[HN Gopher] Schizophrenia sufferer mistakes smart fridge ad for ...
___________________________________________________________________
Schizophrenia sufferer mistakes smart fridge ad for psychotic
episode
Author : hliyan
Score : 459 points
Date : 2025-12-06 07:31 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (old.reddit.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (old.reddit.com)
| ifh-hn wrote:
| 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.
| t0lo wrote:
| Absolutely- I can't understand why it still has such a loyal
| base considering how low the quality is- I see more insightful
| discussion on facebook half the time
| danielbln wrote:
| Because Reddit != Reddit and each subreddit has their own
| audience and moderation style. Most of Reddit might be a
| cesspit, but that doesn't mean all of it is.
| globular-toast wrote:
| I can't understand why cigarettes have such a loyal fanbase.
| They're smelly and expensive. Costing roughly 4k a year, I
| can't understand why someone wouldn't buy a nicer car or
| massive TV or something.
|
| Whenever a platform is popular these days I just assume it is
| more addictive.
| mlrtime wrote:
| Well op is comparing one cigarette to another, expanding
| your metaphors. And they're both "free".
| dotancohen wrote:
| Free, sure, if your privacy has no value.
| t0lo wrote:
| It's a long long, sad fall from when websites used to be
| popular primarily because they were insightful, cool or
| creative
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| It's a legal advice subreddit; they tend to have stricter
| moderation because their primary goal is to get the OP an
| answer to their question or advice on how to consult a legal
| professional about their issue. Posts like the one linked here
| tend to be a magnet for people more interested in the drama
| than the actual legal principles, so they end up being a
| wasteland of removed comments.
| mcv wrote:
| Exactly. There are reasons for those many deleted comments.
| It's specific to this subreddit for very good reasons and not
| something you can use to disparage all of reddit. Many
| subreddits have their own rules and culture.
| ifh-hn wrote:
| It's not disparaging to point out a fact. The whole delete
| comment content but keep the comment and then add a reply
| comment with wordy reason for deletion of comment content
| is a shambles. And irrespective of whether it's on every
| subreddit or not, doesn't make it less so. It's basically
| just spam at this point.
|
| My solution would be to simply delete the comment and PM
| the OP. If another user had already replied, replace the
| original content with a *short* reason for deletion, and PM
| the OP, leaving the replies in place unless they needed
| deleting.
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| It's a recursive issue, and this is something that Reddit
| could potentially improve. Reddit preserves a deleted
| comment's space in the comments section as [deleted].
| Users who see a graveyard of deleted comments will
| comment to wonder why, especially if they are unfamiliar
| with the subreddit rules. This may require the mods to
| delete more off-topic comments, which worsens the issue,
| etc. So the established "best practice" is to delete but
| leave a moderator comment with an explanation so there's
| a paper trail.
| meindnoch wrote:
| [deleted]
| ifh-hn wrote:
| This reply was deleted because it didn't meet the
| requirements for this thread. What follows is an overly long
| comment detailing exactly why.
|
| _10 paragraphs later_
|
| You are now fully educated on this threads rules, please
| revisit the top of the thread to remember why to came here in
| the first place.
| the_af wrote:
| Another example: r/AskHistorians is so heavily moderated almost
| every comment gets deleted.
|
| Their standards of quality are very high. It's not a sub to
| push your views or argue, it's a sub for historians or people
| who can back an answer with academic references. So most
| comments and answers will get modded.
|
| It's oddly refreshing. No flamewars, no junk comments, no
| "everybody knows the reason X did Y is Z" because that won't be
| accepted by the mods.
|
| It's not _perfect_ , but it's good enough.
| MangoToupe wrote:
| AskHistorians is far and away the best moderated sub on the
| site, but it relies entirely on guidelines that you can
| understand and agree with. Moderation on other subs (no clue
| about this one) is so heinously biased it makes them
| unusable. Very common on political and news oriented subs....
| GCUMstlyHarmls wrote:
| 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.
| LtWorf wrote:
| I borrowed from the library last month. It was thought
| provoking and I think it's aimed at younger people than myself.
| jamesbelchamber wrote:
| 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.
| duskdozer wrote:
| Already done! You agreed to it in the Terms and Conditions -
| you did read them, right?
|
| But yeah I agree with you, there needs to be a way for people
| to get away from ads without relying on the existence of some
| benevolent alternate company
| moffkalast wrote:
| Despite what the average multinational will have you believe,
| terms and conditions usually don't hold up in court. If they
| write some illegal bullshit into it, it's just that,
| bullshit.
| duskdozer wrote:
| Sure, but that depends on the thing actually being illegal
| first. Genuine question - how often in practice are terms
| and conditions successfully challenged? My thought is that
| companies like that would be able to drain plaintiffs out
| before it getting that far very often
| hn8726 wrote:
| And how often in practice are terms and conditions
| attempted to be enforced in the first place? No need to
| challenge them if you can ignore them
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| If ignoring them is your only option, and challenging
| them would fail, we would expect to see a lack of
| challenging them. Which we do.
|
| Unless there's a solid track record of people
| consistently challenging them and winning, we can assume,
| based on bayesian priors, that most people cannot.
|
| Which makes sense: court costs money.
| srmarm wrote:
| That may be true but doesn't help if not accepting the
| terms prevents you from using the device.
|
| On a practical level you then at best have a battle to get
| a third party (the retailer) to give you a refund and most
| people faced with the option of removing and returning a
| huge expensive device like a fridge with no guarantee of a
| refund are going to just leave it.
|
| It does need some stubborn and tenacious people to make a
| stand and set a president - perhaps backed by a consumer
| rights group but it's an uphill battle.
| exe34 wrote:
| > huge expensive device like a fridge with no guarantee
| of a refund are going to just leave it.
|
| oh I'll fix it with a hammer, or glue a piece of
| cardboard on it.
|
| I paid extra for devices without WiFi when I moved house
| this year.
| m-schuetz wrote:
| Terms and conditions can't just force anything on the buyer.
| like, you can't enslave people and point at the terms and
| conditions. It should also be outlawed to enshittify products
| with terms and conditions.
| duskdozer wrote:
| Yeah, I agree with you on both. I don't see much of a way
| out though that doesn't basically require dismantling the
| entire for-profit corporate order.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Rossmann Calls it the "EULA Roofie."
|
| Why didn't you read the EULA is like asking a roofie victim
| why didn't they have a chemist analyze their drink first.
| pwdisswordfishy wrote:
| > If someone wants to install an advert app on their fridge (I
| assume in exchange for money) then fair enough.
|
| No, it should be illegal even when done willingly. Because this
| worsens the bargaining position of everyone else.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| That might sound strange at first, but we've seen enough now
| to know that this will inevitably mean that a lot of
| manufacturers will follow this model.
|
| I can imagine deals where you get a huge 'rebate' if you
| permanently enable the ad-feature (the on-screen wizard will
| blow one of those tiny fuses as its final step, locking the
| device to that setting). That effectively mandates that the
| price for the device is its selling price minus the huge
| rebate, and the whole market will adjust to that.
|
| Just ban advertising on those devices.
| sakompella wrote:
| "Telly" [1] is a real 55" TV that is available for free. It
| is designed to always, constantly be running
| advertisements.
|
| > To reserve a Telly, you must agree to use the device as
| the main TV in your home, constantly keep it connected to
| the internet, and regularly watch it. If the company finds
| that you violate these rules, Telly will ask you to return
| the TV (and charge a $1,000 fee if you don't send it back).
|
| 1: https://www.theverge.com/televisions/777588/telly-tv-
| hands-o...
| nish__ wrote:
| Also because just because something is done "willingly"
| doesn't mean they fully understand that it may not be in
| their best interest, long-term. This is why drugs are
| illegal.
| monooso wrote:
| In what way?
|
| The device that immediately springs to mind is the Kindle.
| You can choose to buy a version without ads, or save ~10% and
| accept ads.
|
| That seems like a reasonable compromise.
| mcv wrote:
| Outlawing this specific scenario sounds pretty hard. I can see
| only two reasonable options:
|
| * Ban all advertisements. (I'm all for it, at this point.)
|
| * Make sure smart-devices make extremely clear that they can be
| used to show ads, and include trivial instructions to disable
| ads
|
| Forcing ads onto stuff we pay money for is not okay. Ads to
| fund free content is probably unavoidable, but even then, it
| needs to be clear up front what you're subjecting yourself to.
| Unexpected ads on devices you don't expect them from, can be
| confusing and disorienting for many people. For people with
| schizophrenia, it can clearly be dangerous.
|
| And I think this is not just true for smart fridges, but also
| for those billboards at bus stops that seem stationary at first
| until they suddenly start to move or talk to you. Ban those
| please. Or make it clear upfront that they're video. Don't
| spring this on unsuspecting people.
| duskdozer wrote:
| Can we talk about billboards too? As in, giant, increasingly
| bright ads intended to catch our attention while we're
| supposed to be carefully operating giant speeding hunks of
| metal?
| hn8726 wrote:
| > Make sure smart-devices make extremely clear that they can
| be used to show ads, and include trivial instructions to
| disable ads
|
| The other way around -- make it clear that the devices are
| capable of showing ads, and provide instructions on how to
| opt-in to them (and no cookie-like prompts either)
| duskdozer wrote:
| But..... then nobody will opt in to see the ads.... :(
| dotancohen wrote:
| And are only the visible part of the iceberg. The part you
| don't see is the collection of personal data. That is linked
| to habits - and to deviations from habits - and that is
| shared with third parties.
| ufmace wrote:
| > Ban all advertisements. (I'm all for it, at this point.)
|
| What would that actually look like though?
|
| Take something that could be considered an ad, but probably
| most people agree is a good thing. Say you post on here that
| task X is such a pain in the butt to do all the time as a
| general gripe, then I say hey, I built a cheap subscription
| webapp to solve task X easily that you might want to check
| out. You sign up for it and use it and like it. Seems like
| everybody wins - you get a problem solved for a small amount
| of money, I make a little money and get my project used and
| my work validated etc. But it's still technically an ad.
|
| Lots of stuff like that could be considered an ad. Every
| "Show HN" could be considered an ad. Suggesting people vote
| for candidate X or party Y could be considered an ad too -
| plenty of organizations do pay for actual ads just like that
| already. Product placements is a type of ad, but it's pretty
| hard to not do. I don't know how you even make a movie or TV
| show with people driving cars without showing a particular
| model of car.
|
| I don't expect that's the kind of ad that everybody is
| complaining about. Okay, but then how do you legislate the
| difference? Can you, or anyone, actually write down a
| definition of the ads you want to ban and the ads you don't?
| And how will people distort or abuse those definitions?
| There's billions of dollars in advertising (maybe
| trillions?), it's not going to all just go away because
| somebody passed a law. What happens when all of that money
| gets poured into attempting to abuse such individual personal
| recommendations? That's already happening on Reddit now,
| though at small scales for now.
| hodgesrm wrote:
| Hmm, maybe there's a simple legislative fix for this problem.
| Basically vendors that want to make you "rent" devices would
| have to allow termination for convenience at any time by
| customer including repayment of any fees paid by the customer
| for the device.
|
| Termination for convenience is a standard term in contracts,
| hence well-understood by corporate lawyers. The repayment could
| be reduced using a depreciation schedule so the longer the
| device is in your hands the less that's returned.
|
| I think this would work. The legal machinery is already there.
| The market would work out the details.
| mlrtime wrote:
| I'm going to keep this sort of on topic and this will not be a
| popular opinion.
|
| No, this does not need legislation. If you don't wants ads on
| your refrigerator, how about not buying a refrigerator with a
| screen built in, it's not necessary.
| Arcanum-XIII wrote:
| Try to buy a new TV without << smart >> features. It's nearly
| impossible and all of them will come with some kind of ads on
| it. I fear it will become impossible to buy a fridge without
| screen and ad if we don't find a way to stop this. It's pure
| profit for manufacturers and the consumers are fucked since
| fridge are basic necessities.
| gentooflux wrote:
| That would be a waste of money on the manufacturers part.
| It will always be possible to disable the screen
| fzeroracer wrote:
| And what if the manufacturers decide to sue you for
| disabling the screen? Or decide to simply disable your
| fridge? This isn't a far out scenario either, the whole
| right-to-repair movement was based on a company not
| allowing you to do things with the tractor you bought.
| gentooflux wrote:
| The lawsuit you described in the first question would be
| without merit. The class action lawsuit stemming from the
| second would be choc full of merit.
|
| If the fridge is in my house and hammers aren't banned
| yet then that fridge will _not_ be showing me ads.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| It would be with merit, because it would be part of the
| contract you signed when you bought the damn thing. We
| already live in a world where any attempt to bypass DRM
| on things you've bought is tantamount to a potential
| legal battle if they really wanted to be assholes about
| it. Where you don't really own the things you buy.
| gentooflux wrote:
| Drm is one thing, taping construction paper over a screen
| is another. That contract would be unenforceable. Shit is
| dystopian lately, but you're being hyperbolic.
| whynotmaybe wrote:
| And what about ads on gas pump?
|
| In many places, you can't legally buy gas outside of a
| gas pump that have a strong tendency to show more and
| more ads.
| gentooflux wrote:
| You don't own the gas pump, and it isn't in your house.
| duskdozer wrote:
| It might also not be keeping your food cold, if they
| build it so that a screen failure bricks the thing
| gentooflux wrote:
| If a company intentionally spoiled my food out of spite I
| would sue them. If they did it to all of their customers
| that becomes class action. They cannot force their
| customers into a contract which would include allowing
| them to spoil your food out of spite, that contract would
| not be legally binding.
