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There’s only one way I’d be OK with “subscribing” to use a LG fridge: I don’t pay anything upfront and I don’t need to pay for any repairs. If I don’t even get to own it, then I shouldn’t be responsible for fixing it when it dies and spoils all my food after a year or two, nor should I need to pay for a new fridge when I give up on it after those repairs inevitably fail again. Same with their TVs when the cheap capacitors die early.
If I subscribe to rent your product, the onus is on you to make it reliable enough that it lasts until the subscription turns a profit.
Since that won’t be their business model, I’m better off buying a half decent brand and then flushing $1000 down the toilet. Fuck LG appliances. (And fuck Samsung appliances while we’re here.)
Very much fuck Samsung. LG actually produces a decent product, even if this subscription bullshit exists. Samsung are just planned obsolescence trashboxes.
LG can go fuck off.
Love how these corporate executives these days can only use tricks to increase their profits rather than building better, more reliable products which gain more customers through hard work.
But more reliable products means existing customers will buy again less frequently.
There are nearly 8 billion people in the world and never in our history has there been as many people with disposable income. There are new customers out there. They don't have to simply fuck over their existing customers and continually fleece us.
But what about their poor shareholders that want to see maximum profits :(
I bought a $3k+ LG OLED. I intentionally never agreed to any TOS so that it would act as a dumb TV. I wanted it on the network so that I could control it through Home Assistant and Apple HomeKit so I put it in my IoT VLAN. Within a day it was trying to port scan my network! It is now fully isolated with no outgoing connections allowed.
I have a 2017 era Samsung TV. I use it to connect to a media server that my router runs if I plug in a USB drive. This just worked so I assumed it was an open unauthenticated service.
Then I tried to use VLC running on my phone to connect and found myself presented with a login screen. When I investigated further I found the router's media server defaulted to using the the router's admin credentials.
So it looks like the TV had been programmed to try common default router creds before showing a login prompt to the user as a "convenience".
The “smart” LGTV experience is utter trash. I was very pissed off to see adverts on my Home Screen when I put it online. It’s since been taken off and an Apple TV now provides the streaming services.
This thing with subscriptions has become insane. You can easily spend several hundred a month getting roped into all the subscriptions companies are pushing. It's the latest way to squeeze as much money as possible out of the consumer.
I've gone into subscription boycott at this point. I had too many and said screw that. I still have Amazon Prime where I think I get my money's worth. I shop there a lot and use their streaming so it's worth it to me. Subscriptions for appliances? No way in hell.
Yep. I built a fully automated piracy machine that I can stream straight to any device with no hassle. Fuck subscriptions.
Yeah, it's bad enough that an LG TV makes you agree to have all of your data sent to them, but now they want you to pay for the privilege as well. Screw that!
I mean, i think all smart TVs do that now. Don't know what I'll do when my dumb one breaks.
It's one of those things that was a shock at how prevalent it is on the Apple app store after so much talk of how much better the apps are compared to Android. There's not even proper filter options to filter out apps that are subscription only. It was ridiculous how you could buy an app then get pop ups to get the subscription plan. It's why I wish a foss app store like F-droid becomes available once slide loading becomes possible so I can avoid the appstore as much as possible when I need a basic app. Like a calculator.
Open your fridge once per day before the door locks with our SmartHome Basic tier. You can enjoy up to five door openings per day with SmartHome Premium, or choose SmartHome Ultimate for unlimited door openings, ability to adjust the temperature AND the light turning on automatically when you open the door! Act now to get a 10% discount for the first three months!
Sigh. Our latest TV is an LG precisely because LG did not have ads in its OS whereas its main competitors do. Once they introduce ads, they'll have completely lost me as a potential repeat customer.
Guess our next TV will just be a large monitor, with no "smart" shenanigans whatsoever.
I'd rather have a dedicated box and a dumb tv, the hardware rarely keeps pace than a box
Good luck. They don't really make non-smart TVs anymore.
