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

  • Hazdaz@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    84
    ·
    1 year ago

    LG can go fuck off.

    Love how these corporate executives these days can only use tricks to increase their profits rather than building better, more reliable products which gain more customers through hard work.

    • Nilz@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      26
      ·
      1 year ago

      But more reliable products means existing customers will buy again less frequently.

      • Hazdaz@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        19
        ·
        1 year ago

        There are nearly 8 billion people in the world and never in our history has there been as many people with disposable income. There are new customers out there. They don’t have to simply fuck over their existing customers and continually fleece us.

    • Acid@startrek.website
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      25
      ·
      1 year ago

      You know my story isn’t very different from yours.

      As a teenager I massively pirated everything, became an adult with a paying job streaming was sensible so I paid for Netflix/Spotify eventually adding in Prime video + the occasional thing like P+/disney+ or whatever flavour of the month I wanted to watch.

      Then earlier this year I realised I was paying for 6 different movie/tv streaming subs and when I went on holiday none of the services I had worked properly and I couldn’t continue watching the show I had been watching at night before bed and I just went nah fuck this. Blew about 2 grand on a Mac Mini m2 and a ton of hard drives and just went full on Arr stack + usenet + plex lifetime.

      It isn’t even about the fucking money anymore it’s just how inconvenient they make everything, I’ve had enough and I don’t think I’m ever going back.

      • magikmw@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        1 year ago

        Disney Plus straight up refusing to run anything while we were on vacation just made me really mad. Here I am setting up the tablet for the kid, and then - nah wrong region mate. Even VPN didn’t help somehow.

        • Acid@startrek.website
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          1 year ago

          Yeah Disney+ legitimately made me mad also. Fuck the streaming services.

          I think they use the tablet location info to block you.

      • can@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        They pay artists the least, fund the US war machine, inundate you with podcasts when you just want music, etc.

      • kadu@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        16
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        My biggest issue is how they took Podcasts, which have always been open RSS feeds for audio (and Apple, the largest player, kept open and public for decades) and started making exclusivity deals that only work through their app, with invasive analytics and monetization.

        My second issue is how Spotify wants me to manage my library the way they believe I should: emphasize playlists, kinda add songs to a library, ignore albums. For instance, on Apple Music if I add 3 songs from an album to my library, I can go to the Albums menu and the album will show up there - even though I only have 3 songs. On Spotify, I either add an entire album, or if I only add the songs, the album won’t show up in the albums view. In fact, the whole “liked songs” section feels like an afterthought they added after impementing playlists, while on Apple Music and most oldschool music library software the song library was the main view and the songs added there populated all other fields such as artists or albums. Ironically, Apple Music is got intelligent playlists that work way better than Spotify’s, with the downside being they can only be created via iTunes which is ancient software.

        My third issue is what are the value adds to the subscription as the years go by: Spotify added short videos, QR codes, inconsistent lyrics and digital stores that aren’t even converted to my local currency… While Apple Music added karaoke lyrics, lossless audio, spatial audio (even on my Android), remasters straight from the studio, and more. It’s totally subjective, but Spotify’s gimmicks aren’t worth it to me.

        My fourth issue is just the number of tracks that are no longer available on Spotify from my library. Apple Music lost a few, YouTube Music slightly less, and Spotify quite a lot which surprised me.

        As you can see, it’s not like Spotify killed my cat and replaced my audio library with a 10 hour loop of fart sounds… But I have deep concerns over their treatment of podcasts, I really dislike their philosophy on how to organize a music library (and they offer less customization than an Apple product, how crazy is that?), they’re becoming increasingly more popular yet their catalogue is actually shrinking for my music taste, and I don’t see real improvements in the service while their competitors keep adding actual value as time goes on.

