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In America, burglaries and home invasions are highly publicized crimes that surface regularly in fiction and media. Turn on the news, and it seems like just about every week, someone nearby is getting robbed - whether it’s shoplifters at retail stores, burglars who steal valuables, or viral footage of opportunistic creeps caught on a Ring doorbell camera.
Many companies have popped up over the decades with a variety of solutions to help people better protect their homes - private patrols, panic rooms, burglar alarms, and DIY wireless cameras. In the world of home security, there is no company more famous than ADT. ADT and its iconic blue signs are plastered over many lawns and commercial buildings. ADT was the first to turn home security into service - a company that would come to your house, install a custom security system, setup burglar alarms, and then “watch” your home 24/7 365 for a monthly subscription.
Through the high-crime and low-tech era of the 80s and 90s, ADT was seen as a necessary investment for homeowners. Yet as we dive deeper, the fundamentals reveal the opposite. In this episode, we’ll cover ADT - a troubled company who with even the highest market share must rely on multi-year contracts, lock-in, hidden pricing, and aggressive sales in order to cover up a fundamentally flawed business and the sobering reality that no one makes money in home security.
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🎧 Audio Editing & Mixing: Sonalf
0:00 Always There, Always On
6:00 Home Security As A Service
13:56 Your Monthly Payments Are Our Priority
20:32 All Cash, No Bite