I think some people also think they need it because they order way too much junk from the internet but it's really just an indication of bad habits. If it's for security a single camera doorbell is definitely not adequate solution either.

I mean, you might think that but you underestimate how willing people are to give up their privacy and freedom just to feel safe.

Home assistant + frigate has been serving myself and my family on separate sites for about 2 years. It has definitely kicked my ass, but seeing "privacy friendly" reolink cameras constantly phone home on my firewall assured me it was worth it.
Wireguard tunnel in and you have remote access with practically no security concerns*

What does a video doorbell connected to the internet solve? I'm concerned that people dont trust their neighbors to this extent. Sort of a canary in the coal mine type thing.

It's not that I don't trust my neighbors, I don't trust anyone outside of those I personally know well.

Growing up around people who abuse hard drugs tends to destroy the trust you have in those around you after you have your shit stolen repeatedly. Both my wife and I had shit stolen from closed front porches when we were growing up, so I have cameras that watch the sides of my house. But I also built my system from scratch, so I am not worried about third party snooping/reporting.

Plenty of us have good reasons not to trust those around us. Especially in this day and age of terrorists walking around with state authority.

I don’t have a doorbell of any kind (the button isn’t even hooked up to anything). My neighbours are jerks but they won’t steal packages or anything like that.

We’re living in a low trust society that used to be a high trust society a few decades ago. I believe all of the problems you see in politics ultimately stem from this. Factionalism is tearing western society apart.

Reolink Doorbell ( Firewalled from connecting outside LAN) + Frigate (self hosted)

Yes I did this years ago in 2013, but the problem for my family was accessing the recordings (basically I never set up remote access outside of our LAN)

2nd this configuration. My firewall rules block all external camera traffic and Frigate (once configured) is superb at detecting people without false alerts. All recordings are stored locally. It is disturbing just how much traffic smart devices try to send to China and Amazon, even when not subscribed to cloud services.

Home Assistant makes everything ridiculously flexible and is configured to turn on camera sirens if someone is detected at night or while my alarm system is armed, and disable sirens and alerts when doors have been opened or the alarm has just been turned off. The open Wireguard ports appear closed to scanners so I'm also reasonably comfortable with network security.

What is the incentive to do this sort of stuff?

Always has been and it falls on the ones that aren't defeated by the pamphlet to help the rest, since the labour of the rest allows the standard of life pamphlet interpreters enjoy.

That's the thing, you correctly see the difference in available time after work. That difference stacks over time. Having read this or that makes you understand terminology, patterns, builds confidence and over time that marginal extra time I have had has made it possible for me to grok a manual in 15 minutes but my father who hasn't had that time takes 45 minutes from his shorter available time. Then there's all the modifying details around kids or no kids, how much more hours the lower parts of the working class have to do to pay rent today vs earlier and so on and so forth. Everyone really but it's just much worse for the lower sections.

And then there's the problem of availability of products without extensive research. There's few brands owned by few large corpos that spend a lot pushing them left front and center on their digital platforms. That increases significanty the amount of work anyone has to do to avoid surveillance in this case. And as you understand, increasing the amount of work, increases the amount of time, and there's hard cutoffs which lead to the work not being done, which leads to the marketing campaigns succeeding in getting dad to buy a Ring. These people study, research and know well how to get people who seemingly have choices to choose their product 8 out of 10 times. Especially when transacting via their digital platform.

Which is why we're fighting a losing game if we rely on the individual when they're standing against the corporation which acts as a large collective with collective resources aligned to achieve their goals. This is why individualism is profitable and therefore encouraged. Consumers, employees have to also act as a collective which pools their resources like time, expertise to counteract this. E.g. by having people, supported by the normies, digest, analyse and spit out the results in trivial form (when posaible) that also takes very little time for everyone else to grok, so they make the right decision. Example that come to mind is Consumer Reports.

Neighbors can be people you dont well, you should still trust them anyways, because you'd want them to treat you the same.

If you have drug addicts regularly causing you problems, might do you some good to befriend them in some way or help them out, instead of secure your shit and avoid them more. They aren't any different than you are.

I have a piezoelectric doorbell.

The bell part plugs directly into a wall socket. The button part is completely wireless and batteryless and is affixed near my front door.

Been working like clockwork for a decade to let me know when someone is at the door and I'm home.

If I'm not home, the postman or delivery driver leaves a note to go to the collection center for my package. If it's a small package not requiring signature, they just leave it at the door or in the mailbox if it fits. None of that changes with a camera.

Why overcomplicate life.

Crime has been dropping for decades, yet news coverage is higher than it's ever been. The oligarchs know we're easier to rule if we distrust each other so we don't work together and figure out who's actually screwing us over.

I grew up around drug addicts, and in my experience, befriending them doesn't protect your shit. I had my PS3 stolen by a dude we showed nothing but kindness too when he needed a fix. Don't get me wrong, addicts can be super chill people, but they'll still steal from you when they need to get high.

Friend, family or stranger, don't kid yourself that they won't steal from you

I use a $40 tp-link video doorbell and it has has all of that.

I don't like being under constant surveillance from my neighbors doorbell cameras. This is one of many excellent reasons why.

What I am going to do is use MapComplete to start labeling every house that I come across that has one of these doorbells.

Then I'll post some QR codes around town that link to the map.

Once people start seeing their homes called out on a map then perhaps some of them will feel uncomfortable with that and start to understand just why privacy matters.

LoL, do it!

Never said it would protect your shit, just that it likely would be better in the long run for everyone involved. Its not an easy problem to solve but I dont think we need to treat people poorly because of it. I understand if its just not possible to assume the financial risk though.

Right but if my neighbor across the street has one, my house is being surveilled a lot more than is theirs.