Is this the future of IoT? (Photo by Alan Levine via Flickr)

To many of us, the Internet of Things is a sun-soaked, blue-sky future: a vision of connected devices silently whirring behind the scenes, anticipating and satisfying all of our needs and desires.

Unfortunately, this week was a sad reminder that this future is still far away.

The Revolv Smart Home Hub that Google acquired in 2014 (and Nest is disabling in May 2016)

A few days ago, Austin entrepreneur Arlo Gilbert shed light on a recent Alphabet/Nest decision: on May 15th, Nest will discontinue supporting Revolv, a home automation hub they acquired 17 months prior. In his own words, “Google is intentionally bricking hardware that I own.”

Arlo seemingly struck a nerve with that post, which has already been shared thousands of times on Medium alone, sparking additional coverage.

This all has triggered a flood of backlash not just to Nest, but also to the Internet of Things in general, already threatening to derail our still nascent industry.

Some of the many headlines that are part of the IoT backlash

In the world of mobile and web apps, this happens all the time. There are a countless number of examples where a mobile/web startup consumers loved was acquired, and then had their product shut down by the new overlords. One should almost expect it to happen.

Yet this time it feels different. Mobile and web apps are nearly always free. But hardware costs real money, a lot more than even your average paid app. In this case, the hardware cost a few hundred dollars that Revolv customers spent investing in the connected home vision that the company was pitching. A vision that may still materialize, but not with the Revolv hub. Revolv customers bet on the wrong smart home horse, even though this particular horse found itself a home in one of today’s most well-funded stables.