It sounds like the current $20 offering is to have a remote employee monitoring you when you walk home alone, or the like. The contemplated new service, Protect, is not currently available to the public, and there's nothing indicating it would be $20/mo.

My guess is there will be tiers based on anticipated usage, like AAA. Want X number of monthly reports? That costs $Y. If you want 2X the reports and expedited response time, it costs $2Y.

People paying for getting really intrusively surveiled?

A friend startup-pitched exactly this idea (remote monitoring by request, e.g. late-night walks home) to me 6 years ago and found me less enthusiastic than he had perhaps hoped, it's strange to think about how many people might converge on similar ideas at the roughly same time

Not particularly surprised to see it realized in this way

I have a few surveillance ideas more interesting than that but think they are immoral.

It’s sad that someone else will implement them anyway.

The same poor employee will be sitting there making shit pay, monitoring 30 people simultaneously. Then they will get bored and fall asleep and miss when something really happens.

>$20 per month will in no way cover the cost to send security guards your way

it will more than cover a drone. Especially AI based one instead of being remotely controlled. You can imagine that they can park a lot of drones around the city so the reaction time will be in seconds. While real people sometimes [think that they] have to use deadly force to protect themselves, a drone has no-self-preservation concerns (i hope it will be that way at least for some near future :) and thus can just blanketly use a lot of non-deadly force - acoustic, electric shock, 96GHz beamed power, etc.

You're going for a walk late at night - just a click in the app would get you a drone or a robot dog to accompany you for a walk. The drone or the dog is already imprinted with your voice from the app for the duration of the walk, so you can command it at any moment.

So if I don't like your face at the corner, I'd order a drone equipped with a taser as a backup? An AI-controlled drone that listens to my voice?

Now what if you also order one? Did you make sure to get the premium subscription which includes DAD Drone Area Denial to keep other drones out? Because I did...

it is just like today - i may have a knife and you have a gun, only those robotic "knife" and the "gun" will be "smart", more powerful than a knife and probably than a gun, at least the robot would shoot much better than an average person, and come with subscription fee.

Also, while people in many places can't get a license to carry various weapons, a large cash flush corporation can push through the regulations Uber-style and get the regulations to allow their robots to carry and use those weapons.

This is scifi territory, this is nowhere near doable right now.

I'd rather move to a safer place.

Almost everywhere in USA is safe. Even more so W. Europe. Need civilwar or live in place rules by warlords to be dangerous.

The chance of you suffering crime (unless u look for it like join gang) is vanishingly small. Media just constantly reports and massive amplifies fear generation on the most dramatic BS happening anywhere cause fear sells.

For instance more or almost the same number if people die by 2nd Hand Smoke as die if gunshots in USA. About half of gunshots deaths all self inflicted suicides. But every thinks there is some huge issue with gun violence. Wed save tens of thousands of lives every year outlawing smoking. But smoking isn't scary like "assault weapon". Doesn't sell ads and first get you reelected

you underestimate the power of marketing and societal mass self-delusion :) Just look around - there is no children and Ring cameras everywhere. 30 years ago the children were playing outside unsupervised.

I remember getting trapped by bullies inside a cone made of concrete at an industrial site along the railroad tracks 50 years ago. They were threatening to kill me and given the remoteness of the site and the fact that these kids often killed animals it was plausible. I climbed up, hung from the edge, and let myself fall, hurt my ankle, and then ran. Is that what you want for your kids?

I don’t get it, is that anecdotal experience supposed to provide guidance for all children?

I’ve been jumped several times in my life. And yes, I’d much prefer my child walks outside alone just like I still enjoy walking outside unsurveiled. The world sucks, I’ve yet to find the place were continuous surveillance makes that better.

YMMV, people have different views, I was never harmed beyond a two week long headache in any of my incidents, otherwise I just lost personal belongings like phones and wallets.