The Things of the Internet

Humans are inherently lazy and therefore do everything they can so that they don’t have to do anything. It is the singular purpose of any invention and ongoing innovation. We want to do everything with the least effort possible, we want to push a button and things happen. We even felt like pushing a button is too much work and then decided that touch should suffice. That too started becoming too much so we transitioned to just saying something and whatever it is happens. Now we are actively researching putting something in our brains so that all we have to do is think and it happens. Makes you wonder what we will do when we achieve singularity, maybe even existing will be too much work and we will decide to just not. …my bad, that got a little dark.

I don’t know why I wrote that as an introduction to an IoT company’s post. In my head it was supposed to ease the post into how IoT is making lives better and why we do it and what we do in the industry. It was supposed to go further and explain that we just completed a project in which we provided a complete IoT solution, both hardware (a custom board to connect sensors and an MCU to upload the data to the cloud), and software (a web platform to analyze and visualize the data with a business management section). That we have quite the team with a great skillset and can offer great custom IoT services to you and what not. But since we are off topic already we might as well go down that path.

IoT which is an acronym for ‘Internet of Things’ is about connecting devices to the internet, basically so that they can either be controlled remotely and/or upload and download data about whatever it is they are monitoring, well IoT is a whole lot more than that but that is the broadest definition I can come up with. A complete IoT system typically comprises of a wireless or internet connected MCU (Microcontroller Unit) and sensors to collect information from the system being monitored and maybe actuators to perform an action depending on how the MCU is programmed to react to whichever information is received from the sensors. But that is it, it was meant for things (sensors, microcontrollers etc), then the mobile phone happened which then became the internet connection the human needed. So we now are the thing that is connected to the internet.

With the GBs of data that you voluntarily/ involuntarily give every day, something or someone can very easily influence what you do. Worse is that they can also anticipate what you will do and set you up accordingly. That is why the ‘Influencer’ profession exists. We who do this IoT stuff are always chasing the better connection, the better system to submit valuable data and one whose actuators react accordingly to the feedback given. IoT is about data, everything else is built to avail it. The big data companies realized it first, humans! This is the perfect system with the most efficient data transmission. All they had to do is plug us into the internet. But is it all bad?

What we are upset about really is how they get this data and then how they use it. That is why the most some of these companies do is offer to let you monetize your data “Okay, since I can still get this data, how about I pay you something little for your trouble of involuntarily giving it? Heh, sounds good?” We still enjoy some perks of this data mining however. The algorithm, the endless playlists that will almost always play the perfect song you wanted to listen to, that next video from that exact moment you enjoyed in BBT etc etc. We did consent to that though or at least don’t mind it. What we don’t like is that we know that it doesn’t stop there, we know that that smartwatch that monitors your heart rate is collecting data which is sold to an ad agency which sells ads for a big pharmaceutical company whose meds you will start seeing all over. The same smartwatch also uses the same data to call an ambulance when it detects a fall or an extreme spike in your heart rate. And thus the split, we know that there is good that can be done but we also know that it won’t be done if it means not even a little evil is done. We also know that there is nothing that we can do about it, well except not submit anything. Which also isn’t entirely possible, IoT and Technology is embedded way too deep in our society that we cannot pull out now even if we tried. But maybe there is hope, web3 promises great data decentralization and therefore no one person or organization can use it however they want. We also know that some of the biggest web3 projects are being done by the same tech giants we want to take our data away from. but...why would they help?