The Internet of Things, just imagine the possibilities!
Now just keep imagining them, because it’s going to be a little while before your wildest IoT dreams come true. We have a lot of hurdles standing in between the time of this writing and the connected era. Here are the three major points of resistance:
• Corporate competition
• Regulation
• Consumer resistance
IT professor at Babson College Tom Davenport reminds IoT-hopefuls that the technology is there, but it seems to be stuck in the pipeline as companies work out the specifics.
Taking the above-listed points one by one:
Corporate Competition
The IoT makes possible a microwave that can time your popcorn to be ready right when the commercials start, but see, Samsung doesn’t want their microwave to be compatible with your Sony television, they want you to buy a Samsung television.
IoT devices generally connect through phone apps, so even if your devices don’t want to talk to one another, this problem may be solved by intermediaries, third party app makers who can “jailbreak” your IoT devices and force them to get along… Depending on what the lobbyists have to say about it.
Regulation
The FTC has been putting a lot of emphasis on the need for IoT regulation lately, leaning towards internal “best practices” rulings. Involving the federal government, beyond obvious criminal cases, seems like the default position to take on the issue, although some worry that this would essentially put the ball in the court of the highest-bidder lobbyist system. In any event, the lack of clear regulation creates a lot of resistance for both the creators and consumers of this technology.
Consumer Resistance
The big issue with consumer resistance to IoT-enabled devices is accessibility including cost. If the Internet of Things is to revolutionize our daily lives, then it needs to be accessible, or it won’t revolutionize our daily lives anymore than the new BMW, endless swimming pools, or show-pony breeding methods have revolutionized our lives.
Trust is another big issue. Do we want a television set that won’t let us watch the new episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia because it needs to update its firmware first? We want devices that work at the push of a button, and a device that works without our needing to push a button is a device that pushes the button itself, on its own terms. Will tech companies use the IoT to make life easier, or to exploit the consumer?
Will corporations, regulators and consumers ever be able to work it out? Jackson Pollock reminds us that “An optimist might suggest that the free market will correct most of the major issues facing the IoT. If blender A doesn’t have a manual-mode for when its servers are down, but blender B does, which one are you going to buy?”
In other words, the massive amounts of money to be made in the IoT may just be what brings costs to an all-time low and user-friendliness to an all-time high.
