Nilay Patel on Ring cameras as objects of mass surveillance:

I have this theory about just what is happening in our politics right now–It was, I think about it a lot–Right now, we are convinced, culturally convinced, that our actions do not affect other people. You just see it everywhere.

You see it in the rise in measles cases. Why? Because we’ve decided our actions don’t affect other people, even though they very clearly do. Like all over the place.

And Ring cameras are an incredible example of this, where the cameras on my house are fine. They’re fine. And I can turn them on and off and whatever. But they are, to your point, taking video of you. And so my cameras can invade your rights, but me turning that on has no impact on me.

So, here’s this button in, in an app distributed by Amazon, on the hardware that Amazon owns, where you have a moral quandary: Should I affect someone else’s rights? And I would say that American culture in 2026 does not equip people to think about that well.