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Amazon Key bets you'll give up privacy for convenience (The 3:59, EP. 312)

2017-11-07
good morning on Tuesday November 7th it's episode three 12 of the 359 podcast my name is BBG and your host today include Ben Fox Ruben and Roger check the oh geez morning what's up everybody hello we've got a great lineup for you and we're talking about Amazon key and the the backlash and why Ben doesn't think backlash means as much as we think it does and we'll analytically speak it analytically speaking and we'll be talking about how about blackberry again partly cuz I want my blackberry but those are the the shake up with the the us phone market and so where all the rankings are and how blackberry actually played a part in it an unlikely part in how the rankings checked out check out and then we'll just offer up a tease a little plug for CNET magazine our cover star chadwick boseman got an interview or we did an interview with him he talks a lot about Marvel's black panther and a little bit of a shout out to Lynn law for her story part of the the turn-on package this is about sex yeah sex online yeah it's a sex ed it's a this one's about contemporary sex education the use of mediums like like online videos of VR it's actually a really smart piece you should have to check it out as we're obviously the correct parties to be giving you the speech about the birds and the bees I know I know it's I feel we are not I feel my face turning red as I speak but if you have any questions on these topics hopefully not this next one please leave the comments section and get to them 359 second we're apparently thirteen-year-old boys alright stay tuned everybody we're gonna record the podcast and come back and we'll chat in the chat ironically enough in 3 minutes and 59 seconds from 3 to welcome to the 39 I'm Roger Chang I'm Ben Fox ribbon Amazon key launches tomorrow in home delivery service elicited some serious public backlash but Ben you still think it has a shot right I mean I just analytically speaking I don't personally like have a horse in this game sure analytically speaking I think you know if you were only paying attention to social media you would think that this thing was dead on arrival and that's just not true and the reason for that is is that you know privacy speak speaking of privacy people tend to say one thing and do another and you called us the the privacy paradox it's what's called the privacy paradox and generally people talk a big game when it comes to privacy and that sounds gonna have a set of Star Trek yeah but at the same time it's been shown over and over and over again that people will tend to veer toward convenience as opposed to privacy right and that's why something like Amazon key if it provides enough benefits for people and there's enough positive word-of-mouth around it it could catch on and it could end up being something significant privacy like I saw complaints and credit like you said these are just come knee-jerk reactions but I saw issue concerns about you know what the dog coach gets let out right all right another practical thing that's like so minor compared to some of the social media responses I mean like people were saying like the delivery guy is gonna come in and murder me you know this was digit were like very negative responses and I I think that that's currently just noise those are probably people that may not buy the service at all and there are people are gonna vote for this kind of thing with their wallets and I would say you know wait and see if this is something that does actually happen and at least your storage is seen like the older you were the less likely you were to try to service out but kind of looking at backwards like is this really going after Millennials or younger folks or who exactly is the the target demographic for the time that's a very good question for the time being it seems as though Millennials seem to be very much into this whole like convenience economy thing yeah maybe they would be the ones to go for it but I always thought that the older you got the more likely you are to try to want to get in-home services and that's why a service like this might actually be beneficial for sure that's the thing like if for younger folks they're not necessarily living in those houses that would really benefit from the service right right and one other thing I talked to the CEO of latch which works on providing a smart door lock and when one concept that he had that I thought was really interesting was that like one day your smart door lock might be integrated your uber ride where you've got like a hot meal plated and ready waiting for you at the dinner table which I was like oh my god like what an incredible idea if something like this were to catch on all right well that's all the time we have next up we want to talk about blackberry the curse is still alive right so just a little background in Chinese consumer electronics company TCL which makes TVs and cheap phones I started selling blackberries they were actually on a pretty good streak last year they were number five in the US they started selling blackberries and they have dropped to six so he added a new phone to the lamp in and changed their life that much but they had a blackberry two lamp and somehow ended up doing worse what do you think blackberry needs to do to actually generate interest in sales I mean like they switched over to Android because the BlackBerry operating system really wasn't getting traction did