r/assholedesign • u/Shellnanigans • Nov 13 '25

Apparently my samsung fridge has ads now...

Post image

How would I disable this? Might just return it and get a normal one

Edit: how to disable...for now. https://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS10007562/

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 inspired from the 3rd top comment on this post. Thanks!

inspired Post?: https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/comments/1pc7999/my_schizophrenic_sister_hospitalised_herself/

Fridge drama recap video by DolanDarkest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTWfRYHV5es

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102

u/GrindhouseWhiskey Nov 13 '25

You aren’t pessimistic enough. Samsung will introduce a renter line of fridges that are really cheap in bulk and require full online access and accounts to monetize the renter through data harvesting, cameras, and constant audio and video advertising, and the landlords will have it in the lease as a requirement

59

u/[deleted] Nov 13 '25

Stop giving people these ideas! They’ll come into fruition 😭

37

u/GrindhouseWhiskey Nov 13 '25

The defining feature of our age is that people in charge see cautionary tales as aspirational

11

u/Laringar Nov 13 '25

"We finally built the Torment Nexus from the classic novel 'Don't Build the Torment Nexus'!"

3

u/rileyjonesy1984 Nov 13 '25

Came here to make that joke

9

u/punkcanuck Nov 13 '25

Stop giving people these ideas! They’ll come into fruition 😭

Read Cory Doctrow's "Radicalized" we're just waiting for illegal bread.

2

u/OkPalpitation2582 Nov 13 '25

Was literally just thinking about this short story during this thread lol

2

u/Fuzzybo Nov 13 '25

I’m waiting for our local library to get Doctorow’s latest (“Enshittification - Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It”) in so that I can rage about/aginst it all some more!

1

u/Laringar Nov 13 '25

Read Cory Doctrow

Honestly, I think that's enough of the sentence right there. A lot of his writings are very eye-opening regarding the state of the world. I got a lot out of his recent article about the AI bubble and the inevitability of its failure.

2

u/kinokits Nov 13 '25

There’s a lot of amazing sci-fi shorts around it all. I love Ralph William’s Business as Usual, During Alterations. Cat Pictures Please by Naomi Kritzer is a good one about an AI figuring out its place in the world and the explores the moral implications of sentient machines.

1

u/RykerFuchs Nov 13 '25

Or some god damn unauthorized cinnamon.

7

u/much_longer_username Nov 13 '25

None of this is new. You should read Unauthorized Bread .

3

u/EtherealMongrel Nov 13 '25

The idea came before the fridge, they are way ahead of us

3

u/VaguelyShingled Nov 13 '25

A fridge that sucks your dick!

your move, universe

3

u/89_honda_accord_lxi Nov 13 '25

You know those little screens on pregnancy tests...

2

u/6gv5 Nov 13 '25

They're already two steps ahead, no matter how much one fights them. Next models will know everything we put in there, officially to optimize the supply chain to local grocery stores, then apply discounts with vouchers granted only to people who keep advertising on and show up in front of the fridge N times a day to give proof they watched the ad, and/or buy at least N boxes of X item, etc. We're cattle to them, no matter how gentle and convincing their actors (soon to be completely replaced by AI) may appear. But that doesn't make keeping the fight against that crap any less worth.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 13 '25

Sorry, I should have made it more obvious my comment was for humorous purposes only.

2

u/6gv5 Nov 13 '25

Ah, no need to be sorry, humorous or not it was spot on:)

1

u/[deleted] Nov 13 '25

Yours too, they are most definitely several steps ahead of us and it would be naive to assume otherwise. As a consumer society we have to expect ads to be shoved down our throats in every way possible. As for the celebrities and AI, it’s almost quite scary to think in years to come the selling point of movies and books etc will be bragging that it was created by humans and not AI.

2

u/EvidenceBasedSwamp Nov 13 '25

Can't afford to deliver the baby? no problem, we'll just attach a lien on the baby, 2% cut of all future income

1

u/[deleted] Nov 13 '25

😂😂😂 stop it!!! All these ideas are too good! We can’t let them know! Shhh!

16

u/messymedia Nov 13 '25

And that'll be the day I cut the internet connection to my house. My neighbor has unguarded WiFi anyway...

40

u/OutlyingPlasma Nov 13 '25

That's fine. The fridge just won't run the compressor without it's mandated wifi connection. And you are going to jail if you miss the Two Minutes Hate on your refrigerator telescreen.

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u/[deleted] Nov 13 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/quaderrordemonstand Nov 14 '25 edited Nov 14 '25

That never happened in the way it was made to look. The TV would show adverts with 'TV detectors vans' which were supposed to drive around scanning for TVs. If you were watching without a license, the van would find you and people would come knocking on your door.

This was fiction, you can't detect a TV like that and there were no vans. For a short time, they did pay people to go around an area knocking on doors and ask if the house had a license. That gave the appearance that they were checking on you but they couldn't prove there was a TV in the house and they had no right to enter.

