非品牌 (Off Brand)

A little over four years ago, my wife and I moved into a new house (well, new to us; it’s more than a hundred years old but was recently refurbished) with no doorbell. Right around that time I read a post on BoingBoing about a cool-sounding WiFi-connected video doorbell called Ring. I work at home but I can’t always run to the door, so I was attracted to an intercom-like feature that would let me use my phone to tell, say, a delivery guy to just leave the package behind the gate. Although it cost $200, I could easily install it myself. So we bought one. It seemed like a nifty gizmo.

多一点四年前，我和妻子搬进了新房子(当然，新的给我们，这是一百多岁了，但最近翻新)，没有门铃。 大约在那个时候，我在BoingBoing上读了一篇关于听起来很酷的WiFi连接的视频门铃叫做Ring的文章。 我在家里工作，但我总是不能跑到门口，所以我被一种类似于对讲机的功能所吸引，该功能使我可以使用手机告诉送货员将包裹留在门后。 尽管它的价格为200美元，但我可以自己轻松安装。 所以我们买了一个。 好像是一个漂亮的小发明。

Today, of course, the Ring has, shall we say, a more complicated reputation. For a while, it was a beloved startup story: Back in 2013, founder Jamie Simonoff was turned down when he pitched Shark Tank on what he was calling the DoorBot; five years later, he sold the company to Amazon for more than $1 billion.

当然，今天，指环王拥有更复杂的声誉。 有一阵子，这是一个深受人们喜爱的创业故事：早在2013年，创始人Jamie Simonoff推销Shark Tank时就被拒绝了 在他所说的门铃上； 五年后，他以超过10亿美元的价格将公司出售给了亚马逊。

Welcome to the era of the stealthy shapeshifter product: The object itself might not change, but software updates can completely transform it.

欢迎来到隐身变形器产品的时代：对象本身可能不会改变，但是软件更新可以完全改变它。

But since then, this charming entrepreneurial tale has become a punching bag for tech press. Late last year a wave of reports emerged that pointed out security flaws that apparently exposed thousands of customers’ personal data. (The company claimed the problem was users recycling their passwords.) Our sister publication OneZero, among others, has argued that Ring cameras and the brand’s related Neighbors app are essentially crowdsourcing the surveillance state, whipping up creepy (and at times racist) paranoia in the guise of civics and safety, and causing “societal problems.” Ring has also been criticized for a too-cozy relationship with law enforcement. In December, the influential gadget-shopping site Wirecutter made the dramatic step of rescinding its endorsement of the product.

但是从那以后，这个迷人的创业故事就成为了科技媒体的出气筒。 去年年底，出现了一系列报告，指出安全漏洞显然暴露了数千名客户的个人数据 。 (该公司声称问题出在用户回收他们的密码。)我们的姊妹出版物OneZero 认为，Ring摄像头和该品牌相关的Neighbors应用程序本质上是将监视状态众包了 ，激起了令人毛骨悚然( 有时是种族主义 )的偏执狂。伪装成公民和安全，并造成“ 社会问题” 。 Ring也因与执法部门关系过于宽松而受到批评 。 12月，颇具影响力的小工具购物网站Wirecutter采取了戏剧性的步骤， 取消了对该产品的认可 。

Welcome to the era of the stealthy shapeshifter product: The object itself might not change, being made of atoms and all, but software updates can completely transform a product’s functionality and its very meaning.

欢迎来到隐身变形器产品的时代：对象本身可能不会改变，由原子和所有元素组成，但是软件更新可以完全改变产品的功能及其含义。

We still use our Ring as a fancy doorbell; I didn’t download the Neighbors app, and I have no interest in saving or sharing videos. But now I wonder what my neighbors think about us having the thing they might imagine spying on our New Orleans neighborhood. When I first installed it, not everyone even understood that it was a doorbell; six months ago, when a neighbor’s car was damaged in the middle of the night, she asked me if my Ring had caught any useful footage. (It hadn’t.)

我们仍然将Ring用作精美的门铃； 我没有下载Neighbors应用程序 ，并且对保存或共享视频没有兴趣。 但是，现在我不知道邻居们对我们在新奥尔良附近偷窥的想法有何看法。 当我第一次安装它时，并不是所有人都知道这是门铃。 六个月前，当一个邻居的汽车在深夜损坏时，她问我“指环”是否捕捉到了有用的镜头。 (没有)

If having a Ring on the front of our house used to say, “Hey, we’re forward-thinking people who embrace the future!,” now it says, “Hey, we’re living proof that Black Mirror is all coming true!”

如果说我们房屋前部的戒指曾经说过：“嘿，我们是前瞻性的拥抱未来的人！”，现在它说：“嘿，我们活着就是证明《 黑镜》即将实现！”

There’s something startling about an object as banal as a doorbell transforming itself without the user having any particular say in the matter.

在没有用户对此事有任何特定发言权的情况下，与门铃一样自我改造的物体让人有些吃惊。

This is arguably a defining quality of the digital era — the phenomenon that transformed a computer into a publishing system or a phone into a camera. Besides, even cars get software updates now. But in general, that practice boils down to adding new features, improvements, bug fixes. When bad news comes, it’s usually in the form of discontinued support — the end of software updates. (The most recent example: Sonos’ not-so-well-received decision to stop adding any new features to a whole generation of its products.)