| randerson wrote:
| I've long wondered what would happen if, say, NYT sued me
| for blocking their many ads (despite being a paying
| subscriber). My argument would be that I'd never click on
| the ads anyway out of principle, so the ad blocker is
| just me delegating the ignoring of ads that I would've
| done myself regardless. Also that if I couldn't turn off
| ads, I wouldn't have subscribed and they'd make even less
| revenue.
|
| That said, I doubt these companies would sue because of
| the risk of setting a precedent in favor of the consumer.
| Scary legal letters (e.g. cease & desist letters)
| perhaps. But given enough customers, at least one will
| have the resources to hire a good lawyer and fight it all
| the way to court.
| Levitz wrote:
| No for everybody it won't. Not to even mention the waste.
| gentooflux wrote:
| No one can force you to watch ads, they're your eyeballs.
| There will always be a solution to this problem; if it's
| in your domicile then no one can stop you from spending
| time coming up with solutions
| s0sa wrote:
| "Ma'am we're not going to do anything about that flasher.
| No one can force you to look at him, they're your
| eyeballs."
| gentooflux wrote:
| "Officer, take that ugly man away, we don't want to have
| to look at him"
| s0sa wrote:
| Don't confuse things we can change with things we can't.
| gentooflux wrote:
| People are born naked, there's nothing inherently wrong
| with being naked unless there's something inherently
| wrong with being a person.
| Levitz wrote:
| It's a _fridge_. We are not talking a server, a raspberry
| pi, a phone, we are talking about a _fridge_.
|
| Do you want to talk to my 70 year old father about how he
| should come up with solutions to ads on his fridge? Yes
| he can grab a garbage bag and some tape, we can all
| probably agree that the day stuff like that is
| commonplace we have very, VERY evidently failed as a
| society when it comes to dealing with this specific
| issue.
| scythe wrote:
| My last two televisions both came from the "Sceptre" line
| at Walmart which seemed to be the last holdout of non-smart
| TVs. I don't know if they're still holding the line; the
| model I checked just now says it has "V-chip" but doesn't
| say anything about a "smart TV" operating system or any of
| that nonsense. It's not very well-advertised but it's still
| around. I don't know of any way to find a normal TV that
| isn't from Walmart or a thrift store, though.
| creata wrote:
| People said the same thing about cars. People said the same
| thing about smart TVs. Do you know any cars currently being
| manufactured that respect your privacy?
|
| https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/privacynotincluded/cate.
| ..
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Mazda is alright. iirc the CEO has expressed disinterest in
| touchscreens and distractions from driving
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| They have had to walk that back, because it cost them
| dearly in market share. Turns out most of their customers
| don't agree that touchscreens are unwanted.
|
| There's also the fact that the problem was never about
| touchscreens per se, but inappropriate/incompetent UI
| design that happened to use touchscreens.
| chrz wrote:
| exception confirming the rule
| MangoToupe wrote:
| This shows an irrational level of faith in the market
| nish__ wrote:
| Nah, we don't want these leeches to get a chance to flood the
| market driving out competitors.
| ricardonunez wrote:
| From another posts recently, just the fact some of the greatest
| minds in our planet are mostly working in advertising and
| trying to squeeze the most out of consumers just tell us
| everything. Our society is so rotten. This time of the year it
| gets even worst.
| nish__ wrote:
| Their minds aren't that great if they chose to work in ad-
| tech, let's be honest.
| ricardonunez wrote:
| Maybe because money, it does that to people. I tend to
| agree.
| RataNova wrote:
| The weird part is that this isn't even a technical problem
| agilob wrote:
| >If someone wants to install an advert app on their fridge (I
| assume in exchange for money) then fair enough.
|
| If you're advertising me milk on a fridge I paid full price of,
| send me a full sized sample of the product.
| ares623 wrote:
| Careless people
| emsign wrote:
| 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.
| ainiriand wrote:
| Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they are not after
| you.
| balamatom wrote:
| In fact, they're after you _for_ being so paranoid.
| bell-cot wrote:
| 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...
| partomniscient wrote:
| Given the situation occurred in the UK, I doubt it.
| srmarm wrote:
| I think The Equality Act 2010 would be the UK equivalent. No
| idea whether it would cover this - might be a stretch.
| bfkwlfkjf wrote:
| Stallman was right.
| josfredo wrote:
| Sometimes you don't need a Stallman to be right.
| balamatom wrote:
| Yet there is a Stallman anyway.
| YurgenJurgensen wrote:
| Stallman didn't even conceive of this threat. Would it be any
| better if it was an open source dystopian mind-control machine?
| pwdisswordfishy wrote:
| Open source, as in corporate outsourcing software maintenance
| to free labour? No. Free software, as in four freedoms? Yes,
| because you could install your own firmware that doesn't show
| advertisements.
|
| That's what the whole GPLv3 debacle was about after all.
|
| Stallman may have not imagined this specific scenario, but he
| absolutely did conceive of owner-hostile software that could
| not be replaced.
| YurgenJurgensen wrote:
| You could, but would most people? Most people voluntarily
| subject themselves to garbage adware-ridden SmartTVs even
| though this is a problem you can solve with a PS12 dongle
| and no software installation at all. If the humble HDMI
| cable defeats the average person's technical ability, what
| difference would it make if they could technically install
| their own firmware?
| adamwong246 wrote:
| Fine, but I don't care about the average person. _I_ do
| not want this junk in my life. I don't deserve to be
| treated this way. If everyone else want to be manipulated
| by their fridge, thats one's on them, but count me out.
| It doesn't matter _if_ you install your own firmware, but
| _if you have the right to do so_. I don't own a gun, but
| I still believe that owning a firearm is a human right.
| microtherion wrote:
| Theoretically, yes, but in practice almost everybody would
| just run their Ubuntu Fridge in a stock configuration.
| mlrtime wrote:
| He was right that people would make up fake scenarios on a
| social media platform for karma points about a device that
| nobody needs to buy?
| globular-toast wrote:
| 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.
| duskdozer wrote:
| It also falls apart over when more and more products become
| "smart" to the point where you can't really even buy one
| without things like this, like TVs now or cars for that matter.
| I'm dreading the day where I end up forced to watch an ad
| before starting my car.
|
| I do think some kind of ethics
| training/education/licensing/organization is long overdue for
| software devs.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| > You'd get people barrelling down the highway with broken
| suspension, bald tyres or worse.
|
| You have this in most of the US, and people rail against any
| attempt to bring it in because they're frightened that garages
| will not give them their cars back if they think it's got
| something wrong with it.
|
| I've seen people driving cars in the US that you wouldn't even
| be able to get a scrapyard to take in the UK, they'd tell you
| to just sweep it into a bag and put it in the recycling.
| chickensong wrote:
| Real consequences from higher up... for ads on a fridge?
| Corporate execs only care about money. Engineers aren't going
| to get themselves fired every time someone asks for a feature
| they don't agree with. Government? We don't need more nanny
| laws.
|
| What we need is for people to think for themselves. The powers
| that be aren't going to save you from all the bad things. Call
| out the bad things to educate people, and vote with your
| wallet.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| There's a whole growing class of people that do not _have_
| the ability to vote with their wallet. Fridges, TVs etc will
| all be at their cheapest because they 're subsidized by ads.
| Or worse, if you're a renter then there's a big incentive for
| apartments to put up smart fridges in every room both as a
| selling point and for ad revenue.
|
| How would you propose to deal with apartments having every
| fridge be a smart one?
| chickensong wrote:
| I'll admit, I hadn't thought of subsidized fridges. What a
| bleak and depressing idea! I suppose I'd just tape over the
| screen or "accidentally" break it and complain to my
| landlord.
| SpecialistK wrote:
| It's the smug superiority too many "tech smart" people have.
|
| "Why would you buy HP? _Everyone_ knows that it stands for
| Horrible Product. "
|
| "Serves you right for getting a TV with built in Netflix,
| _everyone_ knows that it 's a backdoor to botnet!"
|
| I don't think it's apologetics for dogpoop corporate behavior,
| directly. But it has that effect because those of us with
| knowledge enjoy being smart asses or belittling those whose
| ignorance rewards trends we disagree with.
|
| People should be able to go into a store and buy a thing
| without researching how evil it has become in the decade or two
| since the last time they did. Or move into a house pre-
| furnished. That is a failure of legislatures, not of average
| Joe.
| metalman wrote:
| it should read, "Schizophenic correctly diagnoses societies
| ongoing pschcotic episode through the phenominon of refrigerator
| advertising"
| Jordan-117 wrote:
| "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."
| duskdozer wrote:
| "Didn't you have ads in the 20th century?"
|
| "Well, sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio. And
| in magazines and movies and at ball games, on buses and milk
| cartons and T-shirts and bananas and written on the sky. But
| not in dreams. No, sir-ee!"
| saltysalt wrote:
| Everyday we take one step closer to a PKD envisioned future.
| gilleain wrote:
| > "I'll sue you," the door said as the first screw fell out.
| Joe Chip said, "I've never been sued by a door. But I guess I
| can live through it."
|
| From Ubik
| saltysalt wrote:
| That scene is exactly what I had in mind :-)
|
| Such a wonderful book.
| chickensong wrote:
| One of my favorite PKD novels. Thanks for the reminder of it!
| madaxe_again wrote:
| Better tip the smart door, never know what'll happen if there's
| a fire someday.
|
| Speaking of, better tip the toaster.
| saltysalt wrote:
| The Internet of [spiteful] Things.
| Lapsa wrote:
| there hasn't been a single schizophrenia diagnosis for a born
| blind person
| edm0nd wrote:
| whoa, that's a really neat and cool fact. I never knew this.
|
| for the curious,
| https://www.healthcentral.com/condition/schizophrenia/blindn...
| balamatom wrote:
| Wonder why (I don't wonder why)
|
| I remember when borderline/schizoid fren saw some stuff made by
| one of the first generative models released to the public, Deep
| Dream.
|
| I hadda smack that laptop shut, my fren froze catatonic from
| looking at those dog-shaped landscapes
| mlrtime wrote:
| What is the probability of being born blind?
|
| What is the probability of having schizophrenia?
|
| What is the probability of both?
|
| What is the probability of both + having resources to have it
| diagnosed?
| quesera wrote:
| Some quick numbers: 1/2500 .. What is the
| probability of being born blind? 1/100 .. What is
| the probability of having schizophrenia? 1/250000* ..
| What is the probability of both? 1/250000* .. What is
| the probability of both + having resources to have it
| diagnosed?
|
| [*] Assuming genetic blindness (born this way) and
| schizophrenia (elevated genetic risk) are not somehow
| inversely linked.
|
| So, in the US: 340MM people -> 1360 born-
| blind people who would develop schizophrenia
|
| Reduce that by half or so, since schizophrenia tends to
| emerge in or after adolescence. And since it may be
| confusable at older ages with other brain health issues (is
| this true?).
|
| So call it 700 people in the US alone. If it is in fact zero,
| that is significant!
|
| I chose the US because 100% people will have adequate access
| to this level of medical care. A formal diagnosis is not the
| same thing as access, but a born-blind person either has
| parents/family, or has a state warden with access to care.
| This is also true in many many other countries, but certainly
| not all.
|
| The US has 4.1% of the world population. Figure 50% of the
| world does not have this level of medical access. It's
| probably less than that, but maybe not.
|
| This suggests about 10,000 people worldwide, living today,
| who would be affected, and in an environment where they would
| be diagnosed.
| Lapsa wrote:
| and what is the probability of deaths of Alternative for
| Germany party members?
| GaryBluto wrote:
| 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?
| edm0nd wrote:
| if you read the entire reddit thread, OPs sisters name actually
| was Carol. That's why it wigged her out so much and triggered
| her schizophrenia to kick in I suppose.
| GaryBluto wrote:
| I know, that's what I originally thought.
| sva_ wrote:
| They probably do not care if they're not legally liable.
| xioxox wrote:
| 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...
| GaryBluto wrote:
| Just because someone suggested a possible scenario could happen
| and it then _did_ happen isn 't all that suspicious to me.
| xioxox wrote:
| Of course it might be genuine, but there's also a history of
| r/LegalAdviceUK getting a number of creative writing
| exercises. See this post: https://old.reddit.com/r/LegalAdvic
| eUK/comments/1loyctr/rage...
| JimDabell wrote:
| Why use the "creative writing exercise" euphemism that
| obscures the dishonesty? Call them liars, fakes, frauds, or
| whatever.
| mlrtime wrote:
| Because it's internet + social media. You should assume
| 60% of it is made up, every time. People are either
| saying things they know to be untrue, or things they
| think are true but or not.
| Gracana wrote:
| Because it's not that serious.
| bityard wrote:
| I used to follow a few personal finance and FIRE subs.
| Pretty much all of them had surprising number of creative
| writing exercises too:
|
| "I just inherited $10 million from a dead relative I never
| knew, what should I do?"
|
| Or:
|
| "I sold my online business for $37 million, is this enough
| to retire on?"
|
| These daydreamers always create fresh throwaway accounts
| and usually never come back to answer clarifying questions.
| If they do, their answers are vague and unhelpful.
| morkalork wrote:
| Many in the personal finance subs are hooks leading users
| to one scam or another. Mostly some mild and worthless
| ebook or course you pay for.
| ffsm8 wrote:
| On Reddit? It should... These were historically almost always
| made up after people looked into it.
|
| To be clear, the picture is likely real. The backstory to it
| probably not.
