LG to offer subscriptions for already purchased appliances and televisions, evolving into a provider for “Home as a Service”::Subscription fatigue is a thing and regulators are circling, but Korean giant reckons you’re ready to cough up after buying hardware
Great. Gonna have to get rid of my LG oled now huh?
Just castrate its access to internet. Initially you can full block it, in time people will figure out which domains need to be blocked. If they can’t upgrade your firmware, they can’t install these new features.
I suspect they’ll include cellular radios in the near future so the appliance does not depend on the “consumer” to provide data access.
With a cellular data subscription that we will then be required to pay a monthly fee for, to make sure the TV continues to work. You didn’t think they’d be giving this away for free, right?
We’ll see. I think they will use the route of least resistance. But subscription based services are here to stay.
That is unlikely to happen as it would require contract with local providers, expensive GSM hardware, etc. Luckily at the moment they still don’t know just how much they can push, so they are testing the waters by dipping fingers in it.
I may be lucky. I am an expat, and I bought mine in China. Now I am in Malaysia. So I may not have this issue. But your points are likely true.
This is fucking ridiculous! Do you have to buy a subscription in order to use the appliance? If so, it seems to me that this would constitute unfair trade practice. Some shit just does not belong on the internet. Can you imagine the serious and life threatening situation that could develop, if say, somebody hacked into a system and turned gas stoves on and a fire developed? No, it’s time to draw the line at IoT!
You’ll own nothing and be happy.
Fuck it! I’ll be old fashioned and use an outdoor grill.
The people who downvoted you are either unaware of where things are going, or they have no ability to comprehend humor.
Mark my words we are soon going to have to subscribe to our toilets. You get one flush a day for free. Save money by subscribing to the flush-lite which gives you 2 additional flushes. If you choose not to subscribe, you will be charged 2.99 for each flush beyond the first one.
Yup. The privatization of everything ends up with every moment of our existence monitored and metered and billed.
I literally have paid a toilet subscription for the past 10 years.
Its the fee on my water bill called waste removal.
Power is a subscription model, you want to have power at your house you pay a quarterly connection fee on top of what you use.
Yeah, in my facetiousness, I forgot that I actually do something remarkably similar in terms of a sewer bill.
Don’t give them any shitty ideas
LOL! I know right.
There will also be a free tier, where you have to watch adds for a whole toilet visit in order to flush.
If it’s yellow let it mellow. Is it’s brown flush it down. Possibly for $2.99. And unlock your toilet paper dispenser for just $1.99 per every 10 one-ply squares.
Commenting from an LG phone (last one produced) next to an LG tv. Will never purchase another one of their products in my life, even before this article.
I have a dumb LG TV and idek how I’ll replace it when it’s finished. Do they even sell dumb TV’s anymore?
You have to buy a “smart tv”, never connect it to wifi and plug a proper media device to it.
What I’ve done.
Are there really only smart tvs nowM
Search for the ones that are meant for retail use. I don’t recall what they’re called, but that class of tvs will get you a decent dumb tv.
Digital signage? They’re basically monitors but often have a basic onboard OS like Android for running DS apps, but like you said they’re otherwise a dumb TV without the aerial port.
Do they even have good image quality?
I have a dumb tv now, I plan to replace it with a computer monitor. Sound and video go through my reciever already, which sends the video to my tv. Chromecast and a rpi to do any smart things.
I think those are called “commercial displays” now.
Don’t buy LG?
I don’t plan on it after my current TV goes. This one was given to me when my parents got a new TV.
Is LG the same brand as the printer that stopped working without a subscription? I saw it recently on Lemmy, can’t remember if it was LG or maybe HP or something…
That post was HP. LG is a korean company which makes lots of home appliances like washing machines, fridges, vac cleaner, etc.
Thanks a lot
Fucking Chaebols. They’re like a Corporate Dynasty, essentially.
