Discussion
While buying the refrigerator, the sales person enthusiastically pointed at one shiny new model fridge:
- This one has a WiFi connection.
+ Nope. Don't want that.
- It's alright, it's really only for firmware updates.
+ Nope. Nope. No internet at all for the fridge please.
Call me a luddite, but I am staunch in my belief that almost all of my home appliances have no business being online and are actually much better offline.
While buying the refrigerator, the sales person enthusiastically pointed at one shiny new model fridge:
- This one has a WiFi connection.
+ Nope. Don't want that.
- It's alright, it's really only for firmware updates.
+ Nope. Nope. No internet at all for the fridge please.
Call me a luddite, but I am staunch in my belief that almost all of my home appliances have no business being online and are actually much better offline.
oh god. Let me just worry about mechanical points of failure.
What do you mean my fridge as a firmware?!
Fortunately, none does (only the washing machine has an option for it, and it only works if you rotate the main button to the wifi mode, otherwise it's purely manual)
"Only for firmwares is updates" is not a good argument. It literally screams "Enshittification, spyware and planned obsolescence"…
I did connect it up, because it should be easier than using the digibox. But I recently took that connection off, because the main impact seemed to be stopping the TV starting up when the internet was slow or unavailable (far too often).
I still wouldn’t buy any such thing.
Imagine the possibilities:
"Our food has all gone off because a hacker got into our fridge and is demanding a bitcoin payment if we want it to be cold again."
Nope.
"Sorry, the OTA firmware update has failed and your fridge is now bricked. As we've stopped supporting that model, here's a referral code to buy a new one with 1% discount."
Nope.
"Oh you want ice? Temperatures 0 degrees and below are now part of our monthly Refrigerator Premium package. For only $29.99/month you too can make ice in the comfort of your own home."
NOPE.
"The internet is so slow, anyone know why the fridge is uploading a 3TB file again? It's the third time this week."
NOOOOPE.
There was a very expensive one with a touchscreen on the door and an "AI camera" feature, which supposedly suggests recipes using the stuff inside your fridge and tells you what you need to buy.
The mere thought of that aberration existing has plagued my nightmares since.
*shudder*
But the real experience with enshittification in the revent years showed too clearly, that the price is too high for any of those. None of that is vital for an appliance to function (we have all those features allready), and no convenience function ever is worth that hassle and price of enshittification. Those industries can't be trusted.
At least until the app is no longer supported.
I never saw the point of putting what is an android tablet with a slow brain from at least two years ago in an appliance which should last 15 minimum. The tablets were always laggy even on the display models.
The tablet will be so out of date to the point of being unusable while the rest of the fridge continues working… if it isn’t software locked to stop working when the tablet does.
Besides hackers, sooner or later the manufacturers will start wanting a monthly fee for the fridge to provide “cold as a service” - the ability to remotely stop it working is a feature, not a bug.
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