|
| The people that actually feel like they've had the episode
| would almost certainly not go on social media with it. The
| venn diagram of people sharing such content, having the money
| to buy such a gigantic smart fridge and suffering from
| schizophrenia is miniscule
| GaryBluto wrote:
| > The people that actually feel like they've had the
| episode would almost certainly not go on social media with
| it.
|
| Did you read the post? It's somebody talking about what
| happened to their sister.
| ffsm8 wrote:
| I admittedly did not, initially.
|
| I did now and am even more certain it's made up now.
|
| I'm not sure how anyone can honestly think this is a
| person talking about their family. This is like a
| textbook made believe story people have been doing since
| Reddit got popular in early 2010s.
|
| For this story to be real, you'll have to add a fourth
| and fifth circle to the diagram with a family member
| being close enough to the person suffering from the
| illness to be confided in and being so karma hungry to
| utilize their personal story which is likely shameful to
| them for going viral on Reddit.
| nsoqm wrote:
| It's anti-tech rhetoric so it works well here in HN.
| That's the entire purpose of it.
|
| Not to say ads on fridges aren't stupid. But they are
| stupid enough by themselves; they don't have to make up
| stories about them.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Honestly some of the posts defending "it could be true!!"
| when nearly any rational reading of it would deem it
| "fake beyond a reasonable doubt" are just tiresome at
| this point.
|
| Like you say, it's easy to have a rational discussion
| that these adverts are dumb and annoying, and purporting
| this fan fiction as truth just weakens the case.
| bonoboTP wrote:
| Another circle for the Venn diagram is that the
| schizophrenic sister's name happens to be Carol, the same
| as the name in the ad shown on the fridge.
|
| Obviously made up.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > the schizophrenic sister's name happens to be Carol ...
| Obviously made up.
|
| Why? because no-ones' sister is ever called "Carol" ? Or
| because people of that name don't get schizophrenia?
|
| I consider myself sane, but if I saw a billboard
| addressing me by name, I would do a double-take at least.
| I can easily understand how it would have an impact and
| look like a schizophrenic symptom.
|
| The TV show advert with that text actually does exist,
| I've seen it.
|
| Given that, what are the odds that some day a) it is
| seen, b) by someone called Carol, c) who is susceptible
| to being affected by it. I would say substantial.
|
| We don't know the truth of this at all.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| Carol is a very uncommon name, it was last popular in the
| 40s and 50s so almost every Carol you find today will be
| in an old folk's home. The odds of two truly independent
| instances of somebody named Carol appearing in this
| manner of circumstance is extremely small.
|
| Edit: https://www.babynameatlas.com/name/carol
|
| Also, it came from reddit therefore it is fake. Reddit is
| a dumpster fire, if we're being generous it's a website
| for playing around with creative writing exercises. The
| not so generous interpretation is that reddit users are
| deranged internet point addicts who habitually lie to get
| their fix.
| da_grift_shift wrote:
| It's layers of fake!
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46173339
|
| (And yes: the karma farmers are either deranged addicts
| or warming up accounts for onward sale.)
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > it came from reddit therefore it is fake
|
| This level of simple assurance is for simpletons. You and
| I don't know the truth of it and can't be sure based on
| "it's from reddit". I'm sorry that not being sure is hard
| for you.
|
| > The odds of two truly independent instances of somebody
| named Carol appearing in this manner of circumstance
|
| What on earth are you talking about? There there are not
| "two people named Carol appearing in this manner." The
| first is the protagonist of a sci-fi show. You know, a
| fictional person. There is 1 - count them, one, supposed
| victim appearing in this manner. Which is possible
| regardless of the name chosen for the show and ad.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| > _" This level of simple assurance is for simpletons.
| You and I don't know the truth of it and can't be sure
| based on "it's from reddit". I'm sorry that not being
| sure is hard for you."_
|
| I respectfully disagree with your dismissal. Reasonable
| heuristics are necessary to get through life without
| getting lost in hours of deep dives into any random shit
| you hear. Anyway, the mere fact that the fridges have ads
| of any sort at all is reason enough to never buy one, I
| don't need to also believe some redditor's karma seeking
| tall tale.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > Reasonable heuristics are necessary to get through life
| without getting lost in hours of deep dives into any
| random shit you hear.
|
| And I respectfully disagree with that.
|
| Firstly, I have my own opinions on reddit and I don't
| find your simplistic ones persuasive. It's not
| monolithic.
|
| But more importantly, you make a leap from "We don't know
| the truth of it and can't be sure" to "getting lost in
| hours of deep dives" (to establish certainty) which IMHO
| just does not follow.
|
| You can decide that you don't know, that you do not need
| to have an authoritative opinion on the topic, and leave
| it at that. There are a lots of things that you and I
| don't have certainty on, and never will. Most of them are
| not important to us.
|
| Deep dives might or might not be worth it, but you
| present choosing a side as the only alternative and it is
| not.
|
| Again, I'm sorry that not being sure is hard for you. But
| it's a useful thing to do. It's a useful heuristic to me,
| better than false certainty.
|
| > I don't need to also believe some redditor's karma
| seeking tall tale.
|
| I don't think I ever said that I believe it as certainty.
| But if the only options that you understand are binary,
| then not picking one as a certainty seems to be misread
| as picking the other one. Which it is not.
|
| The amount of "black or white", all or nothing, no-
| nuance, no doubt, no open mind, "if you say you're not
| convinced of _x_ , then you must be trying to convince
| everyone of _not-x_ " thinking here is frankly
| pathological.
|
| FYI, I find the arguments that have come up that "Ads on
| Samsung fridges don't look like that" more substantive
| than "no one has that name" or "reddit always lies".
| Those last are opinions masquerading as information.
| saltcured wrote:
| There is a pattern of Asian immigrants to the US adopting
| such "old-fashioned" names for themselves or their kids.
|
| I'm Gen-X, born and raised in California. I have a
| coworker whose Taiwanese American wife is Carol. And I've
| seen my fair share of people in my age cohort or their
| offspring with names like Ann, Karen, Katherine/Catherin,
| Susan, Mary, Lillian, etc.
|
| Yes, these were the names of my grandparents' generation,
| but they didn't go away in my experience. They just
| branched out from their original userbase.
| eurleif wrote:
| The name Caroline remains popular, and it can be
| shortened to Carol:
| https://www.babynameatlas.com/name/caroline
| im3w1l wrote:
| To go full schizo conspiracy theory: It may also not be a
| coincidence. There may be someone that dislikes that one
| Carol, knows she has schizophrenia and a smart fridge.
| They design this ad, or perhaps just plant the idea of it
| at the company they are working for with the intention of
| harming her.
|
| If there really was a Carol I think police should look
| into this theory just to rule it out.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| Nope, for the simple and trivial to check reason that
| it's not just an ad, or even just a whole ad campaign.
| It's the name of a protagonist of a drama, that the ad
| promotes, using a phrase that is said to that fictional
| character.
|
| I'm sure you can find the character name "Carol" on this
| page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluribus_(TV_series)
| or similar phrases said to them in the trailer, which you
| can find if you want to.
| wiseowise wrote:
| Somehow it all happened just in time to coincide with the
| release of this big show: Samsung rolling out ads(a big
| story in its own), Pluberis (or whatever the name of the
| show) from the creator of the Breaking Bad on Apple TV,
| schizophrenic sister that is named Carol.
|
| Totally NOT made up.
|
| Not related at all, but I have this very exciting
| business idea - you can make billions, can you contact me
| via email in my bio? Not a scam, 100%.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > schizophrenic sister that is named Carol.
|
| Name matches will happen regardless of the name chosen
| for a fictional person. "named Carol" specifically vs
| other names is an irrelevance. You put too much on it.
|
| > Totally NOT made up.
|
| Once more for the hard of reading, I refer you to what I
| said earlier, "We don't know the truth of this at all."
|
| > but I have this very exciting business idea - you can
| make billions,
|
| It looks to me like you want to rant people you have
| invented, who hold positions that I do not. I'm sorry
| that you can't parse nuance, but I think I'll keep the
| sceptical lack of faith in your position that I used
| earlier.
| wiseowise wrote:
| > Once more for the hard of reading, I refer you to what
| I said earlier, "We don't know the truth of this at all."
|
| I'm still awaiting your email, good luck!
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > I'm still awaiting your email,
|
| Then you failed to read and understand what I wrote at
| all. And so there is no point in further written
| conversation. Good day.
| saltcured wrote:
| Should we call this the Birthname Paradox? 6 Degrees of
| Carol?
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| Assuming that it's "so unlikely because Carol" seems to
| be the mistake.
|
| No matter what name is picked for a fictional
| protagonist, some people will match it. If it's a real
| name, then people have it, pretty much by definition.
|
| But, this doesn't really reflect one way or the other on
| this story being true or not. The mistake is in thinking
| that it does.
| Retr0id wrote:
| And why did it have to be a fridge? The same ad is being
| displayed all over the place, from phone screens to
| billboards.
| ffsm8 wrote:
| > _My schizophrenic sister hospitalised herself because
| she throught [...] someone was attempting to communciate
| with her through her fridge.[...]_
| Retr0id wrote:
| Right, the exact same story as was outlined in a reddit
| comment weeks prior. Seeing the ad on a phone would be
| far more plausible.
| ffsm8 wrote:
| Ah, I misunderstood your question. Yes.
| testdelacc1 wrote:
| Yeah so this hypothetical sister doesn't work, lives by
| themself, is severely disabled by schizophrenia but at
| the same time can afford a PS2000 fridge. That's a crazy
| amount of money to splash for someone who doesn't work.
| Especially as amazing fridges are sold for PS600-800. Oh,
| on top of all that, the persons name is Carol. It
| wouldn't have worked with any other name.
|
| I don't think the story is real. But people who want it
| to be true are easily convinced.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > is severely disabled by schizophrenia but at the same
| time can afford a PS2000 fridge.
|
| The fridge has been on sale for a few years and
| schizophrenia can come on very suddenly. People's lives
| can change in a day because of it. You and I don't know
| the truth of it and can't reasonably jump to conclusions
| like that.
| dotancohen wrote:
| I recently had an obviously disturbed man come to the
| window of my Tesla asking for help. He did not
| specifically say money, but that's what he wanted. Long
| story short, he sees that the Tesla has identified a
| human standing next to the car, but the Tesla showed four
| people. The man asked how does the vehicle know there are
| people there, I told him that the Tesla has eight cameras
| around it. He then asked how does it know there were four
| people, I explained that the Tesla does not know there
| were four people, rather the Tesla has a hard time
| figuring out where something as small as a human is - it
| is designed to detect larger things like other vehicles.
| The man was obviously extremely affected, and walked away
| without another word.
|
| Only later did I understand that the Tesla may have just
| confirmed what he had suspected all along - that there
| are in fact four people in the place where he is
| standing.
| harvey9 wrote:
| Might have wealthy relatives or a trust fund. I agree
| with you that this is probably made-up anyway.
| duskdozer wrote:
| It's also true that illness and disability can come to
| any of us. Carol could have been a software developer who
| made a good bit of money before being unable to work
| anymore.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > To be clear, the picture is likely real.
|
| The ads for this TV show are real and do look like that.
|
| Honestly, a trigger for paranoia in someone of the same
| name as the show's protagonist, or stealth marketing, are
| equally likely scenarios to me. We don't know.
| tokai wrote:
| Its not minuscule at all. Some studies have employment
| rates for schizophrenics approaching 50%. In any case the
| rate is not 0%. Apparently when you look at the literature
| you find conclusions such as:
|
| _Very low employment rates are not intrinsic to
| schizophrenia, but appear to reflect an interplay between
| the social and economic pressures that patients face, the
| labour market and psychological and social barriers to
| working._ [0]
|
| Barriers like you believing you can generalize all
| schizophrenics to be poor/unemployed and unable to earn.
|
| [0]
| https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/S00127-004-0762-4
| morkalork wrote:
| When a million doomers post their predictions in response to
| something, a few are bound to be correct. Doesn't mean it's
| real, fake, or manifested by the hivemind. Just monkeys with
| typewriters.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| I've seen a photo floating around on Twitter at least:
| https://x.com/KlonnyPin_Gosch/status/1997179871467094177
|
| No idea if it's not photoshopped though.
| dotancohen wrote:
| I don't understand that account. What is Mickey Mouse doing
| talking about Al-Aqsa?
| shmeeed wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow%27s_Pioneers
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| The ad is real. I cannot personally vouch for it appearing on
| smart fridges, but it's not in the least surprising.
| heddelt wrote:
| You really think someone would do that? Just go on the internet
| and tell lies?
| everdrive wrote:
| It's a bit trite, but also true -- a significant portion of
| reddit is totally made up. It's worse than it was a few years
| ago, but I have no way whatsoever to measure it. Occasionally I
| bump into youtube videos which are just narrations of reddit
| posts which tell some interesting or controversial story. They
| all really sound fabricated. There's no way for me to know with
| certainty, but I think extreme skepticism is the safer
| assumption for any large reddit.
| reustle wrote:
| Reddit was originally built using fake accounts, who's to say
| it ever really stopped.
|
| https://venturebeat.com/ai/reddit-fake-users
| mFixman wrote:
| Everything on the internet is fake. That is as true now as it
| always was.
|
| For every real post, I can make up a fake one that's more
| agreeable to the hivemind and therefore will be more upvoted.
| Since you see a limited amount of posts in a session, you
| will only see fake posts and the real ones will be hidden
| forever.
| bojan wrote:
| Seeing how it actually looks like:
| https://i.redd.it/bhlz9ioh121g1.jpeg
|
| I find it plausible at least.
