I'm a #FitbitEmployee but don't speak for Fitbit.

The advantage of the device is that it doesn't interrupt you if you've already taken 250 steps that hour.

I take it you own a smartphone based on this previous comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19688327

Even if you don't own a smartphone, the loss of privacy to Fitbit is minimal, in my personal opinion. If you do own a smartphone, adding a Fitbit to the picture means an infinitesimal loss of privacy, too small to even be worth talking about. Fitbit has a financial incentive to keep your data private. Can you say that about every app on your phone?

When this phone dies I probably won't get another one. Someone gave me their old cracked phone. It would otherwise be garbage and I won't buy a new phone because the whole system is killing the planet and human beings in places we can't name.

It's so gross, I don't want to be part of it anymore.

So I think you're not going to change my mind about this.

Until we start saying no this can't happen anymore. It will keep on.

We are all culpable.

Sitting for too long is the problem not devices. I agree a timer would probably work just as well, but the number of devices has nothing to do with fixing the problem of sitting too much (especially a device intended to help increase physical activity).