My article yesterday about “Parcel Pirates” proved to be very popular.
I mentioned that Amazon has developed Amazon Key to combat parcel theft, and finally I’ve found a review from someone who has actually used it.
Geoffrey Fowler writes in the Washington Post (also owned by Amazon) on his experience over the past month.
The TL;DR version is that while it mostly worked, what was more alarming was that now he has (literally) let Amazon into his home, he has become hostage to the Amazon platform because it is now harder to let people who are not from Amazon (eg family) into his house.
Herein lies the problem of locking yourself in too tightly with one platform or service – they can start to own you. I’ve succumbed to the Apple drug and I now run a completely Apple dependent technology stack.
When they change their charger to USB-C for example, I have to shell out to upgrade to keep things working.
The message in this story is that you don’t want to lock yourself into a proprietary system when being an early adopter.
While there are inherent security benefits from Amazon controlling all the pieces, as Geoffrey saw first hand, they can literally rule your life.
Amazon can theoretically own your whole home – with Alexa, Fire TV and now Key, What’s next?
Watch a video on Geoffrey’s experience below.