        Either way, don’t mind me - I’m actually now using a huge library of FLAC files on my PC that get converted to MP3 and sent to my phone. Free, no songs vanish, no internet connection, no issues 😄

        • DarkWasp@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Good explanation. Apple Music is still solid for me and I greatly prefer it over Spotify since I prefer listening to and collecting albums over playlists. Am also not a fan of what they’ve done with podcasts, the overall sound quality or the integration with the products I use.

          While not ideal, I’ve found that most of the songs or music removed is due to some weird licensing issue and is still there. For example Wolfmother’s first album needing to be re-added as the 10th anniversary edition. Kind of annoying still but manageable.

        • AA5B@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          1 year ago

          I also have no interest in the Spotify “value adds”: they add no value for me. Last year I did try to leave, with their focus on podcasts that seem actively harmful to society, but their play lists are just the way I like to listen to music. Apple Music kept annoying me with focus on albums, and iverly targeted play lists, so I did come back

        • NightOwl@lemmy.one
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          1 year ago

          My fourth issue is just the number of tracks that are no longer available on Spotify from my library.

          Yes this is what led me back to buying and downloading music again to keep a local back up of.

        • NinjaAssassinKitty@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          I’d love to switch to Apple Music. I wish it’s let you add an artist to your library instead of individually doing all their albums.

        • matthew28845@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          I get the podcast thing. I never use it, and I don’t think most others do. I’m hoping they just kill the idea at some point but who knows.

          The library used to be more straightforward, but in the most recent updates or at least since I’ve started using it again it’s seemed much more playlist focused. To me, this actually makes more sense - with iTunes the “universe” of music is what I have downloaded, with Spotify it doesn’t really matter what’s in my library, everything is already accessible. Rarely do I just browse by artist in my library when using Spotify.

          That being said, I do like to add music to iTunes still and sync it to my iPod as I have no faith that Spotify will be around for my entire lifespan.

        • deegeese@sopuli.xyz
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          arrow-down
          4
          ·
          1 year ago

          The podcast thing is not Spotify’s fault, it’s an industry-wide thing.

          As podcasting took off, the most popular podcast hosts wanted to be fairly paid for their stardom. An exclusive distribution deal is the easiest way for the podcaster, who otherwise would have to grind their audience with paid subscriptions or intrusive sponsorships.

      • jeanofthedead@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 year ago

        For the same price, Apple Music provides lossless audio quality, Dolby Atmos, 4K music videos (you can’t even get those on YouTube), karaoke (Apple Music Sing), and a personalized radio station that doesn’t feed you the exact same stuff every week. Plus you can use third-party apps like Marvis Pro with your AM subscription, so you’re not locked to one app’s GUI.

    • violetgreendev@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      We have a group of friends who all pay for one family subscription service each, then we all share the passwords. If password sharing goes then I’m back to the high seas.

    • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      As for your phone you can buy an unlocked one and a month to month plan. I did that about 5 years ago. Phone dies, transfer sim.

    • carlosfm@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      Even the OS (like MS Windows) will be subscription. I don’t give a flying fuck, as I use Linux. And I have 0 (zero) subscriptions. I feel free, without vices (other than smoking).

    • Tandybaum@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Did you start with Jellyfin or go there from Plex? I’ve been thinking about setting it just as a backup in case Plex gets shitty.

    • Vilian@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      what’s the problem with spotify, i never used it, but it isn’t the first time i read about someone complaining about them

  • Fester@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    59
    ·
    1 year ago

    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.)

    • ikidd@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      23
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      Very much fuck Samsung. LG actually produces a decent product, even if this subscription bullshit exists. Samsung are just planned obsolescence trashboxes.

  • RandomBit@lemmy.sdf.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    56
    ·
    1 year ago

    I bought a $3k+ LG OLED. I intentionally never agreed to any TOS so that it would act as a dumb TV. I wanted it on the network so that I could control it through Home Assistant and Apple HomeKit so I put it in my IoT VLAN. Within a day it was trying to port scan my network! It is now fully isolated with no outgoing connections allowed.