| jrmg wrote:
| It's not genuine. The fridge doesn't show full-screen ads, the
| original Reddit post and image of the 'Carol' ad is staged. At
| best, this is a parable about the slippery slope our ad-ridden
| society is sliding down.
|
| https://9to5google.com/samsung-smart-fridge-ads-how-to-turn-...
|
| _Update 11 /14: Samsung has commented on the image posted to
| Reddit, noting that the ad format shown on the smart fridge
| display is not one that would appear over the cover screen. Any
| ad shown would be limited to the cover screen widget, which
| displays news, weather, and calendar events. Those slides
| rotate every 10 seconds or so, and an ad is looped in around
| every 40 seconds.
|
| It appears that the ad shown in the Reddit photo is of the
| fridge's Samsung Internet app. Through that, an ad seems to
| have shown up organically through a third-party website.
|
| Samsung notes that full-screen ads do not appear as part of
| these recent software updates, and users shouldn't expect to
| see ads that take up the entire display._
|
| 'Shown up organically' seems like a very generous
| interpretation to me - it seems far more likely that someone
| viewed it deliberately for the purposes of staging the photo.
| phyzome wrote:
| On the one hand, I don't trust reddit.
|
| On the other hand, I don't trust a company that puts ads on
| their fridges.
| wiseowise wrote:
| Samsung has reputation on the line with millions to lose,
| unlike fake engagement account on Reddit.
| AyyEye wrote:
| If Samsung cared about their reputation they would have
| stopped releasing garbage electronics a decade ago and
| anyone suggesting putting ads on a fridge (and a high end
| one at that) would have been fired the same day they
| suggested it.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| On one hand I wouldn't cheer for spreading lies, but if this
| specific post got Samsung to lay down where the ads appear
| and at which frequency, I'd see the positive side of it. In
| particular they're that less likely to actually silently move
| to full ads in the near future even if they planned to, now
| that they officially commented on it.
|
| On the other hand, this was traditionally the role of art and
| fiction. Black Mirror was based on the premise of getting
| people to react to this kind of future, and it looks like
| it's either not working (anymore?) or we're past the point
| where hypothetical situations would grab our attention and we
| can do something about it.
|
| On the third hand, I have no intention to buy a fridge with a
| screen on it, but if it becomes the mainstream offering will
| I be forking 10% or 20% to not have th screen, or if those
| will have significantly better features (better temperature
| management etc.). I also wished I wasn't looking at ads, but
| in practice the best educational content right now is
| sponsored by S**space.
| adamwong246 wrote:
| They won't stop till they can transmit advertisements directly
| into your brain.
| Aeglaecia wrote:
| the technology to directly transmit audio without the need
| for headphones has been around for a while , for a recent
| implementation one could search up soundlazer
|
| it is interesting to consider that at any point the thoughts
| in one's skull are not necessarily their own
| shlip wrote:
| 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 ?
| lazide wrote:
| The real fun one - most rental places, the landlord
| buys/provides the fridge.
| YurgenJurgensen wrote:
| Are we at ad-supported rental apartments yet? "Sorry, it's in
| the rental contract that we're not allowed to turn off the TV
| or cover it up."
| defrost wrote:
| On the double-plus-good side there's often a corner of the
| room where the TV can't see you . . .
| RobotToaster wrote:
| There's an old joke that a tech enthusiast will have "smart"
| everything in their house, while someone who works in tech
| keeps a shotgun in case their 10 year old laser printer makes a
| funny noise...
| mlrtime wrote:
| Steve Jobs + Iphone for his kids.
| bregma wrote:
| It's not a joke, it's just an observation.
|
| I work in the IoT industry and delight in making things work
| automatically.
|
| I live in a log cabin in the back woods with minimal
| technology and drive an older car with actual knobs and
| physical switches for controls because I've seen how the
| sausage is made.
| keepamovin wrote:
| 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?
| gaigalas wrote:
| This is obviously reddit fiction.
| yokoprime wrote:
| 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.
| eimrine wrote:
| It does not need neither screens nor chips, one knob mounted to
| thermo relay is self-descriptive.
| zerof1l wrote:
| I don't understand why people willingly pay thousands for these
| fridges. Just buy a regular fridge without the screen.
| Kirth wrote:
| While you still can..
| eimrine wrote:
| I searched for this comment for a long time, it should be the
| first one.
| sallveburrpi wrote:
| I recently tried this for a new TV - buying a regular "non-
| smart" TV without the internet features without being "AI-
| enabled" (whatever the fuck that means).
|
| It wasn't possible - there was literally no TV available that
| didn't have a small computer built in to connect to the
| internet and send all my usage data somewhere.
|
| I probably have to find a second hand one somewhere or just
| continue to live without one.
|
| Not saying that it's the same with fridges - but who knows a
| few years down the line it might be...
| charlesabarnes wrote:
| I never understand this type of refrain. Why connect the TV
| to the Internet?
|
| I have yet to run into a TV that doesn't work entirely
| offline at any pricepoint
| sallveburrpi wrote:
| What is the point of a smart TV though?
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Because their old fridge died and they need a new one _now_ ,
| and this is all that's in stock.
|
| Because they didn't buy the fridge, their landlord did.
|
| Because the fridge is installed at a workplace, or community
| centre, or other location at which the individual has no
| effective choice.
|
| Because there are no new fridges with other desired features
| which _don 't_ have screens.
|
| Because, at some future date, absent legislation or crushing
| litigation, no non-screen, ad-free fridges exist.
|
| Substitute for "fridge" and "ads" any of number of other
| consumer / general appliances: stoves, washing machines,
| dishwashers, phones, televisions, thermostats, doorbells,
| petrol pumps, etc., or features: cameras, microphones,
| speakers, iris scanners, thumbprint readers, facial
| recognition, etc., etc.
| cracki wrote:
| 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.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| Legal ads in product catalogues only. Product catalogues are
| actually useful and nobody is subjected to them unless they
| chose to seek one out and pick it up willingly.
| duskdozer wrote:
| I'm glad to hear someone else come to this as the solution
| for ads.
| nish__ wrote:
| Wait, what? I'm confused. Is the entire product catalogue
| considered an ad? Or do you mean parts of a product catalogue
| can contain adverts? I'd argue a product catalogue is not
| advertising at all.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| I consider each product listing in a catalogues to be ads,
| or perhaps the whole catalogues is one big aggregate ad.
| Either way, I'm fine with them. Product catalogues are
| mostly innocuous and usually provide more empirical product
| information than other forms of advertisement.
| nish__ wrote:
| Cool, I'm fine with them too. As long as they're not
| mailed out without consent.
| Blackthorn wrote:
| Anderton's (a music retailer in the UK) has an enormously
| popular YouTube channel (1M subs) which is basically just
| them demoing their stock while shooting the breeze. It's
| 100% an advertisement, but it's the sort that most people
| (including myself, who otherwise hates ads) is fine with
| because you have to seek it out.
| NickC25 wrote:
| This is the type of advertising I actually like.
|
| I'm a huge buff for music gear/tech. I love seeing the
| newest plugins, pedals, software. I actively seek it out.
| I know demos of products are effectively advertisements,
| but they are the right type of ads and aimed at a crowd
| that seeks info the right way and likely is a higher
| probability of making a purchase.
| immibis wrote:
| Of course it's advertising. It's telling you about products
| you can buy, pushed by people who want you to buy those
| products, and they can pay money to be on an earlier page
| (we should probably ban that). But the general idea of a
| product catalogue shouldn't be illegal even if ads are
| illegal, because it's actually useful and non-invasive.
| bamboozled wrote:
| The current admin will get right on that ...
| idle_zealot wrote:
| To be clear, Dems are about as unlikely to do this as the
| Trump administration is. This is the sort of generational
| reform that requires a redefining of a political party.
| spaqin wrote:
| It's a worldwide issue. Even the OP link was to an UK-based
| subreddit.
| andrewrn wrote:
| There are billions of dollars motivated against this outcome
| nish__ wrote:
| There are billions of lives motivated for it.
| krapp wrote:
| No there aren't. There are not billions of people motivated
| for the total elimination of all advertisements everywhere.
| The vast majority of humans do not care one way or another,
| and most of those who dislike advertising probably wouldn't
| support banning them entirely.
| nish__ wrote:
| Yes. There most certainly are. The vast majority of
| humans are not benefiting from it and are therefore
| motivated against it.
|
| Also, they do care. They just might not be consciously
| aware of the damage it causes.
| krapp wrote:
| >The vast majority of humans are not benefiting from it
| and are therefore motivated against it.
|
| The vast majority of humans don't benefit from most
| things, but they are not therefore motivated against most
| things. That's not how motivation works.
|
| >Also, they do care they just might not be consciously
| aware of the damage it causes.
|
| So the one thing the entire human race agrees on is that
| advertising is evil, just unconsciously? They don't
| realize it but somehow you do?
|
| No, sorry. I have assume you're trolling. Good show, you
| managed to annoy me.
| nish__ wrote:
| You must own shares in Google. The vast majority of
| humans are motivated against inequality. Advertising
| creates a larger wealth gap. The fact that you're annoyed
| by me says a lot more about the type of person you are
| than anything else. And no I'm not "trolling". Grow up
| and reconsider your insane position.
| krapp wrote:
| The vast majority of humans don't consider advertisement
| to be as fundamental a form of inequality as you seem to.
|
| The fact that you can't comprehend my disagreement in
| good faith demonstrates that there's no point in
| continuing this conversation. No, I don't own shares in
| Google, nor am I insane. I think you're the one who needs
| to broaden their horizons a bit. Good day.
| pixl97 wrote:
| >The vast majority of humans are motivated against
| inequality
|
| Citation please.
|
| Humans are an apathetic bunch.
| adamwong246 wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4Mn2NbjlqU
| tiltowait wrote:
| > The vast majority of humans are not benefiting from it
| and are therefore motivated against it.
|
| The vast majority of humans do not benefit from you,
| personally, owning a car, but that doesn't mean we're all
| motivated to call a towing company to your house.
| adamwong246 wrote:
| I floated an idea past my partner- facebook without ads.
| They responded without hesitation "but I like the ads!"
| qwerpy wrote:
| My wife also likes ads. It drives me crazy. Half of the
| time she's on instagram, she's paging through ads. At
| least we have agreed to minimize our children's exposure
| to ads. For example if there's an educational show only
| on YouTube I will download it and they watch it offline.
| We will never buy a kitchen appliance with ads on it.
| basilgohar wrote:
| I think, if given the conscious choice, people would
| choose to not have ads as they are now. The point is,
| that choice is not given, and most people don't know how
| to eliminate them from their lives, or that they even
| have a choice
|
| A lot happens in the world because people are passive, or
| prioritize their attention on other things, not that they
| are "okay" with it. If it was made easy for them, they'd
| choose it.
|
| Lobbying ensures such choices are taken away from people,
| outside of the envelop of actionability by most people.
| greenchair wrote:
| The only people who like ads are the ones running them.
| lkbm wrote:
| Back in the day, I chose to buy the Kindle with ads to
| save a few dollars. (I think it was $10 cheaper; looks
| like it's $20 now[0].) I 100% found this a worthwhile
| trade-off, and so did thousands of other consumers.
|
| [0] https://www.amazon.com/All-new-Amazon-Kindle-
| Paperwhite-glar...
| immibis wrote:
| Lives are worth nothing in the kind of economy we find
| ourselves in right now. Lives are sacrificed for dollars
| every day.
| andrewrn wrote:
| True. I'm rooting for the lives as well.
| hiddencost wrote:
| I thought you were being sarcastic at the start.
|
| Vermont bans billboards on high ways. It's so nice.
| babymetal wrote:
| My parents were architects and my sister and I lived our
| first few years in Honolulu before moving to the SF Bay Area.
| There were no billboards in Hawaii, and I recall distinctly
| the first drive from SFO the the East Bay. I was unable to
| avoid reading and staring at every billboard next to the
| freeway and it literally made me throw up. I didn't
| understand what was happening.
|
| Of course, I was quickly conditioned off of that response to
| billboards, which I consider natural.
| baubino wrote:
| A simpler solution is to allow the device owner to turn off
| ads. Ads on purchased devices should be opt-in, not default and
| not mandatory.
| ForceBru wrote:
| Unfortunately, the whole point is that along with the
| fridge/whatever tech you purchase a billboard and willingly
| bring ads into your home. Of course ads on purchased devices
| should be mandatory AND we customers will soon be expected to
| pay a "subscription fee" to temporarily unsubscribe from the
| ads. What kind of company would possibly make ads opt-in? IMO
| allowing the owner to turn off ads is a problem (for the
| company), not a solution
| immibis wrote:
| That's fine. They can simply charge for the product what it
| costs to make, like they always did before, and if they
| find that nobody uses the "enable ads" button (because why
| would they?) they can save some maintenance effort by
| removing that button. They might even find the fridge
| doesn't need a wifi chip and can be cheaper.
| lkbm wrote:
| > What kind of company would possibly make ads opt-in?
|
| Amazon has for years: Kindle with ads on the lock screen is
| $20 cheaper than without: https://www.amazon.com/All-new-
| Amazon-Kindle-Paperwhite-glar...
| jeroenhd wrote:
| It's not as easy with some digital devices (even TVs these
| days), but fridges are a category where I can decisively say
| people who don't want ads can just buy a version without ads.
|
| If a fridge maker wants to sell you a cheaper fridge
| subsidized by ads, I don't think that's a problem as long as
| tracking is optional.
| notpushkin wrote:
| That's true as long as there are options that don't have
| ads.