that work no not at all it's still kind of sticking into relevant relevancy remember it's not blackberry that makes these phones anymore they sort of outsource or they've licensed out the name to TCL to make Blackberry phones yeah TCL just hasn't really done a great job of promoting this stuff I mean there are still some blackberry diehards out there but it's really hard to find these phones I think that's part of the big problem yeah all right lastly I just want to give out two shoutouts one to little law on her story part of the turn on sex package this is a look at contemporary sex ed which is sort of this fall somewhere between the clinical lecture and porn but it takes everything from virtual reality to online videos great story different mediums to educate folks not just kids but but adults on not too young well yeah definitely not to you and then lastly are the latest issue of seen in magazines out we've got an interview with chadwick boseman black panther himself gives us a couple cool tidbits on the upcoming Marvel Universe so that's all the time we have for those stories and more check us out CNET I'm Roger Tsien I'm Ben Fox Ruben thanks for listening all right thanks everybody that's a conclusion of the recording of the podcast hangout I'm gonna go ahead and start digging through the chat see if we got any good questions or comments to address in the meantime Roger and Ben you want to expand on some of these things we always have to like hustle through at the end of the show I didn't saying we have to kind of cut away with what the Amazon key mean I I mean I look I get the privacy concerns there and to your point you know wow that was sort of knee-jerk reaction people haven't tried to service out well there's also a silliness to it right absolutely absolutely and this is not gonna take off if the word of mouth is very negative people have negative associations and negative responses to it this is not a slam dunk by any means like that is not what I was trying to suggest right it's just it's not the opposite either we're just because people were complaining about it and mocking it on social media doesn't mean that it's not going to have a positive launch so what Amazon is going to need to do especially to protect the reputation is to make sure that those delivery drivers are well trained but they don't accidentally let out anybody's pets that are you know like that and and that actually people that's like and that and that people start to get comfortable and start to realize that there is a convenience factor here because this is really just the first step for them as far as the in home delivery service what's going to be coming in the coming months is a dog walker maid service plum or all these other additional services professional services are also going to integrate into this and personally I think that that has a lot of potential to really expand what commerce looks like in the future so as an e-commerce and you know future of Commerce reporter I find the concept fascinating but if people don't like it if people feel like their privacy is being infringed and if there are very negative it like one negative story about this could bomb the whole program right and just a reminder how much does the service cost it starts at two hundred and fifty dollars it includes free installation and launches smartlock as well do the blue to the smart lock I I don't know if you have the associated smart box from quick-set or yale already installed if all you need to do is then add in the smart the security-camera I'm not sure if they're gonna let you do that but at this point it's two hundred and fifty dollars for a door lock and the security camera that Amazon makes so big question is are you gonna do it I'm considering it okay I mean like it starts at 250 it goes up to like I think 320 or something that's that's like blue what's the 320 it depends which door locks you by okay so it's it's definitely a significant upfront cost and you know we don't really have a big problem leaving packages at our stoop right but at the same time is it something that maybe we want to consider I mean like I've been thinking about it but no I haven't you know jumped into it yet okay questions Brett well josh and a number of people in the chat are generally just like this is kind of neat but up to like cautious because you're already afraid of smart locks getting hacked in general yeah so people are kind of leaning away from that regardless of Amazon's efforts in this part I when you brought up the idea of you know the the dog walkers and other services plumbers etc being included on this you know I'm wavering back and forth I had first thought this is a neat idea but I have an apartment so I can't really participate in it but the idea of being able to remotely control because I need a cat sitter when I go away sometimes yeah those are very incentivizing aspects to me but at the same which Amazon recognizes and I think that that's why this isn't a pilot program they're launching in 37 cities they really want to make a big splash with this and they're making the biggest push for in-home delivery that anybody is doing like Walmart is doing like a straight to frig pilot program where like a delivery person is gonna come in with your groceries and put them directly in your fridge yeah but it's a pilot they're just kind of how does it in the law how does that work though it's also with a smart door lock oh so they teamed up with August ok and so there's there's like a lot of these retailers