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.
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.
The problem is today you can't really tell anymore whether this "Carol" the ad was addressing is the advertiser knowing that it's your name or just a random "clever" reference to a character in the TV show, I mean even after getting the resolution that it's the latter, nobody can be sure if this excludes the former, like the algorithm decided to send Carol an ad about a show with a Carol in it. It's not good to have to make up your mind about it even when you are not suffering from schizophrenia.
It's annoying, it's intrusive, it wastes your time and ruins your day. And it makes you hate your new tech, makes you hate tech in general, because it's a big "fuck you we can do what we want with you now" towards the customers. No wonder Luddites are making a come back, that's just self-defense.
If it was up to a jury, the creepy ads might not get much sympathy.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_with_Disabilities_Ac...
"Was it out in front of Discount Shoe Outlet?"
"Yeah..."
"They have a college kid wear that to attract customers."
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
From Ubik
Speaking of, better tip the toaster.
I do think some kind of ethics training/education/licensing/organization is long overdue for software devs.
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.
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 ?
No idea if it's not photoshopped though.
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
for the curious, https://www.healthcentral.com/condition/schizophrenia/blindn...
"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!"
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.
Did you read the post? It's somebody talking about what happened to their sister.
No, it should be illegal even when done willingly. Because this worsens the bargaining position of everyone else.
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.
* 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.
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
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.
Whenever a platform is popular these days I just assume it is more addictive.
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.
Obviously made up.
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.
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.
I don’t think the story is real. But people who want it to be true are easily convinced.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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)
The main character is called "Carol". As also, it seems is the person who saw it here.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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".
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...
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.
https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/privacynotincluded/cate...
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...
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.
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…
If the fridge is in my house and hammers aren't banned yet then that fridge will not be showing me ads.
How would you propose to deal with apartments having every fridge be a smart one?
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 >>46173339 .
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.
https://x.com/tbpn/status/1996352945710117030 / https://archive.fo/lTFWl
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.
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.”
I find it plausible at least.
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.
"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.
"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.
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.
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.
I have yet to run into a TV that doesn't work entirely offline at any pricepoint
(And yes: the karma farmers are either deranged addicts or warming up accounts for onward sale.)
On the other hand, I don't trust a company that puts ads on their fridges.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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...
Vermont bans billboards on high ways. It's so nice.
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.
Because of this, I believe that solutions will be developed. Nothing is 100% fool-proof, but the government depends on a solution being found.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
So, in the US:
340MM people -> 1360 born-blind people who would develop schizophrenia
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.
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%.
Also, they do care. They just might not be consciously aware of the damage it causes.
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.
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.
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.
Good org on the other side of the issue: Scenic America: https://www.scenic.org/why-scenic-conservation/billboards-an...
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.
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.
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.
It was different, but it was great. I would absolutely go back.
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?
I’m still awaiting your email, good luck!
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.
it is interesting to consider that at any point the thoughts in one's skull are not necessarily their own
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.
Then you failed to read and understand what I wrote at all. And so there is no point in further written conversation. Good day.
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.
I even saw a "you should be looking at the road" ad on one of those billboards.
This story, while fun to discuss, should be flagged, and not on the FP of HN.
[1] >>46171868
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.
How much meaningful experience do you have with psychosis and mental illness?
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.
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] >>46173338
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.
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.
Ads absolutely are that bad
This is an ad in someone's kitchen in their home. How can it get more invasive?
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Citation please.
Humans are an apathetic bunch.
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.
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?
If you're advertising me milk on a fridge I paid full price of, send me a full sized sample of the product.
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.
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.
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.
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...
You continue to visit these websites.
If you don’t want their code running on your machine, simply don’t send a GET request.
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?
[0] https://www.amazon.com/All-new-Amazon-Kindle-Paperwhite-glar...
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.
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.
I loved Usenet, but I also appreciated being able to have a personal webpage for free as a kid, and that was ad-supported.
PM me if interested.
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.
Ultimately its just another manipulation to part you with your money in other ways than you intended, nothing more and nothing less.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
An ad sitting on a screen in my personal space sounds like a dystopian novel.
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.
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?
However, their ads are crazy "in your face." They haven't given up, at all. They doubled down.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
If there really was a Carol I think police should look into this theory just to rule it out.
Why didn't you read the EULA is like asking a roofie victim why didn't they have a chemist analyze their drink first.
In any case, totally agree, ad companies are out of control, I'm hoping more Kagi like services start appearing soon.
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
Of course, I was quickly conditioned off of that response to billboards, which I consider natural.
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.
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.
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 (€1500 vs €500). Even in the huge "American style" fridges, there's a sizable price difference (€1500 vs €1000) before you get to the first smart fridge.
You're right, this website is headed on the down slope and your comment proves it perfectly.
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.
There's also the fact that the problem was never about touchscreens per se, but inappropriate/incompetent UI design that happened to use touchscreens.
Your issue there is with the government. No disagreement from me in this regard :)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Rumors are that Apple Maps advertising is incoming soon
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.
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.
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.
“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?
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
There are "business TVs", which are pure displays. Sceptre sells a whole line of dumb TVs. They also sell widescreen computer monitors.
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.
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
Now Youtube mostly shows me ads for fake AI generated products and other scams.
Too bad for the backslash, it’s a great show.
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.
The timing is just unsettling like i'm having a laugh and then subliminally the next frame is a raw skin lesion
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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...
Companies should have more limited speech than individuals. Nerfing the concept of “corporate personhood” will be a key part of fixing our problems IMHO.
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.
> "Users should have choice & control."
Given that people currently are not able to choose to be free from advertisements in any practical way, even if abstaining from luxuries, some sort of severe regulation seems necessary.
I asked some coworkers about this and they had all adopted names that sounded like their Chinese names. Except Xiaofong who didn't have anything to match. It was mid 90's so we gifted him Ronaldo (Brazilian version, best and full sized Ronaldo) and he loved it.
or just all of the TVs you can pop over to Best Buy or Walmart and toss in your car?
Plenty of non-smart displays out there.
The legal advice subreddits are, unfortunately, often the target of some creative writing exercises. I feel like this is probably one, but acknowledge we'll never know for sure.
Either way it's a terrible ad and fridges shouldn't have ads.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/1ow6cpu/appa...
Yes, it is technically possible to de-fang some TVs, but it should not be necessary.