|
| There used to be TVs that don't have ads or tracking, but
| that's not the case anymore (or so I've heard; haven't
| bought a TV personally yet). I don't see why fridges would
| be immune to that.
| Ekaros wrote:
| At least with fridges a screen is extra cost to be built
| in.
|
| On other hand with TVs unless you are doing just a
| monitor, you need something to control it. And I mean
| like digital TV, selecting input, possibly show some
| overlay or controls. And at that point just slapping a
| computer in it is lot faster development cycle. And then
| you might as well support streaming services as general
| population seem to want those.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Smart TVs became the norm when they reached the same
| price point as normal TVs. That's when the ad bullshit
| came up. You can still buy smart TVs without ads though,
| going for Android TV and put it in "basic TV mode" will
| disable pretty much all the crapware. You won't be able
| to use the TV to watch Netflix or HBO without a third
| party streaming dongle, though, which is probably why
| nobody does it.
|
| The smart part of a fridge isn't inherent to the
| technology necessary (unlike DRM'ed TV streams and apps).
| In fact, bolting the display (or ice maker for that
| matter) into the door makes it conduct more heat and
| therefore perform worse. I don't know about other
| economic regions, but here the energy label is quite
| clearly visible on the front of every fridge, so they
| can't hide the power waste either.
|
| I have yet to see a smart fridge cheaper than a similar
| normal fridge. Partially because manufacturers seem to
| market this crap like a luxury feature.
|
| The cheapest smart fridge I can find on a reliable web
| store, at least here, is three times the price of a
| normal fridge (EUR1500 vs EUR500). Even in the huge
| "American style" fridges, there's a sizable price
| difference (EUR1500 vs EUR1000) before you get to the
| first smart fridge.
| Insanity wrote:
| One that is really insane to me is Ads when driving on the
| highway. I can't recall seeing that in Europe, but now in
| Canada when I take the highway there's Ads everywhere. Some of
| them rotate.
|
| Ironically they also have a sign that changes, one of the
| updates is "don't drive distracted"... and like, I wasn't
| distracted until the sign flashed at me lol.
| nish__ wrote:
| Honestly. Premier Ford you listening?
| unyttigfjelltol wrote:
| What you are observing is the trick the industry used to get
| approval for changing LED billboards-- they "donate" say
| fifteen hours per month to public service announcements. This
| kind of concession is gold to an ambitious public servant,
| the old prohibitions never stood a chance. The PSA could be
| "stop electronic billboards" but that was the way they got
| through high-friction public processes.
|
| Good org on the other side of the issue: Scenic America:
| https://www.scenic.org/why-scenic-conservation/billboards-
| an...
| Terr_ wrote:
| My state has a neat legal trick that applies to most major
| highways: You can set up a big tall sign to advertise _but_
| it has to be for a product or service drivers can stop and
| buy on the premises.
|
| This removes much of the incentive for spamming enormous
| signs and renting them out to the highest bidder. That may
| change if it becomes really cheap to put a functional
| vending machine below.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Europe has billboards too. Perhaps not everywhere, and not as
| bad as some other places, but it does exist, and it is
| infuriating. I don't think I've seen them flash
| intentionally, but nobody seems to be too interested in
| fixing broken LED bulbs.
|
| I even saw a "you should be looking at the road" ad on one of
| those billboards.
| werdnapk wrote:
| I saw many billboard ads on Portugal (Europe) highways. As a
| Canadian, it seemed like a lot.
| wslh wrote:
| I agree, ads are inserted everywhere, also hidden, and has
| surpassed the physiological threshold and brain barriers for a
| more healthy life (e.g. attention and feelings).
| adamwong246 wrote:
| I love the idea, but our whole world is built on advertising. A
| world without ads does not seem possible. The internet mostly
| works only because of advertisements.
| quesera wrote:
| The Internet worked before advertising.
|
| It was different, but it was great. I would absolutely go
| back.
| ajs1998 wrote:
| I would not go back. YouTube is a wonderful thing that I
| can't afford to pay for, and I don't want to live without.
| There are so many creators I love that would not be able to
| create and share beautiful things if they didn't get ad
| money. It's not all bad.
| adamwong246 wrote:
| yeah but what if (just hear me out) we just SELL our
| content. Money exchanged for goods rendered. Why
| subsidize this exchange with ads?
| ragequittah wrote:
| That's what YouTube premium is. The fact that someone
| with no money gets access to all of YouTube seems like a
| win to me. If the only way to access was premium the
| world would be a worse place wouldn't it?
| quesera wrote:
| I agree that it's not all bad.
|
| But if I had to choose one or the other, I'd choose no
| ads.
|
| And that's only comparing "then" to "now". I'm confident
| that "now" will get worse in the future, making "then"
| all the more appealing!
|
| I'm all for the idea of small content creators being able
| to afford to create their work. I wish content creation
| did not attract so many people who only do it for money,
| though. Maybe this would be achievable if the rewards
| were lower. Advertising sucks all the air out of the room
| for alternative funding mechanisms. If ads were
| eliminated, there would be other mechanisms.
|
| However, back in reality, I'll concede that (e.g.)
| Google's massive ad revenue has given them the ability to
| try a thousand other things, a handful of which will be
| long-term valuable to the world. But the cost is immense.
| mhinze wrote:
| I would too. Society would not.
| lkbm wrote:
| The Internet has had ads since the advent of the world wide
| web, arguably longer.
|
| I loved Usenet, but I also appreciated being able to have a
| personal webpage for free as a kid, and that was ad-
| supported.
| quesera wrote:
| The web precedes commercialization, but many tons of
| money were pumped into the web post-commercialization, so
| a lot changed quickly after that.
|
| There were free ways to get on the net, and to host web
| pages, before 1995. And for many years after that, you
| could pay for ISP access, which would come with the
| ability to host pages.
|
| We're still paying for ISP access, we just get fewer
| services with it. That could change.
| immibis wrote:
| Of course it's possible. We just don't have the courage to
| make it happen.
| autoexec wrote:
| > A world without ads does not seem possible. The internet
| mostly works only because of advertisements.
|
| Wow you were fed that lie and you swallowed it right up. It's
| actually scary that you've been so thoroughly convinced that
| you've fallen into learned helplessness as a result. Of
| course it isn't impossible to have a world without ads (at
| least not intrusive/unwanted ones). The internet didn't have
| ads when it started and doesn't need them now. No, we don't
| have to surrender ourselves to constant abuse by adverting,
| or abandon entire mediums of communication just to rid
| ourselves of them.
| charlesabarnes wrote:
| I need people to give this sort of idea more serious thought.
|
| I honestly don't think it's an insane proposition and we've let
| ad companies go too far. Anything they stick their hands in
| gets worse, full stop.
| RataNova wrote:
| The problem isn't just "ads exist", it's that ads have become a
| business model that rewards being as intrusive and manipulative
| as possible
| conception wrote:
| This has always been the case though. They just got better
| tools over time.
| ModernMech wrote:
| I agree with you on the total ad ban, but this has more about
| schizophrenia than ads. I've had to care for someone with
| schizoaffective disorder and she would tell me the smoke
| detectors were spying on us because of the red light in it, so
| we had to cover it with electrical tape or she would become too
| distressed. She told me the cats were spies with CIA microchips
| in them. The fridge ad is incidental -- if weren't the fridge
| it would have been something else.
| goncharom wrote:
| Relevant read (not my own): https://simone.org/advertising/
| fsflover wrote:
| Related discussion:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43595269
| sumnole wrote:
| Ads really aren't that bad. Targeted ads may even help you
| discover products you'll enjoy.
|
| The ad in the article is pretty obviously an ad to anyone that
| can read the words, "New Series. Start Watching".
|
| Ads like these that randomly display during idle is hardly what
| I consider invasive.
|
| Hopefully OP's sister gets her mental health under control, but
| I wouldn't immediately raise pitch forks to ban an entire
| industry vital to the economy and business-consumer
| communication.
| estimator7292 wrote:
| We have AI deepfake celebrities selling boner pills on
| YouTube.
|
| Ads _absolutely are_ that bad
| darknavi wrote:
| > hardly what I consider invasive
|
| This is an ad in someone's kitchen in their home. How can it
| get more invasive?
| sumnole wrote:
| And a banner ad may display on a laptop in your home,
| what's your point? Location or device type matters not.
| This ad doesn't interrupt the user or demand any attention.
| darknavi wrote:
| I am now appreciating the spectrum of ad acceptance. I am
| closer to the "billboards shouldn't be allowed" end of
| the spectrum.
|
| An ad sitting on a screen in my personal space sounds
| like a dystopian novel.
| beached_whale wrote:
| Why should one have to endure the intrusion? Why does every
| product need adverts as it seems to be the place society is
| going? They are that bad and their place is only potentially
| in the places that people are looking for said products.
|
| When every product has adverts, is it a choice any longer?
| Even finding devices, like TV's without ads is more
| difficult( no on is advertising them :) ) and paying more is
| often not an option.
| dwb wrote:
| Don't want businesses to communicate with me, thanks. So
| entitled!
| kgwxd wrote:
| PolyBrute 12 is the most expressive synthesizer ever. With a
| FullTouch(r) keyboard, unrivaled sonic palette and advanced
| software companion - it offers more sonic possibilities than
| any other analog synthesizer.
|
| PM me if interested.
| arkaic wrote:
| There are NO ads that are good. I will die on this hill
| a2dam wrote:
| Ads are speech. Replace all mention of "ads" in your post with
| "speech I don't like" and see how it reads.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| Ads are speech until they are intrusive, until they track you
| across websites, until they violate your privacy.
|
| It's one thing to have a block of HTML dedicated to ads, and
| another to have YOUR shit running on my machine WITHOUT my
| consent.
| tt24 wrote:
| It is with your consent.
|
| You continue to visit these websites.
|
| If you don't want their code running on your machine,
| simply don't send a GET request.
| maest wrote:
| I assume you forgot the /s.
|
| Otherwise this is a very weak argument. Using the
| Internet is approximately mandatory in our current
| society. "Don't use the Internet" is not useful advice.
| tt24 wrote:
| Sounds like the risk of seeing an advertisement is
| probably worth the benefit of using the internet then.
| ericjmorey wrote:
| If I buy a book, I'm not required to read any part of it.
| I'm allowed to control what I read.
| tt24 wrote:
| You're allowed to use an adblocker.
| autoexec wrote:
| You might be safe as long as the ad is on a website but
| stupid laws that shouldn't exist like the DMCA can make
| it illegal to block ads when you have to circumvent a
| technological measure in order to block those ads.
| Blocking ads and the steps needed to block them might
| also violate some product's EULA which could result in
| civil judgements against you.
| tt24 wrote:
| > DMCA can make it illegal to block ads when you have to
| circumvent a technological measure in order to block
| those ads. Blocking ads and the steps needed to block
| them might also violate some product's EULA which could
| result in civil judgements against you.
|
| Your issue there is with the government. No disagreement
| from me in this regard :)
| autoexec wrote:
| The problem of course isn't the fact that government and
| laws exist. Most of us are happy that we have government
| and laws. The alternative is very ugly and doesn't lend
| itself to progress or prosperity.
|
| The problem is that our government was allowed to be
| bribed/corrupted by corporate interests to pass bad laws
| designed to protect their profits and enforce control by
| taking freedom from consumers. The true villain here
| isn't government, government was just the tool they
| leveraged against us.
|
| It's supposed to be our job to insist that our government
| work for the interests of "we the people" and we failed.
| The solution now is to get rid of corrupt politicians and
| the bad laws they passed and replace them with good ones
| that preserve our freedoms and don't put corporate
| interest ahead of the people's.
|
| Sadly, our entire political system has been carefully
| refined over centuries to make it harder and harder to
| keep our government accountable to the people but
| hopefully it's not too late to change that situation
| within the democratic framework we've created.
| tt24 wrote:
| If the rule you followed lead you to this, of what use
| was the rule?
|
| "We just need to do it right this time and surely it'll
| work!"
|
| Maybe the whole idea of restricting adults from engaging
| in consensual transactions isn't the greatest?
| autoexec wrote:
| The founding fathers knew that the system wasn't perfect
| and would need to be modified as things changed and flaws
| were discovered. Making it work by "doing it right this
| time" was the point. That's not a sign of a bad system,
| it's a good thing!
|
| Of course, nothing about government itself prevents
| adults from engaging in consensual transactions, and only
| a tiny percentage of laws do. Sometimes those laws are
| stupid and sometimes they are good to have. The original
| plan (and I still think it was a good one) was that we
| would have the ability to remove the bad laws and add
| good ones as needed. That process mostly even works, but
| with corruption and bribery in our government going
| unchecked it usually just works for a small few and the
| rest of us get shafted as a result.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| That is a very weak argument. I don't have any way to
| decline seeing the ads before I do. I can't disable
| tracking by disabling js because, like a parasite,
| tracking software has uses what is necessary technology
| for websites to function.
| tt24 wrote:
| Sounds like to you the use of the internet is worth the
| risk of being tracked.
| nautikos1 wrote:
| There needs to be a distinction between "free speech" and
| "bought speech".
| takeda wrote:
| The term free speech is misleading. It is really freedom of
| speech. I.e. someone who says something doesn't have to be
| afraid of prosecution because of what they said.
|
| It isn't the speech that is being protected it is the
| person who says it.
|
| Using the term "free speech" creates those weird scenarios
| where now we have someone argue that the US Constitution
| mandates ads to be everywhere.
| psychoslave wrote:
| Also porn is related to free speech.
