This is definitely on the horizon and future generations won’t even be aware of a time when you didn’t pay a subscription for every aspect of life. (TikTok screencap)

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[–] 3 points 1 year ago (8 children)

Nah, fridges are simple enough that I guarantee it's trivial to rip all the smart bits out and still have a functioning fridge. Or just buy and old one, my grandparents still have their fridge from like 1970s and it still works.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Sure it works, it also uses more electricity than the rest of the electrical devices in the house.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    We've figured out how to do fridges a long time ago, there's really not much to it: a well insulated box, radiators inside and outside, a pump, a metering device, and a thermostat. Sure, all components have been optimized a bit, but the power usage only went down by like half in the past 50 years, it's not as bad as you're describing.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    I guarantee it’s trivial to rip all the smart bits out and still have a functioning fridge

    Unfortunately, it is not. The "smart bits" are doing the job of a control board in a dumb fridge. If the tablet shits the bed, you won't get cooling until you factory reset it and get the tablet working again.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (2 children)

    I've never had a fridge with a control board, it's usually just a compressor connected via a two-connection control thingy which prevents it from starting too often, and a relay that's controlled by a thermostat. If they managed to replace that with a control board... Why?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Just about every fridge sold (meant for residential use, in the US) in (at least) the last 10 years has a control board in it. The only exceptions are the really cheap and small top-mount fridges, and even then it is only the ones with physical knobs that might not have a control board. Anything with buttons or a display has a control board. Many appliances with knobs also have control boards (sorry to everyone buying laundry based on "it has knobs, I trust it more").

    As for why - because they can. What are you gonna do, not own a fridge? Keep paying someone to fix an old one (or learn to fix it yourself)? Very few people will do that. Most people will bend over and pay.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Wow, fuck that. Thankfully fixing the electrics of an old fridge is really easy (as there are so few components and they are very simple); and I've never had issues with refrigerant leaking.

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