But I just picked up a Sony and never connect it to the internet after updating the firmware. I have an Apple TV box for an interface. I don't need a non-upgradable streaming stick built into my TV thanks
Home as a Service
This has triggered a Fight AND Flight response in my brain. I want to smash everything with a mallet then run to the mountains.
I hate "as a Service" so much!
Enshittification is not just for social media platforms.
After seeing this post and the article, I just blocked my LG C1 from WAN at my router. LAN still available for automation purposes, but fuck letting that thing out to the internet now. Funny enough, it turns on faster, and no more notification splash at the bottom. Nice.
Commenting from an LG phone (last one produced) next to an LG tv. Will never purchase another one of their products in my life, even before this article.
Mark my words we are soon going to have to subscribe to our toilets. You get one flush a day for free. Save money by subscribing to the flush-lite which gives you 2 additional flushes. If you choose not to subscribe, you will be charged 2.99 for each flush beyond the first one.
For just a low low price of $15.99/month you can use the freezer functionality to keep things really cold! Or, you can use our free ad tier where the freezer only unlocks after you watch a 60 second ad.
This is fucking dystopian...
So I can’t do the wash without buying a subscription for it to play Sirius XM? Like wtf is going on. This corpo greed shit has to stop. I hope every single union walks out of the job with these actors and writers. We need to bring power back to the worker a bit.
I don't understand the mindset of people who tolerate ads. No way I'm ever hooking up a smart tv to my network!
Most smart products are security nightmares, too. Smart TVs, refridgerators, thermometers, all of them have OS's that arent regularly updated, dont give the user any way to peek into the system, (you get a virus on your computer, and you generally know pretty quick) and usually lack the security features that your phone or PC may have. They're easy points for your network to be compromised.
The Internet of Things is more like the Internet of Shit.
in 2022 it revealed a scheme called “Evolving Appliances For You" that promised software upgrades to home appliances. The company offered the example of a family that moves to a different home, and different climate, and upgrades its clothes drier with routines suited to local conditions.
This is fucking hilarious. Nobody, and I really do mean nobody, actually wants a dryer that you need to pay a subscription fee for just in case one day you move house so it can try to reconfigure itself.
This and this article might be a little more concise.
It sounds like more ads for smart tvs, and a subscription service for extra features for smart appliances - like a chatbot for your fridge or dishwasher or something.
It doesn't necessarily sound evil to me it just sounds completely retarded. I'm all about tech making life easier but it's genuinely hard to imagine why I would want a smart dishwasher. I want a dumbass dishwasher who's actions are solely determined by the 3 buttons on it.
It will be interesting to see how the market responds to this. It's hard to imagine that really anyone will be seduced by the idea of a "smart" home with these sorts of intangible benefits.
Well, as someone who moves between Africa and Finland with my tumble dryer twice a month this will be a godsend.
This is fucking ridiculous! Do you have to buy a subscription in order to use the appliance? If so, it seems to me that this would constitute unfair trade practice. Some shit just does not belong on the internet. Can you imagine the serious and life threatening situation that could develop, if say, somebody hacked into a system and turned gas stoves on and a fire developed? No, it's time to draw the line at IoT!
If you're not paying for it you are the product...wait if you are paying for it you are the product.
Hard pass
I used to like LG products they were often really good quality and lasted a long time.
That's pretty much over now, not touching new LG products anymore. That's for sure!
I had an LG CRT and it was as old as me. Never died. It's a real shame the planet is suffering because of greedy business practices. They put climate change on the consumer but more needs to be done to big corporations to punish this kind of behaviour.
This is why I like dumb products. The smarter they are the more they tac on this kind of crap to them.
Their gadgets built their fame because they just worked and were built like a tank. My grandparents had their stuff (from Goldstar era) and they still keep chugging.
None of this "as a service" bs will please the lifetime customers.