[curioussquirrel]

Although I loathe ads, I think that for new products where the presence of ads is disclosed clearly upfront, this is acceptable. Especially if this comes with a discount. We have Kindles with and without ads and people are generally fine with it.

But the fact that this gets retrofitted to fridges that people already bought, without any way of opting out or other mitigation, is criminal. Is this a lawsuit in the making? Am I naive?

[Pooge]

> this is acceptable

This is not. An appliance—which should never be connected to the Internet in the first place—that costs 4 digits in USD should never show you ads in any way. You obviously don't "loathe" ads if you're even capable of reasoning about that kind of behavior. Stop trying to shove ads 24/7 in every millimeter of available space.

On the upside, it will be very easy to find more reliable and cheaper fridges than that.

[jdiff]

Those Kindles, which I am also (mostly) okay with, are also $100 devices whose price is subsidized by those ads.

These fridges are $3500 typically, and theoretically an MSRP of $4700. They're at the high end of consumer appliances.

I don't believe it's a lawsuit in the making, this is (at least partially) America, land of freedom from consumer protections, but it is horrid.

[j45]

Kindles didn't always have ads at the same price.

[gosub100]

I dont like them either, but if the fridge were cheaper (this one isn't) or had other features I wanted, I'd consider buying it and just covering up the ad screen.

Another concern is energy consumption. In this age of energy star and touting how efficient appliances are, it doesn't make sense to have a screen that is always-on.

The real killer feature Samsung needs is an automatic warranty. I would never buy Samsung again, unless they started a new trend where all repairs are covered for 10 years (not sold as an add-on during checkout).

[j45]

The fridges originally didn't have ads.