    • Kelly@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      21
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      I have a 2017 era Samsung TV. I use it to connect to a media server that my router runs if I plug in a USB drive. This just worked so I assumed it was an open unauthenticated service.

      Then I tried to use VLC running on my phone to connect and found myself presented with a login screen. When I investigated further I found the router’s media server defaulted to using the the router’s admin credentials.

      So it looks like the TV had been programmed to try common default router creds before showing a login prompt to the user as a “convenience”.

      • magikmw@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        1 year ago

        That’s good UX, the real fuckup is using default admin credentials om your router.

        • Kelly@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          I wasn’t too concerned previously as my routers are only exposing their services to the local network.

          I understand the view that it’s a superior UX but I was taken aback that it was guessing passwords for other devices on the network.

    • valkyre09@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      19
      ·
      1 year ago

      The “smart” LGTV experience is utter trash. I was very pissed off to see adverts on my Home Screen when I put it online. It’s since been taken off and an Apple TV now provides the streaming services.

  • skillissuer@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    48
    ·
    1 year ago

    where are those ukrainian crackers that made custom flash for john deere tractors, we’re gonna need them

  • LiveLM@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    43
    ·
    1 year ago

    Home as a Service

    This has triggered a Fight AND Flight response in my brain. I want to smash everything with a mallet then run to the mountains.
    I hate “as a Service” so much!

  • tomkatt@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    38
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    After seeing this post and the article, I just blocked my LG C1 from WAN at my router. LAN still available for automation purposes, but fuck letting that thing out to the internet now. Funny enough, it turns on faster, and no more notification splash at the bottom. Nice.

  • Concetta@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    38
    ·
    1 year ago

    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.

      • LiquorFan@pathfinder.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        I’m never buying a “smart” anything, aside from phones. I put up with Android and it already feels like too much.

        • RustyWizard@programming.dev
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          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.

          • eleitl@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            1 year ago

            Fire TV firmware also just gets worse and worse with each new version. Netflix app also follows suit.

              • eleitl@lemmy.ml
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                1 year ago

                The one saving grace is that it’s cheap and you can install Kodi on it.

          • AA5B@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            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

    • d0m@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      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.

  • phoneymouse@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    34
    ·
    1 year ago

    For just a low low price of $15.99/month you can use the freezer functionality to keep things really cold! Or, you can use our free ad tier where the freezer only unlocks after you watch a 60 second ad.

    • irkli@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      1 year ago

      Right! If you don’t upgrade service periodically the freezer temperature goes up by one degree a month. It’s for your convenience!

  • rm_dash_r_star@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    32
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    This thing with subscriptions has become insane. You can easily spend several hundred a month getting roped into all the subscriptions companies are pushing. It’s the latest way to squeeze as much money as possible out of the consumer.

    I’ve gone into subscription boycott at this point. I had too many and said screw that. I still have Amazon Prime where I think I get my money’s worth. I shop there a lot and use their streaming so it’s worth it to me. Subscriptions for appliances? No way in hell.

    • _cerpin_taxt_@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      20
      ·
      1 year ago

      Yep. I built a fully automated piracy machine that I can stream straight to any device with no hassle. Fuck subscriptions.

      • superkret@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        1 year ago

        Can you expand a bit on how you did that? Sounds enticing and I do have a virtual server and a RasPi to play around with.

        • _cerpin_taxt_@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          1 year ago

          Definitely! Don’t listen to the folks behind me - Jellyfin can only be viewed outside of your network if you build your own website and host it there, and that’s way more trouble than you need to go through. Use Plex instead. You can just download the app and login and view your media from anywhere in the world without having to be a web designer/programmer.

