Ring still partners with Axon [1] as part of the Community Requests feature [2]. Since terminating the partnership with Flock is solely a PR play, the answer to your question will likely depend on if consumers en masse use this opportunity to educate themselves on the gravity of the “loss of control (of your data) in exchange for convenience” paradox of cloud services and advocate for additional changes to be made to the Ring platform, or if Amazon’s PR capability will find a way to improve consumer sentiment towards Ring products and services without addressing privacy and surveillance concerns.
Isn’t this position predicated on the assumption that individuals without substantial capital “own” an AI?
When someone uses an AI they do not own, they are (maybe) receiving a benefit in exchange for improving that AI and associated intellectual property / competitive advantage of the person or entity that owns the AI—-and subsequently improving the final position of the AI’s owner.
The better an AI becomes, the more valuable it becomes, and the more likely that the owner of the AI would want to either restrict access to the AI and extract additional value from users (e.g. via paid subscription model) or leverage the AI to develop new or improve existing revenue streams—-even if doing so is to the detriment of AI users. After all… a sufficiently-trained “AGI” AI could (in theory) be capable of outsmarting anyone that uses it, know more about its users than its users consciously know about themselves, and could act faster than any human.
While I share in your hope, I think it is unfortunately far more likely that AIs will widen the gap between the haves and the have-nots and will evolve into some of the most financially and intellectually oppressive technology ever used by humans (willingly or not).
HEOS-capable gear from Marantz and Denon cover a lot of the applications you referenced. I decided I would never buy another Sonos product after the S2 rollout, and I now have a mix of eleven Denon and Marantz receivers driving both built-in, freestanding, and outdoor speakers of my choice all over my house.
eCommerce is inherently cashless by design. Confined / captive environments (e.g. airplane cabins) are cashless. Concessions and merchandise counters at large events (sporting events, concerts, etc.) are cashless. Self-service kiosks for anything (or vending machines) are increasingly cashless. And if memory serves me correctly, I believe that using cash to purchase real estate via arms-length transaction is prohibited in the USA by law, even if the buyer and seller agree on the use of cash (and if it was logistically feasible to do so).
I would argue that cash is not an option in more cases than it is an option.
1) What is the point of posting this website on HN? I love vinyl, and have a collection with plenty of rarities in it (one out of five, one out of ten, test pressings, promo pressings, signed sleeves, etc.), but I am not sure if a discussion on HN about a vinyl marketplace is apropos. I am not trying to be contrarian; I am asking out of curiosity.
2) As a US-based collector, I find prices listed on the posted website of some LPs I would like to have in my collection much more (as in, double) than listings I can find on Discogs… not to mention Discogs’s excellent communication tools and release database. With the exception of one purchase I made where the seller was essentially acting as a drop shipper and had no idea what they were selling, every vinyl I have purchased through Discogs has been exactly what I thought I had purchased (variant, condition, other important characteristics). I typically communicate with sellers to make sure vinyls are packaged a certain way in depending on the purchase to make sure the new addition to my collection arrives in the best condition possible. Discogs community-centric tools make it very easy to determine or infer buyer and seller reputations / trustworthiness. All said: what is the value of this site over a site such as Discogs?
What distinguishes the offerings from Fabric8Labs from the offerings from long-established companies like Desktop Metal[1] that are capable of printing parts using a wide range of materials including carbon steel, stainless steel, titanium, and tungsten?
The tungsten capability really throws me for a loop. As someone who TIG welds in my spare time, I can’t imagine having a machine in my shop that could make electrodes. The amount of energy required must be … a lot.
[1]:https://www.axon.com
[2]:https://ring.com/support/articles/uds27/Community-request