for the customer — whether that means open sourcing the server code or using an escrow account to ensure there will be money to keep the servers on.
Even though we no longer sell Twine, the servers it relies on are still running five years later. We do this because 1) revenue from a paid account level covers the expenses, 2) most of the customers now using Twine rely on it to alert them of home disasters, and 3) we want to customers to come back when we make future Twine-like objects. But you shouldn’t trust companies to do the right thing.
Nest shut down Revolv not because it couldn’t afford it, but because of a philosophical stance. When Steve Jobs observed that death “clears out the old to make way for the new”, some people chose to apply that more rigorously to their product line.
Given that hardware startups are expected to burn cash to quickly reach an exit for their investors, it’s no wonder they burn their customers as well. Few businesses are thinking about what’s best for anyone 25 years out when they're trying to lock us into the Internet of Keurigs.
But a long view is just what’s needed. It’s already hard enough to find smart home products that are truly valuable. When they do exist, how can manufacturers build consumer electronics to age gracefully?
I don’t know yet. Support periods could be legislated, or we can let but I want to see companies design ownership into products first. Perhaps old-school manufacturers can take their product categories back with thoughtful modernization that’s rooted in a viable business model. Maybe we take the complexity out and consumers happily buy inexpensive single-minded objects like the Clapper. Maybe we pick up lessons from longer-lived products like furniture, to build heirloom electronics that appeal to heart and head. Manufacturers and entrepreneurs, the market is paying attention — let’s set an example and design next-generation home technology to actually last through the next generation.
Borrowing the “ownership society” phrase from @mainsequence, who borrowed it from Ronald Reagan.