|
| There is no need to be a puritan against any form of
| pornography to expect consensus against having most
| addictive/eye-catching porn ostensibly displayed everywhere
| in the public sphere. And it's perfectly clear that it's
| actually possible to be simultaneously fine with people
| watching all the porn they want in their private sphere if
| they are warned willing adults.
| delecti wrote:
| Time, place, and manner restrictions already exist on speech.
| I'm not an anti-ad absolutist, but it would be perfectly fine
| by me, and most people not financially incentivized
| otherwise, to place time, place, and manner restrictions on
| ads. I'd love a blanket ban on billboards, for example.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Ads are not speech. Money is not speech. The map is not the
| territory.
| dwb wrote:
| If you change words in a text then the meaning changes. Even
| if all ads are speech (I don't think they are, but I don't
| need to argue that), not all speech is advertisement. You can
| say your piece in one of many other forms that doesn't hijack
| my attention.
| sumalamana wrote:
| Not all speech should be allowed.
|
| > But who decides what is legal then?
|
| Laws and judges.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| ... written and appointed, respectively, by the worst
| politicians you can imagine.
| kakacik wrote:
| Nope. Something only a person benefiting from such cancer
| that ad business is would say that (and there are tons of
| those here on HN lets be honest, better half of faangs has
| ad-paid ultra high salaries and bonuses).
|
| Ultimately its just another manipulation to part you with
| your money in other ways than you intended, nothing more and
| nothing less.
| beowulfey wrote:
| Ah yes, a great point. We must protect the freedom to heap
| shit on other humans
| Taek wrote:
| No, ads are not the same thing as free speech at all. "Free
| speech" is the right to say anything to anyone *who is
| willing to listen*. You don't have a right to come into my
| home and tell me your ideas about immigration policy - though
| you do have a right to talk about immigration policy in other
| places!
|
| The government has to guarantee that there are places for
| people to say things. But the government does not have to
| guarantee that there are places for people to say things *in
| my own home*. And similarly, I think most public spaces
| should be free from ads and other 'attention pollution'. If a
| company wants to write about their own product, that's fine,
| but they must do so in a place where other people are free to
| seek them out, as opposed to doing so in a way that forces
| the writing upon others without consent.
| yesitcan wrote:
| Underaged porn is speech. Replace all mention of "underaged
| porn" in your post with "speech I don't like" and see how it
| reads.
| TexanFeller wrote:
| > Ads are speech.
|
| Companies should have more limited speech than individuals.
| Nerfing the concept of "corporate personhood" will be a key
| part of fixing our problems IMHO.
| idle_zealot wrote:
| The fundamental problem here is a little broader than ads, but
| "ads" mostly cover it. The problem is the commoditization of
| human attention. The incentive to catch and sell attention is
| poisonous to all human endeavors. Some things need to grab your
| attention to fulfill their purpose, I'm not against the idea of
| something directing a person's attention. Where it becomes a
| problem is the murky line of that direction of attention being
| something that is bottled and sold, or otherwise used in the
| interest of the distracter rather than the distracted.
|
| So ads that someone seeks out of their own volition? Fine.
| That's just marketing material, and falls in the same category
| as every product announcement, press release, etc. What if a
| product catalog is mixed in with coupons or other rewards? Not
| fine anymore, you've mixed up reward-seeking and information-
| seeking.
|
| If someone means to direct their attention and gets distracted
| by an important notice, like "I mean to drive down this road,
| and the stop sign grabbed my attention," that's also fine. The
| information is relevant to the human and important for
| augmenting their intention. But if you download an app and try
| to do something, only to be met with a banner/popup/whatever
| informing you of other products on offer by the company? Well,
| they're not selling your attention to third parties, but they
| are monetizing it by taking your intention to use one product
| and attempting to redirect it into a potential purchase of
| another, so that's out. If you want, you can include a clearly-
| labelled "our other offerings" section in the app, out of the
| way, somewhere it would only be encountered by someone seeking
| it out.
|
| Distracting people cannot be allowed to be one of the main
| drivers of our economy.
| bigyabai wrote:
| > Distracting people cannot be allowed to be one of the main
| drivers of our economy.
|
| Sure it can. Apple, Google and Microsoft get millions of
| impressions every day and everyone accepts it. Just because
| it's uncomfortable for you to think about doesn't mean that
| it's not happening, at-scale, this very minute.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| "Cannot be allowed" means "We need to stop this" in
| context, not that they don't believe it's happening.
| bigyabai wrote:
| Well, they cannot stop it. We're already in a post-
| advertising world and the US has no consumer protection
| laws to protect your attention.
|
| If your OEM decides to serve you ads, you don't get to
| complain. The alternative is to buy a device with adblock
| or Airplane Mode and supposedly this represents a
| healthy, competitive economy.
| iwontberude wrote:
| Every once in a while we need a general strike which
| achieves financial destruction of the corrupt who have
| taken the seat of power.
| bigyabai wrote:
| Okay, go strike. Stop buying iPhones and smart-devices
| and let me know how many people follow your righteous
| warpath.
|
| I don't disagree with your thesis. But the time for
| revolution has long since passed, this admin won't do
| anything about the ads. Nor will it's constituents.
| beedeebeedee wrote:
| > But the time for revolution has long since passed
|
| Oh?
| vatsachak wrote:
| Commoditization of human attention is a great explanation
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _the commoditization of human attention_
|
| It isn't commoditised. It's priced to a tee. If you can
| afford to keep your attention, you do.
|
| The problem is we've let sociopaths like Zuckerberg and
| Mosseri convince us that we're born into their servitude.
| That the natural order for our kids is for their attention to
| be stolen. That their parents have to then pay and work to
| buy it back.
| billy99k wrote:
| This could happen with anything when someone has a mental
| illness. Should anything triggering also get banned?
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| There needs to be serious reform or just abolition altogether
| of advertising on things like Smart TVs
|
| We bought a TV for my grandfather in his nursing home as he was
| dying from Alzheimers. _All_ TVs available now are Smart TVs,
| which are already difficult to work for the elderly.
|
| I'm visiting my grandmother now and watching the TV we had
| provided him, and it inserts ads into everything available to
| watch from the most accessible menu. The last ad block was 8
| ads long, during which one of those was repeated twice, and had
| all the subtlety of a row of slot machines at a casino (I think
| it was for some silly tablet game which I assume has in-app
| purchases)
|
| Straight up cruelty that should result in some serious fines or
| even arrests.
| kelipso wrote:
| I pretty much make it standard practice to get an apple tv or
| whatever streaming device for all tvs and not allow internet
| access to the tvs. You have zero control over the tv, so why
| subject yourself or others to it instead of getting a $50 to
| $150 device.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| > You have zero control over the tv,
|
| This. This is the problem. TVs with user-hostile firmware
| are the only options available. Imagine if the only beds
| available were smart beds that wake you up with
| advertisements and project ads onto your ceiling while you
| try to sleep. Honestly it seems like we're almost there
| mystraline wrote:
| If we had an effective government, this would have
| already been solved by a FTC issue of fraudulent sale.
|
| If I sell a widget, but do not transfer full control to
| the buyer, that should be considered a fraudulent sale
| that was misclassified from a rental.
|
| Same for a computer. Same for a phone. Or a refrigerator.
| Or a car.
|
| (Old person comment incoming) I remember when working on
| hardware from the 70's and earlier, the manufacturers
| would glue in a full schematic on the back plate.
| Reparability was absolute. Now, its "how can we screw you
| over with cryptographic signing of individual hardware"
|
| Reparability and ownership go hand in hand. And it also
| strongly goes towards sustainability and ecology, with
| not needing as much resources.
|
| But the "Smart TV" in your comment, pcthrowaway, is that
| in 5 years, the 'Smart' OS will be either so slow to be
| unusable, die cause a $.10 part failed, or other really
| dumb ewaste reason.
| Animats wrote:
| > TVs with user-hostile firmware are the only options
| available.
|
| There are "business TVs", which are pure displays.
| Sceptre sells a whole line of dumb TVs. They also sell
| widescreen computer monitors.
|
| [1] https://www.sceptre.com/
| gfaster wrote:
| The splash page on that website seems to be primarily AI-
| generated images. It looks cheap to say the least - such
| an obvious corner cut it's hard to have confidence in the
| product.
| Astronaut3315 wrote:
| I bought a Sony OLED a couple years ago. I was able to set it
| up in "dumb" mode and all the default apps could be manually
| removed. It acts like a monitor and shows nothing but our
| Apple TV at powerup.
|
| The home screen's just a nice static background with a
| settings app and nothing else. I never see it unless I press
| the appropriate button, but it's nice to know there isn't an
| onslaught of junk waiting for me if I do.
|
| YMMV but other brands with Google TV may have similar "dumb"
| capabilities.
| bad_haircut72 wrote:
| This is irrelevant to what OP said which is that it this
| should be the default. One anecdote of "with effort and
| technical expertise I returned the appliance to a workable
| state" doesn't mean things are ok.
|
| edit: Im not trying to be snarky, I think your reply was
| genuinely trying to be helpful, but its not ok that we're
| being sold this crap
| Astronaut3315 wrote:
| I agree it should be the default, but this TV was readily
| placed into dumb mode at first powerup. Set your country
| & language, select dumb mode ("Basic TV"), skip WiFi and
| most would be satisfied with the result.
|
| Some effort's needed to clean up the homescreen, but you
| never need to see it. Hand your grandparents a basic
| programmable remote without extras like the home button.
| They should be good to go.
| bashinator wrote:
| Until you get a mandatory software update.
| Astronaut3315 wrote:
| Through what means? It's not on the internet, nor was a
| connection required for setup.
| fzzzy wrote:
| Cars come with cellular radios now. It's conceivable that
| other electronics could start to ship that way.
| ozim wrote:
| I think in cases of people with Alzheimer's or other
| elderly people who can't really operate things besides
| play/stop/next dumb screen isn't going to work. Mostly
| because you have to hook up something else that will
| require additional steps to operate.
|
| My father doesn't have any serious dementia or signs of
| Alzheimer's - he is 65 but typing in anything on keyboard
| is still a major hassle for him. If he could have
| play/stop/next button it would work for him.
| signatoremo wrote:
| Ads exist because options are available. There exists the need
| to stand out and differentiate the moment there are more than
| one choice for the consumers. Commercial ads didn't exist under
| communism for a reason.
|
| Your resume is ad. Cover letter is ad. Think about different
| word choices you made when creating your resume?
|
| If explicit advertising doesn't exist then implicit one will.
| Which one is worse? I'm sure you've seen all of the product
| placements on movies and shows.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Product placement is already illegal unless explicitly
| signposted (a specific state mark being shown on the screen
| while it is happening) in certain types of shows, in the EU
| at least.
| kylecazar wrote:
| My own hypothesis is that our lives will become so saturated
| with ads that they will completely lose their effectiveness,
| advertisers and platforms will finally be forced to acknowledge
| that they aren't effective, and a monetization crisis will
| follow. Subscriptions everywhere.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Sounds like Japan.
|
| However, their ads are crazy "in your face." They haven't
| given up, at all. They doubled down.
| tonymet wrote:
| It's more like drugs in that they will be less effective ,
| but not completely, so we will continue to get more exposures
| as advertisers compete for attention
| roncesvalles wrote:
| They won't lose effectiveness because once in a while you
| will actually find something you want, click on the ad, and
| buy it. The reason there's ads everywhere is because they
| actually do work. It's not a hypothesis.
| kylecazar wrote:
| I didn't claim what you think I did. I said that _I_
| hypothesize that they will become increasingly ineffective
| with time. Data already shows it 's trending in that
| direction.
| adangert wrote:
| The main arguments I hear against banning all ads is that it
| will hurt small businesses, a better solution might be to ban
| all adds for companies making above X amount per year, or even
| better: create systems where users pay for ads themselves, then
| the incentives would switch to be in favor of consumers.
|
| In any case, totally agree, ad companies are out of control,
| I'm hoping more Kagi like services start appearing soon.
| undersuit wrote:
| Banning companies above a size still allows a unhappy medium
| where only "small businesses" BUY the same horrible ads and
| we drop one or two Army or IBM ads from the lineup.
| bad_haircut72 wrote:
| No because small businesses arent hiring ad agencies who
| spent years studying psychology in order to manipulate
| people into doing what the company wants, not what the
| person wants. This is very much an issue of scale
| happypillow wrote:
| Then there needs to be stronger campaigns against addictive
| advertising (ironic) but we also need to enforce education
| about malicious advertising and marketing. People need the
| knowledge of how to defend themselves against advertising
| weapons. The current status quo is everyone for themselves.
| Even the too few volunteer shepherds (you) have no pull against
| giant money machines.
| zzo38computer wrote:
| > Time to ban all adverts everywhere.
|
| I think that is too much, but it should be almost entirely
| banned, with only very limited exceptions. Advertisements which
| you are specificailly looking for, such as catalogs for those
| specific things, could be one of those exceptions.
|
| However, even regardless of these exceptions, there will need
| to be limits, such as: do not be dishonest, do not emit light,
| do not waste power, do not spy on you, do not block the view of
| other things, do not try to prevent you from seeing them, they
| cannot pay you or give you discounts for seeing the ads, etc.
|
| > The time to negotiate a "middle ground" is long past.
|
| I think it will need to be a "nearly banned" ground rather than
| the "middle" ground, though.
|
| > Ad companies need to be reined in. They cannot control
| themselves.
|
| This part I agree with.
|
| > The only solution is [...] to make sure that anyone who gets
| that idea will never get it again.
|
| But, this part, I think that won't work. Even if it does work
| (which it won't), it is bad for freedom of speech and freedom
| of opinion.
