alt Hacker NewsSchizophrenia sufferer mistakes smart fridge ad for psychotic episode
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Although adverts on the fridge are absolutely terrible, is this genuine? Here's a reddit post some time before that suggesting the scenario: https://old.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/1ow6cpu/appa...
We really need some legislation that outlaws this sort of control over devices we buy.
If someone wants to install an advert app on their fridge (I assume in exchange for money) then fair enough.
If I buy a tv I shouldn't just have to accept that, now or in the future, the manufacturer will sell advertising on it.
I read [Unauthorized Bread (exerpt) by Doctoro](https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-...) this year which was pretty approachable read on the topic. Not severely interesting or mind blowing if you're already here hopefully but did make me wonder how I could sneak it into my mums reading list.
Time to ban all adverts everywhere. I'm not the only one who is fed up with ads.
I don't see ads, thanks to ad blocking tech in browsers and smartphones. Any time that happens to fail and I get to endure an ad, I am amazed that regular people without ad blocking tech can endure this onslaught.
The time to negotiate a "middle ground" is long past. Let's not even entertain that idea.
An acceptable middle ground could have been designated areas for ads, which you have to seek out to see them. Think of the Yellow Pages.
Ad companies need to be reined in. They cannot control themselves. They are lobbying against all limits and controls. The only solution is to eradicate ads entirely and to make sure that anyone who gets that idea will never get it again.
"I just saw something incredibly cool! A big floating ball that lit up with every color in the rainbow, plus some new ones that were so beautiful I fell to my knees and cried."
"Was it out in front of Discount Shoe Outlet?"
"Yeah..."
"They have a college kid wear that to attract customers."
An edge case of "smart" tech...
As an aside, having scroll that thread, Reddit is a shambles. There's more deleted comments and related justification comment than actual comments. Make for a jarring experience.
Manufacturers for 100 years didn’t try to wrap their fridges in ads, or tune the compressor sound to a commercial jingle. They sold mostly honest products to cool your food efficiently.
But when they add an LED display and Internet connection, suddenly they forget about cooling your food and impulsively add a bunch of adversarial functionality, meaning functions that monetize the consumer rather than keeping the food cool.
It’s like the Internet advertising ecosystem is a virus intent on infecting anything and anyone with an Internet connection, making them do bizarre customer-hostile things they never would have done otherwise.
I knew using ad blockers is good for your mental health but this is plain creepy and unfair. Especially when advertisers know more and more about you as more and more everyday items are spying on you and serve you ads without any additional core functionality. Appliances don't get better, they are getting creepier to increase the return of investment for the manufacturers. The schizophrenics are just more sensitive to this enshittification of everyday items because they are quick to assume deliberate agency in chaotic events where there is none. But this is changing, for everybody.
The problem is today you can't really tell anymore whether this "Carol" the ad was addressing is the advertiser knowing that it's your name or just a random "clever" reference to a character in the TV show, I mean even after getting the resolution that it's the latter, nobody can be sure if this excludes the former, like the algorithm decided to send Carol an ad about a show with a Carol in it. It's not good to have to make up your mind about it even when you are not suffering from schizophrenia.
It's annoying, it's intrusive, it wastes your time and ruins your day. And it makes you hate your new tech, makes you hate tech in general, because it's a big "fuck you we can do what we want with you now" towards the customers. No wonder Luddites are making a come back, that's just self-defense.
If modern ad tech and future holographic display technology makes schizophrenic symptoms indistinguishable from regular waking consciousness in our Bitchun society...does that make us all crazy? or all sane?
Everyday we take one step closer to a PKD envisioned future.
This is obviously reddit fiction.
When I first saw somebody complain about the Pluribus smart fridge ad I immediately knew something like this was going to happen. How did Apple/Samsung not think this through?
If there is one appliance in my house that does not need a LCD screen and «smart» features, it’s my fridge. It was installed maybe 6 years ago, I adjusted some temperature settings and I’ve never touched the dials again.
I don't understand why people willingly pay thousands for these fridges. Just buy a regular fridge without the screen.
I simply can't fathom why anyone would spend extra money on a "smart" fridge. Let alone one that shows ads. Why would you even want one of those?
FYI, the slogan ""WE'RE SORRY WE UPSET YOU, CAROL" on a yellow background is from the Apple TV Show "Pluribus" (Or "PLUR1BUS"). It would be an ad for that show. It is indeed creepy at times.
The main character is called "Carol". As also, it seems is the person who saw it here.
Every time I see an article on HN about a "smart" device doing shitty things, my first thought is why would someone (especially from this crowd, who's supposed to be enlightened about the state of enshittification of tech) buy any IoS device in the first place ?
What good could you expect from an appliance that's permanently communicating with its non-giving a f*ck about users, profit driven, immoral and unethical mothership ? Would you really expect your life to be better after buying such a product ?
Careless people
there hasn't been a single schizophrenia diagnosis for a born blind person
IANAL, but could the ADA [1] or equivalent laws be applied to such a situation?
If it was up to a jury, the creepy ads might not get much sympathy.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_with_Disabilities_Ac...
it should read, "Schizophenic correctly diagnoses societies ongoing pschcotic episode through the phenominon of refrigerator advertising"
The gut reaction of too many geeks is "I can't believe you'd install a smart fridge in your home". But we need to think about this differently. Imagine if vehicles had no mandatory safety checks. How many people know anything about car safety? You'd get people barrelling down the highway with broken suspension, bald tyres or worse. We are the professionals. It's our responsibility to keep the public safe and stop shit like this happening. The software engineers who implemented this at Samsung should be struck off. Well, we could start by having something to be struck off from. I'm done with assuming individual developers will be scrupulous. We need real consequences to come from higher up. It's way past the point that this is fucking with people's lives.
Obviously made up...
This ad did the rounds last week and people were talking in the comments about this scenario.
Sure it could've happened, but odds are this is just made up.