Nail on the head.

I think the gimmickry exists as a facade to give them a reason to slap enough electronics in a device to be able to harvest data, and to piggyback off the user's internet for "updates". If you're going to put a microphone in a fridge, people are going to want to know why, so you need some kind of gimmick that allegedly uses it so you don't have to admit it's mostly there for data harvesting.

They are cheaper (in dollars), which does appeal to consumers. Manufacturers sell the data and discount the merchandise.

Tangential, but I'm curious what the margins on stuff like smart-fridges are. It seems like competition would drive us to a point where smart appliances are sold for at or below cost, with profits coming from selling data. It's crazy to me that LG or Maytag could become a data vendor that just so happens to sell appliances, because the data has to come from somewhere.

This, and also people simply don't know. Your average consumer buying a TV has no idea what metrics the device is capturing and sharing, or that by connecting it to the Internet, they're not just receiving information, they're sending it. Even cynical/paranoid tech-savvy people are caught off guard when real-time personalized ads start showing up in the on-screen menus of their Internet-connected devices, and would be annoyed to know that their usage patterns are monitored even when they aren't explicitly using an Internet service like Netflix.

5) people can't afford the unburdened tech so they will go for the lowest-priced/highest reviewed option and nothing else matters

5-rev) People don't know about and/or care about tracking/telemetry, and do not understand that the data collected earns the manufacture additional income. They only see price and highly manipulated revies, then make their purchase.

Would it be possible to create a business where you:

* Buy the cheap hardware at wholesale prices

* Strip the surveillance tech and/or re-flash the firmware

* Sell the "dumb" product for the same price as the "smart" one

In this case, the "smart" vendor would likely lose money if they're selling below cost. So the only difficulty would be a legal one... I'm not sure if it's legal to buy a product, modify it, and then re-sell it.

I feel certain there was a court case about this, but can't remember it. It's similar to the company that re-sold edited versions of popular movies.

Doing this as a sale, for electronics, you'd probably fall afoul of certification problems (e.g. whatever boxes Underwriters Lab had ticked wouldn't apply to the modified version). There would be branding issues. And regardless of whether it turned out to be legal, you'd 100% draw a lawsuit from the original manufacturer.

If it were to work out at all, this would probably have to be done in a way that (legally at least) the customer is not buying the device modified from you. They would have to purchase the device first, then bring it to you to modify, for which you charge a fee. Even then you'd probably still get sued.

Not a lawyer, though, so this is just speculation based on following tech over the years.

This would be the same action as installing Linux on a PS3 or editing the firmware on a John Deere tractor.

It's both practically unfeasable for the average consumer, and a legal risk for whoever manages to do it.