There’s only one way I’d be OK with “subscribing” to use a LG fridge: I don’t pay anything upfront and I don’t need to pay for any repairs. If I don’t even get to own it, then I shouldn’t be responsible for fixing it when it dies and spoils all my food after a year or two, nor should I need to pay for a new fridge when I give up on it after those repairs inevitably fail again. Same with their TVs when the cheap capacitors die early.
If I subscribe to rent your product, the onus is on you to make it reliable enough that it lasts until the subscription turns a profit.
Since that won’t be their business model, I’m better off buying a half decent brand and then flushing $1000 down the toilet. Fuck LG appliances. (And fuck Samsung appliances while we’re here.)
Very much fuck Samsung. LG actually produces a decent product, even if this subscription bullshit exists. Samsung are just planned obsolescence trashboxes.
in 2022 it revealed a scheme called “Evolving Appliances For You" that promised software upgrades to home appliances. The company offered the example of a family that moves to a different home, and different climate, and upgrades its clothes drier with routines suited to local conditions.
This is fucking hilarious. Nobody, and I really do mean nobody, actually wants a dryer that you need to pay a subscription fee for just in case one day you move house so it can try to reconfigure itself.
This and this article might be a little more concise.
It sounds like more ads for smart tvs, and a subscription service for extra features for smart appliances - like a chatbot for your fridge or dishwasher or something.
It doesn’t necessarily sound evil to me it just sounds completely retarded. I’m all about tech making life easier but it’s genuinely hard to imagine why I would want a smart dishwasher. I want a dumbass dishwasher who’s actions are solely determined by the 3 buttons on it.
It will be interesting to see how the market responds to this. It’s hard to imagine that really anyone will be seduced by the idea of a “smart” home with these sorts of intangible benefits.
Wait until they program the devices to lock down until you pay a fee to turn them on.
It’s a solution in search of a problem. May as well start selling home appliance NFTs while they’re at it.
Well, as someone who moves between Africa and Finland with my tumble dryer twice a month this will be a godsend.
Until they region-lock your dryer.
I used to like LG products they were often really good quality and lasted a long time.
That’s pretty much over now, not touching new LG products anymore. That’s for sure!
I had an LG CRT and it was as old as me. Never died. It’s a real shame the planet is suffering because of greedy business practices. They put climate change on the consumer but more needs to be done to big corporations to punish this kind of behaviour.
This is why I like dumb products. The smarter they are the more they tac on this kind of crap to them.
Their gadgets built their fame because they just worked and were built like a tank. My grandparents had their stuff (from Goldstar era) and they still keep chugging.
None of this “as a service” bs will please the lifetime customers.
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Nah, smart TV with media box. You get the ad adjusted price, you merely don’t hook it up to the Internet.
I’m never buying a “smart” anything, aside from phones. I put up with Android and it already feels like too much.
By all means. But “smart” TVs come at a discount because they believe they’ll have opportunities to make revenue off of those features. However, if you prevent the thing from connecting to the Internet then you get the best of both worlds. Cheaper and ad free.
What is “media box”?
Chromecast, Kodi, Roku, Apple TV, Nvidia shield, fire TV, etc.
I have a Fire Stick and a newer Vizio TV. For a while I could tell Alexa to turn in the TV: the Fire Stick would turn on, then use HDMI-CEC to turn on the TV and select its input. Worked great and I didn’t have to deal with Vizio
Then at some point Alexa started controlling the TV itself instead. Now I have to choose whether to deal with Vizio or to do more clicks to get to my streaming device. I really need to figure out how to get the original configuration back
Fire TV firmware also just gets worse and worse with each new version. Netflix app also follows suit.
Does it? I’ve never had one. I have a Kodi box and a Chromecast. I’ll be sure to avoid the fire brand, then.
The one saving grace is that it’s cheap and you can install Kodi on it.
You don’t get any dumb TVs in my country anymore. I’d assume its the same everywhere else unless you’re going back a minimum 5 years of tech evolution, which might not be all too bad.
My LG TV from 2017 that’s not getting any updates anymore feels great this time of the year :D
Might as well just rent a house. lol
Well, point of fact, if you have a mortgage, your landlord becomes the bank anyway. You only get to own it after 30 years, and that is, if you haven’t needed to take out a home equity loan or other line of credit against your home to make necessary repairs.
