LG to offer subscriptions for already purchased appliances and televisions, evolving into a provider for “Home as a Service”::Subscription fatigue is a thing and regulators are circling, but Korean giant reckons you’re ready to cough up after buying hardware
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!Soon we’ll have breathing “as a service”.
Please don’t give them more ideas
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.
Until they region-lock your dryer.
Wait until they program the devices to lock down until you pay a fee to turn them on.
It’s a solution in search of a problem. May as well start selling home appliance NFTs while they’re at it.
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 :(
And don’t forget about executive bonuses too!
A few years ago, services like Apple Music and Netflix made me drop piracy. A low fee on my credit card to get convenient access to all I wanted.
Now there are 5 different TV streaming services with atrocious pricing, and they’re making sharing harder. For songs, Apple Music keeps removing music I like, YouTube Music is flawed and I’d rather not listen to music ever again than use Spotify.
Oh but that’s not all - your weather app, social media platforms, a simple note taking app, Microsoft office, Adobe, everything is a subscription.
Got a new phone? Better pay for cloud services or it will literally start hammering you with notifications to get more storage everyday.
Guess what - I’m now back to zero subscriptions and a lot, and I do mean a lot, of pirated content on my Jellyfin server.
You know my story isn’t very different from yours.
As a teenager I massively pirated everything, became an adult with a paying job streaming was sensible so I paid for Netflix/Spotify eventually adding in Prime video + the occasional thing like P+/disney+ or whatever flavour of the month I wanted to watch.
Then earlier this year I realised I was paying for 6 different movie/tv streaming subs and when I went on holiday none of the services I had worked properly and I couldn’t continue watching the show I had been watching at night before bed and I just went nah fuck this. Blew about 2 grand on a Mac Mini m2 and a ton of hard drives and just went full on Arr stack + usenet + plex lifetime.
It isn’t even about the fucking money anymore it’s just how inconvenient they make everything, I’ve had enough and I don’t think I’m ever going back.
Disney Plus straight up refusing to run anything while we were on vacation just made me really mad. Here I am setting up the tablet for the kid, and then - nah wrong region mate. Even VPN didn’t help somehow.
Yeah Disney+ legitimately made me mad also. Fuck the streaming services.
I think they use the tablet location info to block you.
5 TV Streaming services? More like 25 at this point.
Just curious why the hate for spotify?
what’s the problem with spotify, i never used it, but it isn’t the first time i read about someone complaining about them
Curious, what’s wrong with Spotify?
They pay artists the least, fund the US war machine, inundate you with podcasts when you just want music, etc.
Did you start with Jellyfin or go there from Plex? I’ve been thinking about setting it just as a backup in case Plex gets shitty.
What’s your issue with Spotify?
My biggest issue is how they took Podcasts, which have always been open RSS feeds for audio (and Apple, the largest player, kept open and public for decades) and started making exclusivity deals that only work through their app, with invasive analytics and monetization.
My second issue is how Spotify wants me to manage my library the way they believe I should: emphasize playlists, kinda add songs to a library, ignore albums. For instance, on Apple Music if I add 3 songs from an album to my library, I can go to the Albums menu and the album will show up there - even though I only have 3 songs. On Spotify, I either add an entire album, or if I only add the songs, the album won’t show up in the albums view. In fact, the whole “liked songs” section feels like an afterthought they added after impementing playlists, while on Apple Music and most oldschool music library software the song library was the main view and the songs added there populated all other fields such as artists or albums. Ironically, Apple Music is got intelligent playlists that work way better than Spotify’s, with the downside being they can only be created via iTunes which is ancient software.
My third issue is what are the value adds to the subscription as the years go by: Spotify added short videos, QR codes, inconsistent lyrics and digital stores that aren’t even converted to my local currency… While Apple Music added karaoke lyrics, lossless audio, spatial audio (even on my Android), remasters straight from the studio, and more. It’s totally subjective, but Spotify’s gimmicks aren’t worth it to me.
My fourth issue is just the number of tracks that are no longer available on Spotify from my library. Apple Music lost a few, YouTube Music slightly less, and Spotify quite a lot which surprised me.
As you can see, it’s not like Spotify killed my cat and replaced my audio library with a 10 hour loop of fart sounds… But I have deep concerns over their treatment of podcasts, I really dislike their philosophy on how to organize a music library (and they offer less customization than an Apple product, how crazy is that?), they’re becoming increasingly more popular yet their catalogue is actually shrinking for my music taste, and I don’t see real improvements in the service while their competitors keep adding actual value as time goes on.
