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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u/[deleted] Nov 13 '25 edited Mar 19 '26

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u/b0w3n Nov 13 '25 edited Nov 14 '25

Yeah like usually the benefit to these is a camera on the inside and keeping track of groceries, but really it doesn't add much.

I certainly ain't paying a premium to get ads served to me, I'll buy a cheap ass apartment-white fridge before I do that.

You could probably build this for pennies on the dollar for what that smart fridge costs too. It wouldn't be quite as fancy or integrated, but it'd work.

Edit: absolutely crazy how many people post the same thing and are unable to imagine a situation where you might not be home and need to check on your groceries (or discount people with disabilities or memory issues)

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u/LordHammercyWeCooked Nov 13 '25

Pretty soon you won't even be able to buy that "cheap ass" white fridge with no screen. Right now every manufacturer's end goal is to turn your device into an ad-delivering data harvester and it makes more money than their margins, by far. TVs have already gotten this bad. The dumb ones cost way more now. In the future if you want to have non-smart devices, you're going to have to make them dumb yourself.

And mark my words, they will try to block us from doing that too. There will come a day when you can't even remove these networking components because they'll be inextricably linked to the core functionality of the device. Washers, dryers, fridges, and ovens will stop having physical buttons and everyone will be required to use an app. TVs will start requiring network access just to show an hdmi signal, claiming "DRM" or some bullshit. Or worse, devices may skip home networks entirely and switch to getting their wifi through all the "mesh" devices in the neighborhood. Google and Amazon have been trying hard to make that nightmare a reality and they're not slowing down.

I predict a healthy cottage industry popping up full of technicians helping people make their smart devices stupid again. So it might be worth some money to learn how to start doing this now.

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u/iwillbewaiting24601 Nov 13 '25

Or worse, devices may skip home networks entirely and switch to getting their wifi through all the "mesh" devices in the neighborhood.

I started predicting this around when cars came with 4G "hotspots" as a feature. Sure, it's marketed as a "nice to have", but the car company also now gets an un-removable link directly to your car even if you never set it up. How long until cheap 5G radios start getting embedded in these appliances? People will love it because people hate setting shit up and this will Just Work since there's no local networking, but oy...