Did the Democrats kill Roomba?

Allow me to add an additional downer note to this grimmest of news days: iRobot, the company that manufactures Roombas, has declared bankruptcy. iRobot said it will continue to update and provide technical support for the devices, so there will be no “bricking.” They will continue to function, just like ghosts continue to haunt the homes in which they once lived. But there’s definitely a brick in the hearts today of the customers who’ve loved their robot vacuums since the 1990s, not to mention the cats who loved to ride them, the dogs that loved to chase them around the house, and the people who loved to watch videos of animals doing those things.

In many ways, the world has passed by the Roomba. We live in an age where driverless cars scoot around American cities, fabric-covered helper robots fold clothes and put away dishes and even the most average person has a quantum generative AI supercomputer in their pocket that can help them generate a work presentation while also telling them they’re the smartest, sexiest human who’s ever lived. In such an environment, how can a little round automated vacuum that hugs the sideboards ever compete? Also, there are cheaper Chinese knockoffs that work better.

About that. The major reason for Roomba’s bankruptcy is that it owes $352 million to a Chinese company called Shenzen PICEA, its primary manufacturer. Picea will now own 100 percent of equity in the Roomba brand. In 2024, Amazon attempted to buy iRobot. US antitrust law would have allowed this acquisition, but it received pushback from typical American corners. “I have serious concerns about the Amazon-iRobot deal,” Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said. “Dominant companies like Amazon shouldn’t be allowed to just buy their way out of competing.”

In a letter to the Federal Trade Commission, Warren and several illustrious Congresspeople like Jesus “Chuy” Garcia from Chicago and California’s perpetually peeved Katie Porter, said: “rather than compete in a fair marketplace on its own merits, Amazon is following a familiar anticompetitive playbook: leveraging its massive market share and access to capital to buy or suppress popular products.”

Possibly. But at least it would have been American-owned. Instead, FTC chair Lina Khan, unable to do so legally in her country, asked the European Union to do the dirty work, and the EU’s Commission killed the deal in 2024, admitting at the time that they’d been in “close contact” with the US FTC.

So instead of allowing Roomba to sync up with your Alexa devices, the US has instead turned over control of your dust bunnies to a company based in Shenzen. And then there are the Roomba competitors, which have admitted that they’re using their devices to create maps of US homes. We all know that Amazon is watching you and tracking your shopping and shipping preferences, but that’s still a far cry from allowing a robotic TikTok vacuum into your house. Your dog may just be chasing around a ticking data time bomb. Pray the Chinese do not alter it further.