IoT Pioneer Stacey Higginbotham Steps Back After Two Decades Covering the Tech Industry

After more than twenty years spent tracking the rapid evolution of the technology sector, prominent tech journalist and analyst Stacey Higginbotham is stepping back from her daily coverage, concluding her long-running weekly Internet of Things (IoT) newsletter and podcast. The final installment of the newsletter, originally published on Friday, August 18, 2023, marked a significant milestone for a career that helped define how the public and the industry understand the proliferation of connected devices.

While Higginbotham is stepping away from the relentless cycle of daily tech journalism and her dedicated IoT publication, she emphasizes that her departure is not a definitive goodbye. Readers and industry peers can still find her posting updates and commentary on Bluesky, and she anticipates occasionally publishing standalone newsletter updates when specific issues or developments spark her interest enough to warrant a deeper dive.

Reflecting on her journey, Higginbotham offered a sincere expression of gratitude to the loyal community of readers, listeners, and sponsors who supported her independent venture. In 2016, she made the bold decision to step down from her position as a senior editor at Fortune magazine to launch her own independent media business. At the time, leaving a prestigious and established publication to forge an independent path in tech media raised questions from peers and industry observers alike.

However, Higginbotham harbored a distinct vision: she wanted the freedom to deeply investigate the profound societal and technological implications of computing finding its way into virtually every object imaginable. Thousands of subscribers ultimately joined her on that journey. She notes that without the continuous support of her audience and sponsors, sustaining the independent venture would have been impossible. Looking back, she considers herself exceedingly fortunate to have spent years exploring these topics, crediting her audience’s willingness to share their time, insights, and personal stories for making the endeavor a success.

The decision to step back stems largely from the immense demands of modern journalism and the shifting landscape of the technology she has covered for over two decades. Having spent her career immersed in daily, immediate news cycles, she had limited opportunities to step back and examine the long-term, macroeconomic, and social implications of the products she spent years evaluating and reporting on.

That broader perspective has revealed a more complicated picture of the connected device ecosystem. Since she began covering the smart home sector in 2012, Higginbotham recognized that while connected devices introduced convenience, they also added layers of everyday complexity for consumers. More importantly, they carried inherent risks regarding corporate and government surveillance. As countless startups launched, pivoted, or quietly folded over the years, the underlying business models governing connected items frequently settled into a frustrating binary choice between expensive recurring subscriptions and aggressive, rampant data collection practices.

The creep of hyper-connectivity has extended far beyond the consumer living room into workplaces and broader public spaces. Outside the home, new technologies have increasingly been deployed to monitor employees, pushing workers to their absolute limits while prioritizing corporate bottom lines above all else. Meanwhile, corporate initiatives centered on environmental, social, and governance metrics have often translated into investments in technology aimed at carbon reduction and operational efficiency. Yet, from her analytical vantage point, these corporate measures often felt like insufficient band-aids—or worse, corporate greenwashing designed to obscure business practices that society perhaps should not be engaging in at all.

Despite her deep affection for technology and her foundational belief that innovative minds can solve genuine human problems, Higginbotham admits to experiencing significant burnout. Over time, the constant influx of new startups and research claims bred an increasing sense of cynicism. That fatigue ultimately began to overshadow her ability to experience the genuine excitement required to properly vet and champion truly promising ideas within the tech ecosystem.

By taking a much-needed break from the relentless pace of tech reporting, she hopes to clear her mental slate, regain her enthusiasm for human ingenuity, and eventually rediscover the kind of compelling stories she feels compelled to share with the world.

Though she is stepping away from her own newsletter and podcast, Higginbotham is not leaving the technology sector entirely. She is actively engaged in personal projects and has taken on a consulting role with the Consumer Reports Innovation Lab. In this capacity, she will focus heavily on cybersecurity and privacy issues associated with connected devices, areas that have long been central to her investigative reporting. Readers may also see occasional blog posts from her through Consumer Reports, alongside the possibility of freelance contributions to other publications in the near future.

As she transitions into this next chapter, Higginbotham remains eager to stay connected with the community and hopes people will continue sharing their firsthand experiences with connected technology. She plans to reach out to colleagues and industry contacts to discuss ways to make connected devices safer, more secure, and fundamentally better for everyone. Those wishing to keep in touch or share insights can continue to reach her directly via email.