The idea of a mesh network is not what concerns most people. It’s the idea that devices from Amazon connect to it automatically and can do whatever they want with it.
The canonical anti-example is this: You buy a smart TV, but don’t give it your WiFi password. No problem, it connects to any Amazon device whether in your house or next door, and now it can sell information about what you watch, how many people its camera can see are in the room, words you say aloud in its presence, &c.
At the engineering level, Apple’s mesh looks like Amazon’s mesh in exactly the same way that at the engineering level, an iPhone looks a lot like a high-end Android phone. What’s different between them is what Amazon uses its mesh network for, just as what’s different between an iPhone and an Android phone is what Google uses its access to your devices for.
Apple obstructs adtech and tracking. Google builds its business on adtech and tracking. Apple uses its mesh network to find items. People fear that Amazon will use its mesh network to spy on you in the name of revenue.
Amazon's Ad business is a monster that is growing faster and faster [1] so they'll want to track and absorb as much data as possible. FireTV is one of the noisiest devices in my home, second only to Roku, constantly phoning home.
Selling access to a mesh network to other providers will become an additional source of recurring revenue from what would have otherwise been one time revenue source (hardware sale).
It will be no different than Amazon competing w/ FedEx and UPS using it's delivery engine
The canonical anti-example is this: You buy a smart TV, but don’t give it your WiFi password. No problem, it connects to any Amazon device whether in your house or next door, and now it can sell information about what you watch, how many people its camera can see are in the room, words you say aloud in its presence, &c.
At the engineering level, Apple’s mesh looks like Amazon’s mesh in exactly the same way that at the engineering level, an iPhone looks a lot like a high-end Android phone. What’s different between them is what Amazon uses its mesh network for, just as what’s different between an iPhone and an Android phone is what Google uses its access to your devices for.
Apple obstructs adtech and tracking. Google builds its business on adtech and tracking. Apple uses its mesh network to find items. People fear that Amazon will use its mesh network to spy on you in the name of revenue.