| Lerc wrote:
| I think Advertising is the issue where I have the most radical
| views. I don't think it is a terribly controversial view
| anymore.
|
| In the past when taking to people about this I have asked them
| to come up with an example of something funded by advertising
| that has not been corrupted by it. In recent years nobody even
| wants to take up that challenge, it is far more common for them
| to concede I'm right on that point.
|
| It's a definite shift 8n public opinion but I'm still a bit
| wary when people change their views to agree with me when much
| of their world view seems unfounded. I don't really accept the
| us vs them narrative. I don't think billionaires are
| necessarily evil, I certainly don't think the solution to
| hyper-capitalism is to abandon all elements of society (which
| seems to be a growing belief), or that socialism an capitalism
| are fundamentally incompatible. I'd like people to agree with
| me about the properties of a thing rather than by whether
| proponents of it are on you tr8be or an opposing tribe.
|
| I'd like a free society where that freedom is limited only by
| the harm you can do to others. Prevention of harm should be
| through robust and evidence based regulation.
|
| I think there is a good case to be made that all advertising is
| harmful to some extent. There are certainly examples that are
| clearly harmful evading any form of regulation. When people
| break the rules that currently exist, what motivation do the6
| hav3 to mitigate their behaviour? This is a failure of
| government. I'm not sure if adding more rules that can be
| broken with impunity would help.
|
| Regulators need the power to inflict punishment that rule
| breakers actually feel. Enough that it is logical for even an
| amoral entity to obey the rules. That doesn't seem like a
| complicated thing, but I feel like it would go a long way
| healing society.
| teemur wrote:
| I think a decent middle ground would be to allow contextual
| advertising and ban personalized advertising. That is, it would
| be fine to show you ads based on where you are, what you are
| doing or what you are searching on the internet, but not based
| on what you did on another website or where you had lunch
| _yesterday_.
|
| Of course this would add friction for finding the appropriate
| targets but it would still allow pretty decent business for
| adtech. it just would be a bit different.
|
| (I'm pretty sure that the line between contextual and
| personalized ads is blurry, but I leave that to be solved by
| lawmakers and judges. Its kind of their core competence. And to
| be clear, what I personally think should be done would be much,
| much stricter ban, but this is a compromise proposal I think
| should be agreeable by all parties who are the slightest
| interested in the harm current adtech is doing)
| Animats wrote:
| > Time to ban all adverts everywhere.
|
| Taxing them is an option. Disallow advertising and marketing as
| a deductible business expense. You can still advertise, but it
| comes out of the bottom line. This encourages putting more
| money into product value and less into promotion.
| fasterik wrote:
| I tend to think that banning things is almost never the right
| answer. Who gets to decide what counts as an ad? What's
| stopping governments from designating speech they don't like as
| an ad?
| Refreeze5224 wrote:
| The harm they cause is so massive compared to the small amount
| of benefit. Everyone got along just fine when they had to go
| look for the things they wanted (like with a search engine!),
| or they did without.
| wdr1 wrote:
| > Time to ban all adverts everywhere. I'm not the only one who
| is fed up with ads.
|
| This is a terrible idea. Users should have choice & control.
|
| I'll say something that on the surface level seems
| controversial, at least to HN: Some users prefer ads. And those
| users should be allowed that choice.
|
| Ads are part of a value exchange. It's disingenuous, imho, to
| frame the question as "Do you want 'X' with or without ads?"
| Absent any other criteria most people would naturally say
| without ads. But I feel it's disingenuous because it overlooks
| the value exchange.
|
| A better example: Would you prefer Netflix with ads for
| $7.99/month with ads, or $17.99/month without ads?
|
| A lot of people are choosing the ads tiers. It's the fastest
| growing tier. Personally, I have the ads-free tier, but I can
| make that choice for myself. The people wanting the ads tier
| should be able to make that choice too. I don't see the value
| in taking it away from them.
|
| I don't deny there are bad experiences. I do think Samsung is
| making a mistake & damaging customer trust with the
| refrigerator thing. I likely won't be buying one in the future.
|
| Like anything, advertising can be done well or it can be done
| badly. I don't use Instagram myself, but I have a lot of
| friends who love fashion who do & say they're on their to
| follow brands & find deals. They find the ads a good way to
| discover some new fashion product & snag a good discount.
|
| Likewise Amazon sent a catalog to my house. My kids are using
| it to think of what they want to ask Santa. A catalog is
| basically a book of ads.
| fasterik wrote:
| This is one of the major political problems of the 21st
| century, convincing people that many of the problems they see
| in society are in fact free choices made by individuals, and
| not necessarily something that needs to be fixed from the top
| down. The human tendency to impose one's own preferences on
| others is strong, and it seems every generation needs to
| learn the lesson anew.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Ads are the main drivers of ruining the Internet that we once
| enjoyed.
| ginko wrote:
| 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?
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| 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.
| randyrand wrote:
| 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.
| commandersaki wrote:
| Been there and absolutely can see this happening, it is
| sometimes a prodromal symptom called a 'sign of reference' [1].
|
| I recall during my first psychosis episode thinking a TNT
| logistics van contained a bomb and was being used as a
| terrorist vehicle to blow up a building (or maybe at the time I
| think it could have been targeting myself directly).
|
| Also, in that same episode, the train stations in Sydney were
| being plastered on every possible space and surface with high
| contrast white on blue posters that said "HEY TOSSER!" [2]; it
| was an anti littering ad campaign bringing some levity to the
| situation. My mind was overwhelmed by both its alerting nature
| and the fact that everywhere I would turn I'd see a poster, and
| in my infirmity it felt like someone was pointing a finger an
| inch from my forehead arresting me to say I should stop being a
| tosser in the derogatory (Australian slang) sense (though my
| mind was contending with the many multiple meanings).
|
| [1]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideas_and_delusions_of_referen...
|
| [2]: https://imgur.com/a/wyVDNN4
| stainablesteel wrote:
| this seems reasonable to me, i don't have schizophrenia but i'm
| pretty sure i'd start stabbing a fridge if I ever saw it give
| me an advertisement
| tyleo wrote:
| Same. I'm pretty stable but just looking at pictures of that
| ad in the comments I felt my heart-BMP raise.
|
| It isn't just the fact that it's an ad. The intense black and
| yellow is unsettling with strong 'warning' vibes.
|
| Here's a picture for folks wondering: https://www.reddit.com/
| r/assholedesign/comments/1ow6cpu/appa...
| da_grift_shift wrote:
| That's a webpage with an ad being viewed in the browser
| app.
|
| It isn't part of the "cover screen" (home screen) where the
| Samsung ads show up.
|
| https://9to5google.com/samsung-smart-fridge-ads-how-to-
| turn-...
|
| https://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS10007562/
|
| See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46173339.
| ignoramous wrote:
| Rage bait marketing as some call it:
|
| https://x.com/tbpn/status/1996352945710117030 /
| https://archive.fo/lTFWl
|
| https://x.com/loganforsyth_/status/1995966653461623049
| MangoToupe wrote:
| On one hand you're correct, but on the other hand Carol is a
| very common name and this is a very reasonable reaction. I'm
| split, and I think this is plausible enough to take seriously.
| RataNova wrote:
| Could be made up, sure... everything on Reddit might be made
| up. But dismissing it outright feels a bit too easy
| qnleigh wrote:
| Yes it was made up. A post from two weeks earlier [1] showed a
| fridge ad saying 'We're sorry we upset you, Carol.' That post
| now has an update:
|
| > EDIT 2: Hello, I am the original poster of the carol AD image
| from a month ago. I am a male from America and my name is not
| Carol. The story about a Schizophrenic woman named carol was
| most likely fabricated from the 3rd top comment on this post.
| Thanks!
|
| Come in Hacker News, we're better than this!
|
| [1]
| https://www.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/1ow6cpu/appa...
| unyttigfjelltol wrote:
| 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.
| gregoriol wrote:
| You are way off: it's just about money. For a long time, making
| appliances was an ok business, making good stuff, selling them,
| factories running, employment, margins ok, ... and there was
| progress/innovation to do.
|
| Now that there is not much to update or innovate with, and
| companies have already squeezed workers in Bengladesh to the
| max, the only current innovation and additional money source
| are "connected" and "ads".
| MangoToupe wrote:
| I don't see any contradiction between the two takes; I
| suspect capital pressure will force us into an inhumane
| dystopia where baseline existence is miserable, and quiet
| rational thought is a luxury.
| RataNova wrote:
| Exactly. Nobody ever asked for a fridge that doubles as a
| billboard
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Not really true. I've found coupons in new appliances. I've
| found detergent samples in a new dishwasher. That's
| advertising.
| arpcodes wrote:
| the end of HN when reddit fanfic reaches the frontpage
| sallveburrpi wrote:
| the end of HN when every comment is parroting the same thing
|
| >implying HN was ever good
| arpcodes wrote:
| made an account just to note that when reddit fanfic is reaching
| the front-page, we might be on the downslope and it's sad
| bigyabai wrote:
| Your concern is _not_ that refrigerators display ads, or that
| Apple is goading schizoaffective people, but that _Reddit is
| lying?_
|
| You're right, this website is headed on the down slope and your
| comment proves it perfectly.
| neomantra wrote:
| Next up: <blink> tags on fridge triggers seizures
|
| Back in the day we asked webmasters to run their web sites
| through Bobby for accessibility checks.
|
| I am curious if any LLM work like this is being done. If it were
| really a smart fridge, it would moderate its users content
| appropriately. Eg I don't want haram ads, don't freak me out, I'm
| color blind.
| api wrote:
| Don't buy appliances with anything but a small screen. Any large
| screen on any appliance will be used to show ads. If not now then
| eventually.
|
| It's also a gimmick, and gimmicks on things like appliances and
| cars are red flags for poor quality. Appliances in particular are
| best when simple and designed for their function. "Feature" means
| "thing that will break."
| da_grift_shift wrote:
| HN baited by karma farmers once again.
|
| Here's the /r/assholedesign post:
| https://old.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/1ow6cpu/appa...
|
| It shows a webpage with an ad being displayed in the browser app.
|
| How do we know?
|
| Full-screen ads don't show on the cover screen (home screen).
|
| Here's the investigation:
|
| https://9to5google.com/samsung-smart-fridge-ads-how-to-turn-...
|
| >Any ad shown would be limited to the cover screen widget, which
| displays news, weather, and calendar events.
|
| >The ad shown in the Reddit photo is of the fridge's Samsung
| Internet app. Through that, an ad seems to have shown up
| organically through a third-party website.
|
| Here's the docs that talk about ads on the cover screen:
|
| https://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS10007562/
|
| It's easy for ragebait to short-circuit your critical thinking
| skills.
|
| Don't let Redditards like /u/Shellnanigans get their fix.
| dqv wrote:
| Well they might want to produce some photos or screenshots of
| what it actually looks like when it displays ads. So far, they
| are only telling us what it doesn't look like, which doesn't
| instill much confidence. It should have been pretty easy for
| them to say "and here's what it actually looks like btw:
| [photo.jpg] [screenshot.png]". They didn't do that though. Why
| might that be?
| da_grift_shift wrote:
| Here's an actual Samshit fridge cover screen with the new ad
| widget:
|
| https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2025/10/...
|
| Here's a GIF of it rotating through the modes:
|
| https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2025/10/...
|
| Here's the source article:
|
| https://www.androidauthority.com/samsung-smart-fridge-ad-
| upd...
|
| Now where do I get my 10% commission on /u/Shellnanigans's
| 67,135 internet points?
| efilife wrote:
| this post is a meme (or an attempt to shed light at the problem)
| referencing a video by louis rossmann who foreshadows that
| something like this could hypothetically happen
| Lambdanaut wrote:
| As a schizotypal person, I'm unsure how more people aren't
| exhibiting paranoid schizophrenic symptoms in this wildly
| untrustworthy digital age.
|
| Yesterday a good friend reached out to me on a new phone number
| to wish me happy holidays, she shortly afterwards asked me to
| donate to a fund to help her sick cat.
|
| Even though this person had a similar typing style, the
| unrecognized phone number made me feel paranoid that it may be an
| LLM attempting to get money from me in an automated scam, so I
| made the choice to call my friend to get more evidence via voice.
|
| It turned out to be my friend(or an even more elaborate ruse
| using voice capture and mass data-mining tech, but that seemed
| extremely unlikely, at least for another couple years).
|
| My brother had full on shizpphrenia, and would often call family
| members asking them to provide evidence that they are who they
| say they are and not government robots. It was an obvious
| delusion when he was alive, but now that we're in a world where
| that sort of evidence-gathering is no longer extreme, paranoia is
| the new normal.
|
| Our usual safeguards of identity are breaking down, and you can
| bet that large corporations with an eye on the coin are going to
| swoop in to establish new, more secure methods of identification.
| ghc wrote:
| Society, in a sense, is highly dependent on trustworthy
| interactions. Credit, ownership transfers, banking, etc. all
| depend on trust. If we go back to only being able to trust in-
| person interactions, we'll be stepping back to a financial
| system from over 100 years ago.
|
| Because of this, I believe that solutions _will_ be developed.
| Nothing is 100% fool-proof, but the government depends on a
| solution being found.
| citizenpaul wrote:
| >swoop in to establish new, more secure methods of
| identification.
|
| This is already being done. However it is being done in
| backroom deals to make sure that the individual has no control
| over their identity only the corporations. You are not who you
| say you are, you are what a corporation decides you are.
|
| Plaid is a huge player in this space.