are like we're gonna push these services into your home you did make the point that Airbnb is sort of made a little bit more comfortable about hanging out in someone's home or opening up your home to somebody else just like uber you know you're basically using your own personal car this or a devolution of that be is it like allow people looking away hang on your house is it wrong to say that there's like this weird like digital communist happening right now this new shared resource without going into saying the word communism in it I mean like there's definitely like the tech companies are like definitely know that they can serve you more services if you good neighbor policy or if you're willing to give up a little bit more privacy yeah and I mean that's that's sort of the bottom-line theme for pretty much every tech company now right yeah it's like give up a little bit more of your identity your privacy and stuff in this case you know personal space and yeah we'll give you more stuff it will make your life a little bit easier right that's the American Way for a lot of people though that's that's the thing like I do kind of somewhat agree with Ben and I like for a lot of people that convenience will be enough to come and give up that level of privacy talking to a professor cliff Lampe from the University of Michigan named Rory I feel like he's not like famous or anything but he was he's super helpful so I wanted to mention him yeah by name but he he talked about the fact that like in general for people privacy is a vague notion that tends to get pushed away for concrete benefits yeah so if you have like this concrete benefit of you know I'm gonna get a cheaper ride from point A to point B you know as in with uber right then you know maybe certain issues of privacy or personal social security number it's cool right but like you know I totally at your point though like if there is a tangible benefit your brain will sort of jump to that first and like the privacy concern which is definitely a bit more amorphous like that kind of gets pushed to the back so actually at the I just didn't get into the story this is a good like you know behind the story kind of thing is that I ended the conversation being like you know what you're saying it sounds like we're just basically frogs being boiled alive slowly and our isn't this just gonna result in us all getting like chip implants and he said you know if people really want see a positive benefit from chip implants than we are gonna have chip but yeah it's kind of blew my mind a little bit I would just like oh my god that's like yeah I guess as I was telling you like our own Katie Collins has a chip implanted in her it's not even science fiction and you know it's not like she's had it for a while - I think the only thing it does is I think if you tap it against a phone like her or like business card pops up or something physical business car pops out of her skin no no your phone like if you tap into somebody else felt like her like bio Oh her business card is embedded in her hand it just flies it just flies she can just give it to somebody else so what if we get to a point where if everybody's got chips in their hands and they shake hansoms automatic business card exchange how create exactly what that's why is that you like the picture that in a terrible situation like a skeevy bar and numbers to women yeah but you can't do that any true doing that the low-tech way anyway you can switch the mode so like if you're the woman you can like offer up the fake mrs. car more for me different where you make his like chip like make it like a very loud noise like look at CES I would like we meet so many people at these trade shows in a various conferences like I would love to have a way to like instantly tracks but a lot of people are like sorry are they business cards ran out business cards you hear that everywhere but kind of Awesome to like shake the guy's hand boom business card yeah I mean like I'm not on the chair may disagree with you I'm not on board with the chips that you will be embodied yeah I mean I guess so listen I've seen that paid me to test it out I would do it until then I'm not volunteering for it I think that's what happened with Katie she did as a road for wire back before she wore em mmm anybody out there honestly interested in pursuing that yeah right and also you know going back to the original concept woth in home delivery and services obviously we would also love to hear from people about that too you know delivery to chip that's the thing is that like when you talk when you talk about a slippery slope of privacy yep variably you end up with well I guess we're gonna have chips embedded in our bodies and like we have a co-worker that has one there you go so it's not fiction it's brave new world all right so on that note let's get back into the chat drone wolf media why would I let a complete stranger in my home when the way packages are left at my front door has been working perfectly fine from me for 50 years makes no sense people getting too lazy the just to clarify though he said he would let Amazon in there before Walmart ah and there's a discussion between him and our buddy Matt - about you know what the size of packages so we'll go into that shortly but you know I personally from my perspective I've lived in a few apartment buildings I've never had a front door man or anything like that sometimes leaving the package there is a nightmare yeah I've never had anything I've never had anything run off but I've had