Your Smart Home Is a Rental
You paid $250 for a thermostat. It worked well for three years. Then the company changed their terms of service, and the device that had been operating locally now required a cloud connection (and a subscription) to access from your phone. You accepted the new terms, paid the monthly fee, and told yourself it was still worth it. Six months later, the company was acquired. Twelve months after that, the acquiring company announced that the platform was being discontinued. The thermostat was still physically functional, sitting on your wall, but without the servers it depended on, it became an expensive temperature display.
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