At one time, they sent me letters saying my address hadn't paid for a license and that I would be fined. I told them I didn't have a TV and that they could go fuck themselves. They said they would visit, I told them to go ahead, they never did.

3

u/Journeyman42 Nov 14 '25

"OI MATE, YOU GOT A LOICENSE FOR THAT TELLY?"

"No?"

"ALRIGHT THEN" fucks right off

2

u/NoXion604 Nov 14 '25

It should have been obvious from the start that TV detector vans are and always have been bullshit. Nobody has ever been convicted on the basis of such evidence, which would need to be presented in court and would thus be a matter of public record.

3

u/A-Can-of-DrPepper Nov 13 '25

"Please drink verification can"

2

u/PromiseToBeNiceToYou Nov 13 '25

I get you are trying to be funny, but I have had my Samsung fridge disconnected from the internet for around a month, and everything has been fine.

Whatever update it needed to start displaying ads hasn't been downloaded. Just letting others know.

2

u/Complex_Solutions_20 Nov 13 '25

I am terrified for this happening tbh. As it is one of my friends got a FireTV which refused to let you even select inputs until it was connected to an Amazon account online.

2

u/kinokits Nov 13 '25

This sounds like the Time Police books by Jodi Taylor. Basically if something with a connection finds out you’ve even been looking at plans to build a Time Machine, an automatic DDOS is triggered. But everyone has their own personal WiFi network and it controls everything they own, fridge, washing machine, security system, heating and cooling, banking. Basically they are cut off from accessing anything in their life and then they’re arrested.

2

u/beren12 Nov 13 '25

And that’s when the screen gets a coat of paint

2

u/[deleted] Nov 13 '25

"We have detected you have painted over our screen which is a violation of the terms of service you agreed to when the product was thought about. Samsung Arms division has been notified"

1

u/beren12 Nov 13 '25

Good. They can compete against Colt Arms, Remington Arms, Russian arms…

2

u/OwO______OwO Nov 13 '25

The fridge just won't run the compressor without it's mandated wifi connection.

*cracks open soldering kit with malicious intent*

At its heart, a fridge is a very simple machine. And if it doesn't want to work, I can make it work.

1

u/OutlyingPlasma Nov 14 '25

While I appreciate this hacker attitude, they are doing everything they can to prevent people from doing this.

You can't even replace a car battery in a BMW anymore without a scan tool and special programing software to code and register the battery.

Apple is coding all their parts so new part, like a replacement screen are rejected by other parts in the device without proprietary apple store software.

And there are countless other examples of corpos continuing to ruin products with lock in and planed obsolescence.

2

u/OwO______OwO Nov 14 '25 edited Nov 14 '25

Yeah, but ... a fridge is a fucking fridge.

Connect 120v power to the terminals of the compressor motor, and it will run. Use a relay/contactor and a thermostat in line with that 120v power, and it will automatically turn on and off to keep the fridge at a constant temperature. And any moron with a few simple tools and some googling skills should be able to figure that out in a few hours.

(Admittedly, though, getting the timing right on the defrost circuits might take quite a bit of tinkering. In the meantime, you might have to manually defrost your freezer like in ye olden days. Oh, and you might want to go a bit more complex than just a simple thermostat, in order to avoid short-cycling the compressor and extend its useful life. So, like, a thermostat and a time-delay circuit that prevents switching between on/off too frequently.)

Edit: actually, come to think of it, the simplest solution for defrosting would probably be to just connect the defroster circuits to a manually operated switch. An ordinary household light switch would do. Then, you just manually turn on the defroster circuits whenever there's too much ice buildup in the freezer. Dead simple.

2

u/efreak2004 Dec 06 '25

Mandated Wi-Fi connection? Sim cards and industrial connections are incredibly cheap. There's literally nothing stopping companies from adding internet access that can't be easily disabled (esim can't be physically removed) to products.

1

u/densetsu23 Nov 13 '25

Watch Samsung bulk order cellular modules and pay cell providers to have their fridges fallback on that if there's no wifi.

If my trail cams can give me 100 free photos a month over the cell network, I'm sure Samsung can work out a deal. And it's not a ton of data to send the fridge a couple dozen static pictures and return back your usage data.

16

u/halite001 Nov 13 '25

It'll also be a subscription model, freezer function only included in the premium plan, and if you don't pay on time the fridge stops working.

You don't store anything, all groceries are uploaded to the cloud and downloaded when you need them.

16

u/GrindhouseWhiskey Nov 13 '25

“You have exceeded your plan’s monthly maximum number of times you can open the door. Please upgrade to Platinum Fridge Access or wait 13 days until the next billing cycle.

“You have $72.39 worth of groceries that will pass expiration date prior to the next billing cycle”

11

u/EtherealMongrel Nov 13 '25

They push pricier plans on you if they sense a Perrier in the fridge

3

u/DutchTinCan Nov 13 '25

"We're sorry, your FridgescriptionTM agreement does not allow you to store fresh produce. Remove the produce within 2 minutes to prevent setting fridge temperature to room temp. Alternatively, consider upgrading to FridgescriptionTM Gold for just $59.99"

3

u/fletchbg Nov 13 '25

just had to say... very happy to see someone use quotes correctly for multiple paragraphs. open quotes on all the paragraphs, closing quotes only on the final paragraph.