more than a few occasions where the delivery drivers like I've been instructed not to leave anything here you need to come to the post office between 130 and 197 every weekday we have and we have co-workers that send their packages to the office because it's not a safe option to set it leave it on for the person who just talked about like how it worked for like the last 50 John wolf yeah that for you that is this is not the service for you definitely not you're very fortunate but you are extremely fortunate there are folks even who live in the suburbs you know packages get dropped off think it's stolen or damaged I mean you hear reports but all the time especially during the holidays when people are kind of roving around the neighborhoods knowing that there are packages waiting to be bragging and that's the real that become an increasing risk right and when you call Amazon Amazon will replace the package so you know I was talking to folks over the weekend about this and they're saying that they mentioned to me that look if your package gets stolen then that's all the viability is on Amazon why should I be taking the liability by paying two hundred and fifty dollars so that Amazon doesn't lose as many packages and has to replace them that's a good argument yeah I'm like but if it is a very sensitive package then maybe this is something that you want to consider yeah like some people depend on that for those who may be you know stuck in their home a little more or less mobile than others they depend on these deliveries of course that kind of defeats a purpose if you need to have somebody drop it off for you I don't know where my mind said what it's really like but it's a peace of mind type of thing where like you know you don't want to check the stoop all the time to see if your package showed up you know that it's behind the door and it's locked my feeling is is that especially in certain neighborhoods the second your neighbor gets like attacked by a porch pirate you're much more likely to end up purchasing the service right because like that was all yeah that's what they're called Wow porch pirates porch I like that but there I think also when you call Amazon about this stuff like what exactly was their answer to you before as opposed to we're just gonna send you a new one at least now to have some sort of service that yeah yeah could help out so this is gonna put neighborhood watches out of business I mean I mean I grew I grew up in a really I was getting paid to be part of the ever hood watch right I grew up in a really small town though and you know a very very tight neighborhood as well you know and we all let the the the Connaught guy come in and read your meter ours was in the basement you know that's new to come in this the side door or whatever like that and wasn't a problem you know Mike my cat sitter has a copy of keys to my house that I trust them with right well you know it's where does your trust lie it's very subjective if very individualistic and and people do tend to trust big companies but better numbers actually according to this professor yes they do really bad people have a tendency to trust big companies more than they probably should because there's anyway yeah relative to a like a small mom-and-pop business that you've never really worked with like if you have no reputation elationship then yeah like Amazon's can be there's an assumption that they're gonna yeah there's an assumption from people that they protect your data because it's their incentive to write there's more liability as well like you go after like if the small business like loses your data and you go after them there's not much you can get right right Amazon's got deep pockets there's there's a liability factor it's it's also it goes back to like you know for instance Google and Facebook have an enormous amount of information on people but I don't see a lot of people not using Google Maps or lamp you know getting rid of their facebook over privacy concerns so it goes back get into the privacy I don't know I'm thinking about it we're all thinking about it but yeah right okay so let's get back into the chat there's still some really great conversation going on one proposed compromise or solution from Scott I can see an in-between market with a smart lockbox thing to take packages without granting entry into the home that exists so didn't Amazon do that into a partnership like 7-eleven s for a while where you could have Amazon lockers right but what if that you could install one of those on your property there is a startup I don't remember what it's called that does actually do that the problem is with like large or bulky exactly they're discussing things like big TVs bicycles right like probably and and just have a really massive Amazon Locker now from the from seeing from the press demo that I that I went to two weeks ago for Amazon key they also mentioned that a lot of people installed Amazon key they're like the side door to their garage so it also prevents the delivery person from getting direct access to your front door so what if they took the humans out of it completely I think this might be a bit of a sarcastic statement from stellar tech but the idea of a personal automated bot that unlocks the doors and physically travels for packages goes back and forth so like essentially the drone can get into your home but now they trust the drone more than humans I don't I've seen terminator 2 many times right delivery with drones right but like then they're just gonna cut out the