When I can pay for services that don’t show me ads, why would I pay for one that does?

Don't worry, they are gradually taking that option away too.

Joke's on you: product placement in movies. The ads are already there.

Why you'd connect it to the internet in the first place is a mystery to me

Yeah, I might accept that.

Actually, I could use a new fridge...

Ok, who wants to pay me a subscription fee to give me a fridge? Get in line, I'll only be accepting applicants today!

It could be moved onto a special "reservation" where it could continue to live in its own way, with its ancient customs and traditions.

Start with the example of the city of São Paulo, the 4th largest city in the world, which banned all outdoor advertising many years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cidade_Limpa

How would you even do that? Marketing is tied up into every single purchasing decision we make. The colors and fonts on the packaging; the perceived value or luxury of the store you're buying it from; the placement of the products within that store; the price of the product itself. All of these signal things about the perceived value of the product and influence what people purchase.

There are some things I want to know about that may or may not be considered advertising. Stuff like a band I like going on tour, or a video game I'm interested in releasing.

Maybe in your world those could just be like opt-in newsletters.

I think allowing print and physical media would enable using signs outside your building, use branding on your documents, etc. plus make it more valuable for the already dying media of print, and also pretty much make advertising an opt in situation since you can choose to engage in it, rather than having something like the fucking sphere blazed into your retina with the power of 15 suns in the middle of the night.

Banning "marketing" in general is impossible. In order for humans to survive, we need to acquire means of sustenance. With social division of labor, you cannot acquire all the means of sustenance you need by yourself or within your immediate community. As such, a market is necessary to exchange commodities, including means of sustenance and means of production, and the mere act of bringing a commodity to a market is, by definition, marketing.

Banning advertising in general is more possible, but probably a bad idea. Imagine you want to buy bread. How would you go about that? Look for a "bakery" sign? Whoops, that's advertising, can't have that. Your best bet then is, like, going into every single open door on the street until you find a bakery, which doesn't sound good at all.

What we should do is regulate advertising down to its minimum necessary function, which is helping people find what they are already looking for, plus maybe PSA type of ads (e.g. reminding you to get vaccinated and stuff). So yeah, most modern ads should be banned, but some should be kept because there is some actual use in them.

How about... we go a step further and just stop making appliances "smart"?

My toaster doesn't need AI to tell the difference between a fucking bagel and a slice of bread. They already figured out solutions to this shit decades ago.

I don't think a content provider should be allowed to have more than 5-10% of their content be advertisements.

Website screen space, newspapers, tv channels, etc

Instagram shouldn't have more than 1-2 sponsored post for every 20 posts. At the moment it seems closer to 10.

An hour long TV slot shouldn't have more than 3-6 minutes of advertisement. At the moment it's closer to 20-30.

I'm sure it's in the pipeline, with sounds. Gonna have our appliances acting like gas pumps do.

Have you used one of those gas pumps with a screen recently? That's definitely where it's going.

Then people will claim no one was buying the normal ones. *looks at light trucks and smartphones with a headphone jack*

In which case a new industry appears that makes smart appliances stupid.

I like my Motorola it's on the cheaper side but it has an AUX and a disturbingly good battery. Still android so you have to deal with BS, but hey the slightly better model has an microSD card slot so that's good I guess.

Oh thank fuck I disabled updates holy hell my phone would be in a billion pieces and my wife would kill me for destroying my phone.

I don't know there are a lot of features on a smart fridge that are pretty cool a lot of things that actually can come in handy that I really appreciate it when I considered purchasing one. I'm glad that I didn't make the purchase before they came out with this idiotic bullshit.

It's a significantly better fridge in every way a lot of my clients have a really hard time understanding or believing that.

Bosch makes a few descent models.

Things to skip on all brands.

External water & ice dispensers, doesnt matter the brand. You're cutting a fucking hole in the thermal envelope to put a faulty device that's experiencing mechanical stress on parts every time you open/close the door. It's not a matter of if it will fail, but when. Also, increased operational cost. Internal water dispensers and automatic ice makers are always the better option if you want those features.

Smart features. Why the fuck do you need smart features on a fridge? Even if it's using AI vision to scan for inventory... Just no, fucking no. That's more personal data on you to be bought, sold, data breached, and utilized to fuck you somehow.

Fridges that split the freezer and fridge on a vertically.

I just bought this one a couple months ago. It goes on sale frequently for $2K from Lowe's: https://www.lowes.com/pd/Frigidaire-Gallery-21-5-cu-ft-4-Door-Counter-depth-French-Door-Refrigerator-with-Ice-Maker-Smudge-proof-Stainless-Steel-ENERGY-STAR/5013313509

Pretty sure we got an RMA for the first unit as the door had a scratch and the compressor fan sounded high pitched. Got a next day replacement and no complaints on the second one. Was concerned about sqft as we were coming from a 25sqft but am surprisingly happy with this one.

If you're in the states you've probably had the ice maker replaced in that fridge.

I wouldn't expect it to last much longer definitely count on it breaking down at some point in the very near future.

I've heard that appliances in general and refrigerators specifically, from the last many years are crap. I don't know what the cut off date is, but I hear that they're generally made to break after a few years now and don't have replacement parts for very long. @mechoman444@lemmy.world may have a more informed answer, but it seems to me that people are better off buying old fridges used from friends or relatives.

Or are they literally just an Android tablet glued to a fridge?

Yes