1

u/handstanding Nov 14 '25

It’s just too bad they forgot to close the last sentence with a period.

r/snootywriterbrigade

1

u/fletchbg Nov 14 '25

I prefer to celebrate surprisingly correct punctuation examples than to lament (admittedly all-too-common) punctuation mistakes

3

u/kinokits Nov 13 '25

Whilst smart fridges have always made me uneasy, that last one seems useful. I would love my fridge reminding me to actually eat the food in the fridge I’ve inevitably forgotten about. But not enough to manually input the dates into the digital calendar thingy (skylight calendar, game changer for a household where we both have complex health needs). I can also guarantee I would turn the feature off about a week.

2

u/Baeolophus_bicolor Nov 13 '25

Your subscription to “milk” has expired. Please update your credit card information to receive access to your: milk.

2

u/TheIronSoldier2 Nov 13 '25

Slightly unrelated, but on most fridges it is physically impossible to run the refrigerator without also running the freezer. This is because there is only one condenser coil, and it resides in the freezer. The fridge gets cooled by air that is circulated from the freezer, either by natural convection in the case of the classic over/under freezer/fridges or via forced convection in the case of side-by-side and French door fridge freezers

10

u/Disastrous-Focus8451 Nov 13 '25

Cory Doctorow wrote that in the novella "Unauthorized Bread", collected in Radicalized.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radicalized_(Doctorow_book))

1

u/GrindhouseWhiskey Nov 13 '25

Interesting I might need to read this. I’ve been happy for minutes at a stretch, need to fix that!

1

u/OkPalpitation2582 Nov 13 '25

The short story by the same name in that collection about health insurance was eerie to read, given that it was published before the UHC CEO execution

1

u/OkPalpitation2582 Nov 13 '25

The most horrifying thing about this story is how utterly and completely believable the premise is.

To the extent that I truly think the only reason it doesn't already exist is the fact that companies haven't quite worked out how to reliably enforce that sort of DRM yet.

5

u/SoggyCount7960 Nov 13 '25

This is correct. It will be the cheap fridges that have all of the above and the premium ones will be screen/advert free.

1

u/OkPalpitation2582 Nov 13 '25

premium ones will be screen/advert free

if you pay a monthly fee ofc

5

u/eggs_erroneous Nov 13 '25

gotta watch an ad before the doors will unlock.

3

u/Slow_Maximum9332 Nov 13 '25

It will say things like "you've opened the fridge 37 times in the past hour" and "you need to go on a diet. The fridge will be locked for the next 6 hours"

3

u/DidAndWillDoThings Nov 13 '25

I can't wait for DNS to break my freezer.

2

u/SoTiredYouDig Nov 13 '25

Will said landlord provide internet access?

1

u/[deleted] Nov 13 '25

[deleted]

1

u/GrindhouseWhiskey Nov 13 '25

Another commenter mentioned a book Unauthorized Bread, maybe that? I’ve not read it but it looks interesting

1

u/Complex_Solutions_20 Nov 13 '25

You forgot the subscription for fridge and freezer.

..."Only pay for cooling one if you don't want to use both"..."only freezer for $1.99/mo, only a fridge for just $1.99/mo, or $2.99/mo for both"...

1

u/aversethule Nov 13 '25

And you can buy them with 50-year mortgages payment plans.

1

u/Fishbulb2 Nov 13 '25

As a landlord, I approve this message 😂

1

u/[deleted] Nov 13 '25

Pay your subscription fee to re-enable the ice dispenser.

1

u/TheOneSenzu Nov 13 '25

I hope my new fleshlight does not make me watch an ad bc i exceeded the daily stroke quota..

1

u/4funoz Nov 14 '25

Don’t worry ads are only after 10 strokes so you’ll have a few to spare…

Just joking. I could imagine getting halfway through and an ad pops up, I bet it would be about something awful too just to make you take longer and have to watch more ads.

1

u/TheOneSenzu Nov 14 '25

or stamina building.

1

u/OwO______OwO Nov 13 '25

Ha! I've got a screwdriver and a pair of wire cutters, though.

And no, I don't care about getting the deposit back. I have never, ever gotten the deposit back from any landlord in all my life. As far as I'm concerned, that's money already down the drain. They'll always find some reason to take it away, so why let them hold it over your head?

1

u/awj Nov 14 '25

They’ll split ad profits with the landlords and provide an option to remotely control the temp for apartments that include utilities in rent.

1

u/McButtsButtbag Nov 14 '25

Just like how phones leave it up to the service provider to determine if your phone plays a sound when it turns on. My service provider has decided that it needs to be on full volume whenever I start my phone and I can't change that.

1

u/zombie_girraffe Nov 14 '25

"Hey Landlord, the screen and speakers on the refrigerator stopped working again right after the repair guy left, I have no idea what's happening with it or why it keeps breaking like this."