people completely and it's drone delivering to another drone robots ordering stuff from other robots it is interesting to see the the multiple sides of this and there's way more than two going on iChat and you know I'm glad that how much of you privacy versus that convenience and this is the whole up I I think at the very least I'm glad that this has sparked some level of discussion because the social media responds immediately following this was almost entirely a long yeah and there was there's I feel like I felt like there was a complete misinterpretation of the fact that like people let all sorts of service providers in their home already well not without like I said the con-ed that without being there though sometimes yes sometimes no I'm never like Verizon I'm talking about we already had an existing relationship but we did have a maid that showed up and cleaned the house one okay two weeks okay we have that with nanny nanny has keys right so so my besties personally interviewed and yeah exactly so a serious vetting a someone who is assigned to your and then there and that it's that it rotates but I'm just my argument is is that this isn't such a foreign concept I mean like in many ways this exists in a variety of different social interactions but at the same time the social norms will have to change to a certain degree for this to actually be an effective program alright let's keep the conversation going we're almost out of time some other alternatives and Fatboy nineteen and one nine eight three one I would let Amazon in my garage or my shed but not my home option for this situation can you essentially tell them where they can go and as long as there's a door yes separate garage garage yeah right but like it really does depend on what your house looks like what neighborhood you live in how much money you have I mean like two hundred fifty dollars starting off is not he's gonna price out a certain segment of the population so that's why it's like a luxury when you when you asked about Millennials I was just like I don't know the younger you are the less likely you are to like have just $250 burn on this yeah probably not gonna own a house yeah so it's it's maybe there's just not gonna be a market for it maybe I do think there's a market for this for apartment owners - not necessary for Amazon Keith the way it's run but there's there's definitely like folks like Brian like they need some sort of services to like allow for those packages to be safely consistently delivered right and the company latch is the one that's doing that right now within lobby delivery and they're hoping to eventually do an apartment delivery as well oh there you go I would be interesting to see keep going on the conversation whose discussion now about drones dropping your packages through the chimney and says isn't that just called Santa Christmas 2018 NORAD tracks rebel Santa and his a tuber Rainier that was not promised Futurama was a Santa robot is Futurama yes lazy evil Jon exactly but that's the beginning of it like what we're talking about now is sort of the first step to that that ultimate evolution of evil so continue - is filled with great comments and commentary today Ben you talked about this service Amazon Key has a special delivery arsenal right that's it's a different it's not a standard delivery like you get your package from FedEx or UPS and these are very specific yes and what's the process like is there a thorough background check for these drive that's what they claim yeah it's through its its third-party services that Amazon has set up with to provide Amazon logistics so no it's not through FedEx UPS or a US Postal Service maybe it will be eventually they say the drivers are vetted they have existing relationships with them these are the drivers that already deliver a lot of your amazon packages so but you you probably don't know them by name maybe you do know your mailman but you know how long until amazon just starts their own actual truck service and they Serbs they do I mean like they have that yeah they they own a lot of their own trucks and that's also like not so outrageous because like Walmart does the same thing and so does turn it so you guys would be big enough as a retailer you but that does that go straight to consumer is that more from like facility to facility it depends most of those are facility to facility but Amazon also does a lot of like delivery straight to customers to say on one service it is I've never seen an actual Amazon truck pull up it's still waited to feel that treasure truck besides the treasure duck I've seen it I know I was not here when it came that would be great if they did have treasure trucks started doing home deliveries because I think people would really love it could you see kids running down the street after that Jeff Bezos like rolling out like beige boxes but instead oh my god the ice cream song it's playing like a Nokia 3310 ringtone or something like that I think we got some on our hands here to quit this and go after yeah we like quit CNET and go start the trucks oh yeah and well one of us has to shave his head to be business and I don't have the giant guns for it alright which probably rapping we are out of time thanks everybody thanks a few like theythey you saw her here check us out on CNET our podcast is also available on iTunes tune in stitcher SoundCloud feedburner Thank You play music yell tomorrow see you tomorrow thanks everyone great discussion today yes you
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