The main issue, I think, with IoT, is that most of the focus is on consumer use, and so many companies are trying to start there, without a clear view of how always sending data back to the company benefits the consumer.<p>Consumers don't really -care- about that data, for the most part. What benefit do they get? The data by itself largely isn't useful to them, and the extra device 'smarts' often doesn't require internet enablement. Nest doesn't need to send your data anywhere; it just needs to be smart enough to figure out when you're home and what temperature you like. Maybe a (secure, obviously) web panel to allow you to configure it remotely. That is, the benefit of a 'smart' device to the consumer is currently largely orthogonal to the benefit a company gets from it, that massive trove of data. I think, as we move forward, and more and more leaks of data occur, more and more egregious abuses of the data occur (even by the company that sold the device), there will be a second generation of consumer devices, that don't send their data to anyone except you; you gain 95% of the benefits of the current tech, but with a guarantee of end to end encryption.<p>In consumer spaces, there is, however, market opportunity for sufficiently complex devices. For example, Tesla, the data coming from the car can be useful directly to the consumer (notifying them of parts operating outside of expected parameters, etc), and the model could be changed so that data goes back to Tesla only when the consumer decides to as part of getting that part serviced; Tesla still gets relevant data, but not all of it, and the benefit of some people sending it (much like anonymous usage statistics for software) affects everyone. While over the air updates are cool, they could be done without the user information being shared, and they could be set to be disabled, instead requiring user intervention, for the security conscious.<p>But both of those miss what is perhaps the most intriguing application of IoT - industry. Where the collection of data from numerous disparate parts and places is beneficial to the customer. That is, a Nest (and its functionality) for a consumer is hardly necessary; they know when they're cold, they know when they're hot, they can change it. But for a multi-national conglomerate? They can run analytics against that data and find places that are losing/gaining heat too fast, indicative of poor insulation, or poor placement of heating/cooling devices. They can be notified of failures in cooling of rooms containing mission critical hardware, and respond quicker. Etc. The data gathering across many devices directly benefits the customer, rather than only really benefitting the company that sells the device.