Either way, don’t mind me - I’m actually now using a huge library of FLAC files on my PC that get converted to MP3 and sent to my phone. Free, no songs vanish, no internet connection, no issues 😄
I also have no interest in the Spotify “value adds”: they add no value for me. Last year I did try to leave, with their focus on podcasts that seem actively harmful to society, but their play lists are just the way I like to listen to music. Apple Music kept annoying me with focus on albums, and iverly targeted play lists, so I did come back
Good explanation. Apple Music is still solid for me and I greatly prefer it over Spotify since I prefer listening to and collecting albums over playlists. Am also not a fan of what they’ve done with podcasts, the overall sound quality or the integration with the products I use.
While not ideal, I’ve found that most of the songs or music removed is due to some weird licensing issue and is still there. For example Wolfmother’s first album needing to be re-added as the 10th anniversary edition. Kind of annoying still but manageable.
The podcast thing is not Spotify’s fault, it’s an industry-wide thing.
As podcasting took off, the most popular podcast hosts wanted to be fairly paid for their stardom. An exclusive distribution deal is the easiest way for the podcaster, who otherwise would have to grind their audience with paid subscriptions or intrusive sponsorships.
For the same price, Apple Music provides lossless audio quality, Dolby Atmos, 4K music videos (you can’t even get those on YouTube), karaoke (Apple Music Sing), and a personalized radio station that doesn’t feed you the exact same stuff every week. Plus you can use third-party apps like Marvis Pro with your AM subscription, so you’re not locked to one app’s GUI.
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.
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Block their access to internet and problem solved.
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Ouch then. Already a slave.
BUT HOW WILL HE SURVIVE WITHOUT THE ALERTS ON HIS PHONE TELLING HIM HIS WIFE’S BOYFRIEND’S LAUNDRY IS DONE?! We don’t want Craig smelling all mildewy whilst digging out this dudes wife.
“Also, I depend on phone notifications so I don’t forget about the load.”
You know you can set alarms on your phone to remember to check on stuff.
This post alone just told me that I am never buying an LG washer or dryer, that is fucking stupid. you can:t change the settings without being connected to the internet? Yea hard pass
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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.
Right! If you don’t upgrade service periodically the freezer temperature goes up by one degree a month. It’s for your convenience!
Nice a free simulation of the global warming.
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.
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.
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.
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Nah, smart TV with media box. You get the ad adjusted price, you merely don’t hook it up to the Internet.
I’m never buying a “smart” anything, aside from phones. I put up with Android and it already feels like too much.
By all means. But “smart” TVs come at a discount because they believe they’ll have opportunities to make revenue off of those features. However, if you prevent the thing from connecting to the Internet then you get the best of both worlds. Cheaper and ad free.
What is “media box”?
Chromecast, Kodi, Roku, Apple TV, Nvidia shield, fire TV, etc.
Fire TV firmware also just gets worse and worse with each new version. Netflix app also follows suit.
Does it? I’ve never had one. I have a Kodi box and a Chromecast. I’ll be sure to avoid the fire brand, then.
The one saving grace is that it’s cheap and you can install Kodi on it.
I have a Fire Stick and a newer Vizio TV. For a while I could tell Alexa to turn in the TV: the Fire Stick would turn on, then use HDMI-CEC to turn on the TV and select its input. Worked great and I didn’t have to deal with Vizio
Then at some point Alexa started controlling the TV itself instead. Now I have to choose whether to deal with Vizio or to do more clicks to get to my streaming device. I really need to figure out how to get the original configuration back
You don’t get any dumb TVs in my country anymore. I’d assume its the same everywhere else unless you’re going back a minimum 5 years of tech evolution, which might not be all too bad.
this change will solidify that I will never buy an LG product if they all have that shit
Who asked for that?
Shareholders?
They likely didn’t even ask, but by law publicly traded companies must pursue profits above all else, on behalf of shareholders.
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”.
That’s good UX, the real fuckup is using default admin credentials om your router.
Im safe.
I changed u:admin p:admin to u:root p:service
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.
Samsung isn’t any better. Bloated as hell too and I expect 0 privacy using it.
This is fucking dystopian…
