this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2023
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It bothers me it's so hard to find one that doesn't include it, but it doesn't feel like it's bloating the price to me, if that's what you mean. Besides the insistence on the smart shit, TV's have constantly been getting better, bigger, and yet still cheaper.
It's unfortunate, but if anything the smart features are part of why they're staying so cheap. The TV costs the same to make no matter what, but when every company under the sun is paying a fee to have their app baked into the tv, you don't have to charge the end-user as much to make the same profit. Not to mention the treasure trove of data you can collect(and sell) from the ones who connect it to the internet.
This happens everywhere now.
We had the garage doors replaced, and replaced the openers since they were also a couple decades old and a small part of the total cost. Every damned opener that wasnt bare-bones had smart features. Camera, motion detection, wifi... of course, none of it to any sort of standard, and requiring a special app and account with the vendor. Smart devices are fine - I want smart, to some standard like zwave - but I'll be god damned if I'm going to make an account with Genie so they can track and sell my garage door use.
Same thing with the dishwasher. The house being as old as it is, all the devices are hitting planned obsolecense at the same time. All the new dishwashers that have any decent features are smart. Again, with some shitty bespoke app, and requiring an account. This time, I got the damned thing and just haven't installed the app or configured the wifi on it. Maybe it's talking to one of the neighbor's unsecured wifi networks; I guess I can live with that.
We got lucky on the refrigerator (this time, something inside broke and leaked water into the underfloor for a week before we caught it). We got a model that had everything we wanted and didn't have wifi.
I read an article a few months ago about a conference where all these companies are bitching that people are buying these things and not connecting them; with any luck, they've been losing money on them and will stop adding smart features to everything. But I'm not holding my breath.
I already have >500 accounts spread across various shops, game dev accounts (because every publisher needs its own launcher), services, etc.
Too much data floating around the world because just another joe needed to seel some more data >_>
Yeah thereβs this idea that we all want high tech, high surveillance everything. Fuck that, I want stuff that works right without accounts, or can work on a home hub or something like that. I hate feeling expected to load my phone with an app for everything I interact with