可以说，这是数字时代的决定性品质，这种现象将计算机转变为发布系统，或者将电话转变为照相机。 此外，甚至汽车也可以立即获取软件更新 。 但总的来说，这种做法归结为添加了新功能，改进和错误修复。 坏消息到来时，通常会以停止支持的形式出现-软件更新结束 。 (最近的例子：Sonos 做出的不太受欢迎的决定是停止向其整个产品中添加任何新功能。)

But there’s something startling about an object as banal as a doorbell transforming itself without the user having any particular say in the matter. As Washington Post columnist Geoffrey Fowler wrote in a prescient column a year ago on the “creepy” factor touching Ring devices, “Tech that seems like an obvious good can develop darker dimensions as capabilities improve and data shifts into new hands.”

但是，在没有用户对此事有任何特定发言权的情况下，与门铃一样自我改造的物体有些令人吃惊。 正如《 华盛顿邮报》专栏作家杰弗里·福勒(Geoffrey Fowler)一年前在一个有先见之明的专栏文章中所谈到的“令人毛骨悚然”的因素触及Ring装置， “随着能力的提高和数据转移到新手手中，看起来很明显的技术可以开发出更暗的尺寸。”

If a product you’ve already sold is going to evolve into something that isn’t exactly what your customer bought — what do you owe that customer?

如果您已经销售的产品将演变为与客户购买的产品不完全相同的产品-您欠该客户什么？

Perhaps the stealthy shapeshifter product is fundamentally an issue for consumers: It’s up to me to decide whether to keep or renounce my Ring. But this scenario ought to spark a lot of very careful thinking within the tech businesses creating “smart home” devices and other products that are pre-packed with hardware whose functionality may well evolve in directions we can’t guess. Smart speakers are an obvious example: This neat thing will tell me the weather gradually becomes this device is monitoring my family and who knows what it will ultimately do with what it learns? Or consider 23andMe: an at-home DNA test about ancestry shapeshifts into a resource for drugmakers or law enforcement.

也许隐身的变形神器产品从根本上来说是消费者面临的问题：由我决定是否保留或放弃我的Ring。 但是这种情况应该引起技术企业内部的很多非常仔细的思考，这些企业创建的“ 智能家居 ”设备和其他预装有硬件的产品，其功能可能会朝我们无法猜测的方向发展。 智能扬声器就是一个明显的例子： 这个整洁的东西会告诉我天气逐渐变成该设备正在监视我的家人，谁知道它最终将对所学内容起作用？ 或考虑使用23andMe：有关祖先变身的家庭DNA测试可转化为制药商或执法机构的资源 。

If a product you’ve already sold is going to evolve into something that isn’t exactly what your customer bought, what do you owe that customer? For that matter, what do you owe potential customers, critical observers, and the public at large?

如果您已经销售的产品将演变为与客户购买的产品不完全相同的产品，那么您欠该客户什么呢？ 就此而言，您欠潜在客户，重要观察员和广大公众什么？

One answer is transparency. Ring — which still seems to be Simonoff’s to run despite the Amazon ownership — hasn’t done itself any favors on that front. Tech critic Fowler complained that the company somehow had no time for interviews at Consumer Electronics Show (CES), an event that is basically about interviews. And, after originally indicating it would make someone available to talk to me — asking me to wait two weeks for that to happen — Ring ended up just emailing me a written statement.

答案之一就是透明度。 Ring-尽管拥有亚马逊所有权，但似乎仍然是西蒙诺夫(Simoff)的经营者-在这方面并没有任何帮助。 技术评论家福勒(Fowler) 抱怨说，该公司不知为何没有时间在美国消费电子展(CES)上接受采访，该活动基本上是关于采访的。 而且，在最初表明这将使某人可以与我交谈–要求我等待两周才能实现之后– Ring最终只是给我发送了一份书面声明。

In a nutshell, this statement said that Ring has in fact evolved to respond to its customers’ demands, and has created ways to “share local news crime and safety information” with neighbors and local police: “Ring’s mission is to make neighborhoods safer.” To be fair, Simonoff always included security in his pitch. But when he was trying to woo “the sharks,” that pitch was about an individual’s ability to see who was at the door — not about the cornerstone of a neighborhood-wide network intertwined with law enforcement. And even that blog post I read four years ago touched on ways the device could have a security payoff. But that certainly wasn’t the main attraction; back then the “mission” was to be a cool and useful doorbell.

简而言之，该声明说，Ring实际上已经发展以响应其客户的需求，并创造了与邻居和当地警察“共享本地新闻犯罪和安全信息”的方式：“ Ring的使命是使社区更加安全。 ” 公平地说，西蒙诺夫(Simoffoff)总是将安全性包括在内。 但是，当他试图讨好“鲨鱼”时，这种基调是关于一个人看谁在门口的能力，而不是一个与执法机构交织在一起的社区网络的基石。 甚至四年前我读过的博客文章都谈到了该设备可以带来安全收益的方式。 但这当然不是主要吸引力。 那时的“使命”是做一个酷而有用的门铃。

So far, despite all the criticism from the tech press, the product does not seem to be suffering: Recode recently reported data indicating that Ring sold 400,000 cameras and other security devices in December of 2019 — a 180% improvement over December 2018. Maybe that will change. So far the lesson of the Ring seems to be a more turbocharged version of caveat emptor, in which we not only have to be careful about what we buy but about what it might become. However, make consumers paranoid enough, and sooner or later they’ll turn their lack of trust on you.

到目前为止，尽管受到了科技媒体的所有批评，但该产品似乎并没有遭受苦难： Recode最近报道的数据表明，Ring在2019年12月售出了40万台摄像机和其他安全设备，比2018年12月提高了180％。会改变。 到目前为止，《指环王》的教训似乎是对买者自负的更猛烈的描述，在这种情况下，我们不仅必须谨慎购买商品，而且还必须谨慎购买。 但是，让消费者足够偏执，他们迟早会把对您的不信任感转给您。