If you're wealthy enough to waste a lot of money on a fridge you aren't buying one of these abominations. Its going to be a built in like sub-zero.

I honestly believe these fridges are not being bought in large quantities and are part of the tech bubble.

These are nowhere near the most expensive fridges. They are on the higher side of the average range.

In my experience, the people buying these fridges are low income, low tech knowledge people that got approved for (likely too much) credit.

Black electricians tape. Lots of it.

I don't even like exterior water or ice dispensers.

My phone had all of that, and I can place it in a convenient location to watch while I cook. My fridge is beside or behind me as I cook.

It's just like smart TVs.

Unless there begins to exist a new business based around lobotomizing smart devices.

And everyone needs a new fridge every 3-5 years now because they're all pieces of shit.

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.

Get a cold basement, or get some rare vintage fridge, or stop using anything that needs refrigeration is my plan.

It depends on how long the food had been in the fridge...

Counterpoint - we do not need appliances capable of running operating systems with userlands. A pre-programmed microcontroler should be more than enough for most appliances

I hate that any new tech nowadays is caveated by this perversion of right to ownership.

It's gotten to the point that I either actively seek older tech, or just go for even more expensive niche tech by small private tech players like Framework. But then my worry becomes, are these small private tech companies actually principled or are they just waiting on their exit strategy to be bought out?

Home Assistant ftw

I get they can't support an old device forever, but then a local API should be available by law.

“smart” stuff [...] these tech

That's why picking the right tech matters. My heuristic is that if you need a proprietary app, it's NOT going to be on your term, hard pass.

If you do need some connectivity, it's also probably bad.

If you do not need connectivity and it's interoperable via standards then and only then maybe it can be good.

you could reflash your fridge

Well yes, but honestly that's swimming upstream. I always discourage reverse engineering or hacking unless you do it for learning and entertainment purposes. If you love the challenge it's amazing. If you want to use the tool they you are giving away money to corporations you do not trust and you put a lot of weight on your shoulders to maintain all that over time.

I wonder how your comment will age in 1, 10, 100 years.

It's not because it includes company control.

That's why it's important to have a redundant backup fridge with a recovery verification can.

daaaaad!

Old fridges don't cost that much. My uncle's fridge costs him 3 dollars a month to run in Quebec. Compare that to a new fridge. There's not that much of a difference. The whole "energy efficient" narrative is borderline bullshit when it comes to fridges.

Not zero, about the same as the survivorship bias of old appliances.

And the electricity cost will be about 10 times lower.