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Re: Making cars more connected Posted by Justin VanAbrahams [Email] (#32) [Profile/Gallery] (more from Justin VanAbrahams) on Tue, 29 Nov 2011 23:36:35 In Reply to: Re: Making cars more connected, ursaw, Tue, 29 Nov 2011 21:57:08 Members do not see ads below this line. - Help Keep This Site Online - Signup |
Companies will only be able to monetize data mines until consumers both wise up and care. Most consumers are ignorant of the fact that random stuff they do gets tracked, compiled, analyzed and sold. Witness the armies of people who use Facebook et al and freely give away all their most intimate details to megacorporations can then use that information against them. We as a society are just starting to broadly understand what that means and are approaching a time when we the people will decide whether we care or not.
My guess is that nobody will care. People like me and you - apparently - don't like giving up even anonymized data for free, and chances are we wouldn't give it up if we were paid for it. I am betting you don't have a Facebook account, either. (If you do, then I think you're rather missing the boat on this one) But, clearly, the vast majority of the 1st world population wouldn't give a rat's behind if their driving habits were harvested, and free internet in their car or free remote diagnostics or whatever other side benefits come with the tech will be worth the loss of certain types of privacy.
Or, maybe consumers will have a change of heart and these concepts will become anathema. Just like Onstar backed down, just like Facebook has backed down, just like Netflix backed down everyone else will too. This type of thing will get sorted out in the market place. If people don't like your privacy policies, they won't buy your product. It's that simple, given that "we" do an adequate job of educating the public. That performance can't be judged yet, we are way too early down this road to tell.
All this "oh no, the future!" mumbo jumbo around here blows my mind. You think people didn't fear electricity? Gasoline engines? Steam trains? Rubber tires? Hydraulic brake systems? FFS people, the world doesn't stop because 1% of the population is comfortable with the status quo. Things are going to change. They may not get better on a microscopic level, but I think everyone will agree that living in a stationary home with central climate control and lights that always work is a step in the positive versus what our relatives who may still be alive endured.
It's especially stunning to find this talk on a Saab bulletin board. We are talking about a company that *prided* itself on innovation, on NOT doing things the way they'd always been done. Saab is (was?) about PROGRESS and FRESH NEW APPROACHES to mind-numbingly ordinary details. If you people are so anti-progress, I cannot figure out why you'd drive a Saab in the fist place. Chevy put manual windows and carbs on the Cavalier up through the late '80s.
You may say "I don't need navigation!" but I'm sure a great many mechanics said "I don't need Trionic!" back in 1992. Turns out Trionic is pretty effing badass. Twenty years later it seems pretty simplistic, but back then it might have well been technology from the future. Sometimes it takes a little while to get these things right, but it's *rare* that once a game-changing technology appears that it goes away. I would encourage you all to accept a button that can lock all your doors from 30' away, a screen that can guide around traffic accidents, and little antenna that can tell your mechanic what's wrong with your car. If you don't like those things, do what I did an buy a 1960 Ford Falcon. After white-knuckling it through traffic because your engine isn't pulling enough vacuum to keep your wipers going and getting soaked because you have to keep the windows down to keep the windshield from fogging up, you just might appreicate these space age technologies a little more.
Sheesh.
posted by 12.195.130...
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