zlacker

>>hliyan+(OP)
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.

>>globul+t5
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.