| nish__ wrote:
| File suit.
| daggersandscars wrote:
| If you have a router you control, many routers allow you to take
| away internet access from a device while keeping it on your local
| network. Some (all?) Asus routers can do this from their UI.
|
| This won't help with devices that require 24x7 internet access,
| but it's great for things you want to access the local network
| but don't trust not to send info to a third party. (TVs, music
| amps with built in streaming, home surveillance systems [1],
| etc.)
|
| Also handy for briefly turning on Internet access for software
| updates or one time activation.
|
| [1] while making a surveillance system available online safely
| and with software you control isn't hard, it's not trivial.
| Turning Internet access off for your cameras without a plan will
| mean you can't monitor your home or get alerts when away from
| your local network.
| cyberlimerence wrote:
| Reads like something out of Philip K. Dick's writing. Fridges
| with ads. Talking doors.
| barfoure wrote:
| Yeah... she's not wrong.
|
| If you want to put an end to this you'll either need to boycott
| products, make your own, or get something serious passed to
| abolish a good chunk of ads. This industry is loaded with money
| and they reinforce their own (see: ads on fridges) so good luck.
| It's a tough battle.
|
| Oh, and there are no roadway ads in Vermont.
| RataNova wrote:
| I just hope the sister gets some peace and that her doctors take
| this as an environmental trigger
| kyledrake wrote:
| I inherited a Samsung fridge when I moved to a new place, it was
| a terrible fridge with serious mechanical flaws. The deicer
| broke, causing a constant stream of leaking water in the fridge.
| The French door middle component hinge was cheap plastic that
| broke and I had to replace it, then it broke again and I had to
| replace it again, then it broke again. I finally gave up and
| replaced the fridge.
|
| Recommendation threads on Reddit usually begin with "anything but
| Samsung". They seem designed to be made cheap and hit the lowest
| price point with consumers that don't want to spend a lot more on
| something they don't really care about, so I'm not surprised to
| learn that ads are a part of their strategy.
|
| But also, why do fridges need to connect to the internet?
| jader201 wrote:
| I know this is the sort of story HN would love to be true (and to
| be clear, I think ads on appliances are Black Mirror level
| stuff), but this -- like most things on Reddit -- is made up. [1]
|
| This story, while fun to discuss, should be flagged, and not on
| the FP of HN.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46171868
| grayhatter wrote:
| Someone predicted this exact thing is your evidence it's
| fiction?
|
| How much meaningful experience do you have with psychosis and
| mental illness?
| jader201 wrote:
| That thread goes into how Samsung has confirmed that this ad
| can't show up like it did [1]. There are many comments in
| that thread debunking this. Which is why I linked the whole
| thread, not a single comment.
|
| When something posts something on Reddit that sounds far
| fetched (fun to believe, but unlikely), we (the HN community)
| should default to skepticism/critical thinking, rather than
| assuming it's true without evidence that it is.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46173338
| grayhatter wrote:
| > When something posted on Reddit that sounds far fetched
| (fun to believe, but unlikely), we should default to
| skepticism/critical thinking, rather than assuming it's
| true without evidence that it is.
|
| That's my point. This doesn't sound at all far fetched if
| you've spent time with people recovering from psychosis
| with visual hallucinations.
|
| I'm normally a very skeptical person, and while I both
| agree claims require evidence. I don't find the comment
| thread from before very compelling evidence.
|
| Fake or not, I do believe that an ad with the text from the
| troll image would show up on a smart fridge, I don't trust
| Samsung to tell the truth^1, and importantly the minimal
| description from the linked post describes an experience
| similar to one I've seen before working with a patient.
| (But from a print ad.)
|
| Even if this exac is fiction, this kinda stuff actually
| happens. Perhaps I'm wrong, to believe it's plausible, but
| dismissing it outright is a mistake. You don't want to
| acknowledge hallucinations are real, but more important
| than that, you don't want to tell someone that they're
| lying without positive proof.
|
| edit ^1: I read that exactly prior to reading your reply,
| and yes I do agree that explanation seems to be correct;
| that wasn't what I was basing my take on. i.e. true or not
| it's less important to my original objection. Or I find it
| plausible than even a small advert would result in the same
| event.
| slibhb wrote:
| > Fake or not, I do believe that an ad with the text from
| the troll image would show up on a smart fridge, I don't
| trust Samsung to tell the truth^1
|
| I trust them more than some reddit post. Samsung has at
| least some incentive to tell the truth (they don't want
| to piss off consumers). What's the penalty for lying on
| Reddit?
| pixl97 wrote:
| >has confirmed that this ad can't show up like it did
|
| While this certainly may be true, I trust companies to tell
| the actual truth about this when it's been verified by an
| independent 3rd party.
|
| So much of the "This can't happen", "We didn't scan and
| save all your wireless network names", "We didn't copy all
| the contacts in your address book" quite commonly break
| down later when it is realized that some sub-group doing an
| A/B test or keeping their work somewhat hidden actually did
| the thing in question.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| You sure about that?
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/1ow6cpu/appa...
| jader201 wrote:
| I'm not arguing that Samsung has built in ads.
|
| I'm saying this particular story was fabricated. There is
| evidence in the comments below my linked thread, specifically
| the one to MacRumors from Samsung, that prove why this was
| fabricated.
| tonymet wrote:
| I'm no prude, but I'm finding horror, pharma & sex ads to be
| incredibly disturbing in how they are presented. Google TV takes
| over my wall with moderately graphic horror movie ads. My family
| members aren't comfortable with horror and they have no way to
| use the TV otherwise. It's unsetting in the middle of the night.
| And graphic pharma ads for stomach turning skin disorders and
| other inappropriate disorders play even during casual, family
| content. And most of the sexual content is not family friendly --
| even I find it awkward to have on the wall, especially when my
| parents visit.
|
| These devices used to be ours with some level of control, and now
| they are all remotely managed to present awful content at all
| hours
| willidiots wrote:
| Google TV showing ads on the home screen convinced me to buy an
| Apple TV. Had to go back to a set-top box - to use the same
| apps I have built into the TV - just because Apple won't spam
| me with this shit.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Apple won't spam you with this shit _yet_
|
| Rumors are that Apple Maps advertising is incoming soon
| tonymet wrote:
| the only way they will continue with AppleTV (TV+) is to
| put ads. they haven't gained enough subscribers to keep
| that business unit solvent.
| tonymet wrote:
| It's a good tip, I may end up doing that. I'm hoping that
| Apple has better standards for third party streaming apps
| (just yesterday I made a Ask HN post about how terrible they
| are)
| asdff wrote:
| At least with the pharma commercials they don't get "real"
| about living with a given disease. It's like stock footage of
| old people canoeing in slow motion and stuff.
| tonymet wrote:
| You're right that most pharma are generic korean karaoke
| parlor videos, but a few of them show really gross sores,
| rashes that I don't want burned into my brain by an 85''
| screen
|
| The timing is just unsettling like i'm having a laugh and
| then subliminally the next frame is a raw skin lesion
| randomNumber7 wrote:
| I recently downloaded an app to use my smartphone screen as a
| reading light.
|
| So a simple app that lets you control the color and brightness of
| the screen.
|
| You only find this with adds on the play store and it shares your
| data with 3. parties as well as permanently showing an add
| banner.
|
| This isn't progress, it's broken.
| zuminator wrote:
| I found a couple of ad free apps within seconds.
|
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.wearefamil...
|
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.co.vixen.ni...
|
| Is there a certain must-have feature you're looking for?
| randomNumber7 wrote:
| Great, thank you. How do you query in a way to find the ad
| free apps?
| varispeed wrote:
| These targeted ads are incredibly harmful when you have to take
| care of someone with psychosis. They think that someone who is
| listening to them is sending them "messages" through ads and that
| feeds into paranoia. Unfortunately it is not possible to reason
| in such situations with the person and any attempt to explain
| tracking is met with hostility.
|
| I really wish regulators stopped being corrupt, naive or both and
| outright made it illegal.
|
| There is no upside for tracking of any kind for consumers.
| roughly wrote:
| I know this isn't Just a Samsung problem, but it's sure not Not a
| Samsung problem either. Samsung's taken the early-00's Sony crown
| of most anti-consumer company out there - don't buy Samsung.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| In the golden era of advertising (don't really know but say
| before the iPhone) there was no "opt-out". If you wanted to watch
| Lucille Ball, rich or poor you had to sit through the ads. If you
| wanted to read the New York Times article, rich or poor, you had
| to turn the full page ad over.
|
| Today that's gone - you can for a fee never see an advert again.
| And that fee is easier to pay if you are rich, and harder if
| poor. And so more and more "traditional" advertising will become
| aggressive and aimed at both lower income audience and more
| scammy products (because you are selling to the poorest you
| cannot beat costs eventually). And advertising will stop being
| about "brand" (which are naturally less aggressive and focused on
| closing) and more about the last click to sale.
|
| We are already seeing this world take shape, as "influencers"
| become the way to reach those who have paid to stop all other
| advertising, and why travel influencers are head of that pack.
|
| Ultimately this is about design of our public spaces. We rightly
| celebrate architects, civil engineers and their sponsors who
| create enjoyable and beneficial built areas - we have still to
| get a hold of the digital public spaces. While Times Square has a
| quality of its own, living there permanently would have mental
| health issues for most of us.
|
| And in the end, positive public spaces are associated with the
| words paternalism, socialism, public good and none with Toll,
| extraction, rentierism.
|
| The arguments against ads are arguments for paternalism of
| government control for a better life for us all.
| qwertox wrote:
| I wish ads were allowed to only state facts, and that in a non-
| misleading context.
| beedeebeedee wrote:
| These companies have no decency. Putting ads on a fridge! They've
| already invaded our phones and computers, and almost everywhere
| else. This needs to stop
| Animats wrote:
| At least the fridge didn't play the video version.[1]
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/rzmFNVBIfCQ
| offmycloud wrote:
| Reddit used to be free for anyone to view without logging in, but
| now I get "Your request has been blocked due to a network
| policy." Sorry, but I'm not turning my ad blocker off.
| dabinat wrote:
| I was in a car accident a few years ago that triggered my pre-
| existing PTSD, so it was a very rough experience. This experience
| was made worse by the fact that my insurer apparently sold the
| fact I had been in a crash to third-parties. I could not go
| anywhere on the internet without seeing personal injury ads,
| which often featured gratuitous pictures of crashes. This felt
| incredibly creepy and made a bad experience much worse.
| u8vov8 wrote:
| On the day Melissa Hortman and her husband were killed, I
| started getting Youtube ads for silencers and tactical gear. I
| guess it follows that people were searching for those sort
| topics then and I fit some cohort (probably "angry young
| male"), but it was very unnerving.
|
| Now Youtube mostly shows me ads for fake AI generated products
| and other scams.
| hartator wrote:
| The actual ad:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/s/YD4vBNXfLY
|
| Too bad for the backslash, it's a great show.
| bigyabai wrote:
| Apple's ad department hasn't exactly been knocking them out of
| the park lately.
| nelox wrote:
| It's totally understandable for the brother to feel frustrated
| and shaken by what happened, anyone would be. But playing devil's
| advocate for a moment, it's also worth recognising that the
| sister ultimately made a very sensible and protective decision
| for herself, even if the trigger turned out to be an advert
| rather than a delusional message.
|
| For someone with a history of psychosis, misinterpreting an
| ambiguous or out-of-place stimulus, especially one that feels
| personal and unexpected, can be an early warning sign that their
| symptoms are shifting. The distinction between advertisement and
| communication may seem obvious to someone who is currently well,
| but for her, that specific moment must have felt real enough to
| question her own stability. Instead of ignoring it, hiding it, or
| hoping it would pass, all things that can lead to deterioration,
| she sought help immediately. That takes insight. In a lot of
| cases, people only end up in hospital after things have escalated
| far further.
|
| Two days of monitoring and a medication review may feel excessive
| in hindsight, but it also means clinicians were given the chance
| to catch something early rather than during a crisis. If
| anything, her awareness that "something was wrong" and her
| ability to mobilise herself to A&E suggests she still has some
| protective judgement intact.
|
| Regarding the advert, yes, it was an unfortunate coincidence and
| the tone clearly could be upsetting to many people even without a
| mental health condition. But unpredictable stimuli are a part of
| the world, and the goal in recovery is often less about
| eliminating triggers and more about learning to manage responses
| when they occur. What happened here may actually give her care
| team useful information about how she's processing her
| environment and whether her medication is adequately supporting
| her perception and reasoning under stress.
|
| In short, while the situation is distressing, she may have
| handled it in the safest way possible. She saw something
| alarming, she recognised she might not be thinking clearly, and
| she took action rather than letting it spiral. That's not
| nothing.
|
| What may matter more now is how they both plan for situations
| like this in the future, who she contacts, what early signs she
| notices, how to reality-check things before they escalate, and
| how her care team can support her if these misinterpretations
| become more frequent.
|
| The brother handled a stressful situation, the sister acted to
| keep herself safe, and they both have more information to work
| with going forward.
| teekert wrote:
| I love technology but avoid all the smart stuff because it's all
| shit, all spyware, all will eventually show ads. Its a perversion
| of something that could have been so nice.
|
| I have Philips Hue lights, it started out great, now every time I
| open that app it slaps an ad in my face. I paid hundreds of euros
| for that system. Never again.
| djaouen wrote:
| I, for one, welcome our new fridge overlords. Might I also remind
| them that I can be useful in rounding up, _hoarding_ , if you
| will, other humans for fridge-related activities thanks to my
| 39-year experience with ice, frozen fruits, etc.
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