Well yes and no, in the sense that a landlord can evict you for reasons other than failure to pay rent (YMMV depending on your country) and in some places where housing is hard to come by, a financed house ensures that you won’t be evicted because the landlord wants to make yet another Airbnb out of your apartment.
Even if you have a mortgage, better hope you don’t have an HOA that can put a lien on your house for not paying the monthly fees
It’s true, if you buy a place with an HOA in the US (not living there so the thought didn’t even reach my mind) you have to check their rules as part of your due diligence. I know it’s tempting because the place looks oh so good/the price is low/there are 20 other people waiting but you can dodge some serious bullets of you don’t overlook it.
In my neck of the woods you have to be careful about upcoming renovations that were voted by the “HOA” before you buy but have yet to be funded by the homeowners. You can be forced to chip in to pay for a big reno (exterior walls, HVAC…) even though you didn’t vote for it. But I guess it can also happen in the States.
You’re paying a mortgage regardless. If you “own” you can sell the house and get a huge chunk of your money back.
The only caveats to owning is if your not planning on living there long term or you overpay when you purchase it.
Already was off LG products, now I am again!
Sigh. Our latest TV is an LG precisely because LG did not have ads in its OS whereas its main competitors do. Once they introduce ads, they’ll have completely lost me as a potential repeat customer.
Guess our next TV will just be a large monitor, with no “smart” shenanigans whatsoever.
Good luck. They don’t really make non-smart TVs anymore.
But I just picked up a Sony and never connect it to the internet after updating the firmware. I have an Apple TV box for an interface. I don’t need a non-upgradable streaming stick built into my TV thanks
Why even use the LG OS? I always used a fire tv stick and now nvidia shield (I don’t see ads as far as I know), which is much better supported as an Android OS instead if an LG OS.
All these “sticks” don’t have good support for domestic streaming services in my country. The native TV OS does.
I’d rather have a dedicated box and a dumb tv, the hardware rarely keeps pace than a box
My 6ish year old Sony was purchased with the built in OS as my least important quality, as I knew that someday it’d be unsupportable as far as new apps, but that a third party box would provide a good experience with a single HDMI. I’m actually still using the built in OS but I can tell that it’s getting slower and buggier, so I’m thinking of getting a Roku soon.
I tried that: they are difficult to impossible to find. I thought I was generous to be willing to pay double, but I couldn’t find a monitor with my tv’s specs for any price
I ended up getting a Vizio and to my surprise I actually use the spyOS over my streaming devices most of the time. It’s actually pretty good —- except for the ads. Even then, it mostly needs an extra click or two to open the app I want, rather than the sponsored app
That is disheartening to hear.
Exactly, I’ll be using a big monitor with an HTPC. These “smart” TVs are just horrific anymore with their ads and subs and everything else that’s a money grab. I don’t need any of that garbage.
Right now I have an older TV without a smart OS. It’s hooked up to an AV amp and a couple TV boxes. I dread replacing my TV because of the crappy operating systems they all have now. I’ll have to find a big monitor if I can even find something like that for a decent price, don’t know, haven’t looked.
I just don’t connect my TV to the internet. Once a year I update the firmware with a USB, it’s perfect.
Plug a Raspberry Pi with LibreElec into the HDMI port of any smart tv and never use the OS or connect it to wifi. I can’t fathom why people use the ad-ridden trash these TVs ship with.
While I agree that smart TVs are garbage, they’re cheap AF because of the ads and other garbage they include. Look for a dumb TV, if you can even find one nowadays, and it’s double the price. They’re subsidizing the cost of the TV with the ads and tracking.
I also have an older TV from 2008, and if it dies, I’m probably not going to replace it. I don’t use it enough that it’s worth replacing.
If you want a large monitor, those are quite expensive, especially at the sizes of today’s TVs. You can get a cheapish 40" monitor, but above that, you’re looking at a 50% premium for a monitor over a TV.
