r/Millennials • u/A-Helpful-Flamingo Elder Millennial • 12d ago

Meme Nice to have common ground

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u/fieregon 12d ago

Is this an american thing? My tv, fridge or car doesnt require any of that.

11

u/chiharuki 12d ago

You have the option to not get the fancy stuff that does all that

1

u/Haunting-Appeal-649 12d ago edited 12d ago

No, you really do not. You have it backwards. The problem isn't people are paying extra for things they don't need, the problem is it's actually cheaper for companies to shove "smart" tech into everything.

A bunch of otherwise reliable car brands are ripping out all of their buttons for tesla knockoff interfaces, which look somewhat sleek but will hardly work a year after you buy them. They don't do this for funsies, it's literally cheaper to put a touchscreen into cars vs buttons that actually work. And so now you have to slide through 5 menus just to turn your fucking AC on.

It's not quite the same story for Smart TVs, but it costs them literally nothing to make a Smart TV. Half the time, they just throw the same build of Android on it. And in return, they get the chance to do ads, collect data, and get a cut of streaming subscriptions. They are leaving free money on the table by making a dumb TV. For the consumer, getting a Smart TV fucking sucks, not just for the ads, but because the software is shit and degrades very easily. I have to click like 15 buttons just to turn down the brightness on my TV, and it lags through every menu. I would just get a dumb TV and put a Roku in it, but I have yet to see one that has a half decent size and picture.

It's only getting worse year over year. Everything now needs wifi and gives companies the opportunity to enshittify everything we own.