Amazon has just been hit with a class-action lawsuit over its controversial facial recognition feature in Ring video doorbell cameras.
The lawsuit was filed on Monday in Seattle by Virginia resident Charles Sigwalt. The suit seeks $5 million in damages.
The technology isn’t the problem, the companies are. All the things you listed are issues, but they are all also solved if you look slightly harder.
There are free video services that you can watch from anywhere, not to mention self-hosted VOD for all your definitely-legitimately-acquired media.
You can get video doorbells that aren’t from Ring or Google and link them to fully private systems like Home Assistant.
… okay there’s no solution for McDonald’s prices if you want McD’s, but - at least here in the UK - delivery bags are sealed so you can in fact tell if someone has eaten your fries.
Anyway, my point is you shouldn’t feel bad for imagining a cool future. We do get to live in that future, but we also have to be judicious about who we trust to deliver it.