          Jellyfin is cool and all, but the functionality is severely lacking compared to Plex. Plex is getting pretty commercial, so I get it, but it just fucking works haha. Jellyfin will hopefully be there someday, but trust me, save yourself that headache. It sucks in it’s current form. It’s mostly just hardcore nerds that use Jellyfin, and if you’re trying to share it with others, it’s very complex. With Plex, I can just have my elderly mother or whoever download the Plex app on their phone, smart TV, game console, or anything else with internet and you can cast it just like Netflix.

          I use unRAID as my OS, which is a Docker-based Linux kernel. I use Plex, Prowlarr/Radarr/Sonarr for indexing and organizing my library, sabNZBD and qBittorrent to download the files, and Overseerr as a search engine and request system for movies and TV. Basically I’ve got Overseerr reverse proxied and myself and all of the folks I share my Plex with can access it and request stuff from any web browser.

          • Landrin201@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            I’m actually setting plex up within the next couple of days! I had to make some hardware changes first (mostly adding more storage)

            Are there any good guides on how do to it the way you did so it can torrent the stuff you don’t have on demand? I assume that once you’ve torrented it, it keeps that torrented media downloaded for later use as well? Or does it automatically delete after a certain amount of inactivity on that file? Did you set it up with a VPN, and if so how did you get that working in Qbittorrent in docker?

            • _cerpin_taxt_@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              1 year ago

              Yep, this guide is a little outdated at this point, but still very solid. It does keep the file - Sonarr/Radarr actually have media management and you can clean up your media folder very nicely with them. There’s containers on the unRAID app store for both that already have your VPN integrated - you basically just plug in your VPN info. Highly recommend Private Internet Access for your provider - they’re the easiest one to configure and they’re one of the most secure. I’m at the office right now, but there’s two creators you want to look out for - hotio and linuxserver. Both of those guys make damn solid containers with this in mind.

              • Landrin201@lemmy.ml
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                1 year ago

                Thanks! I’ll read up on that tomorrow, though I’ll have to do something slightly different as I used proxmox as my base OS rather than unRaid. But that looks like a good stepping off point!

                • _cerpin_taxt_@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  No problem! I’m not super familiar with ProxMox myself, but if it’s doable, I’m sure someone on the internet has written something up on it!

    • NightOwl@lemmy.one
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      1 year ago

      It’s one of those things that was a shock at how prevalent it is on the Apple app store after so much talk of how much better the apps are compared to Android. There’s not even proper filter options to filter out apps that are subscription only. It was ridiculous how you could buy an app then get pop ups to get the subscription plan. It’s why I wish a foss app store like F-droid becomes available once slide loading becomes possible so I can avoid the appstore as much as possible when I need a basic app. Like a calculator.

      • rm_dash_r_star@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Yeah phone apps are horrible, don’t know about iOS since I’ve always used Android, but they’re mostly bad. The apps geared to a company service are usually fine, but the rest are just ad support systems.

        I actually don’t use third party phone apps that much, but the times I have it’s like an assault. You get a tenth of the screen for the actual function of the app with the rest of the screen gyrating ads. It’s especially a problem for me because I’m old and can’t see the screen that well. I don’t know how people put up with it. I can’t.

        • NightOwl@lemmy.one
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          Good thing about at least paid apps on play store is that they usually don’t have subscriptions, and there are tags warning if it Contains Ads before you even install the app.

          I don’t think Apple appstore even has ad warnings. Only in-app purchase warning. So using appstore was when I found out talking video ads exist.

    • Professorozone@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      1 year ago

      Yeah, it’s bad enough that an LG TV makes you agree to have all of your data sent to them, but now they want you to pay for the privilege as well. Screw that!

      I mean, i think all smart TVs do that now. Don’t know what I’ll do when my dumb one breaks.

      • Morbid the Corvid@ttrpg.network
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        1 year ago

        Just don’t connect smart TVs to the internet. Get something cheap like a raspberry pi + wireless mouse/keyboard or an android TV box for the same functionality. (More functionality, actually)

          • Professorozone@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            Man I had no clue they went up in price. I have a couple laying around here somewhere.

            But you know, if you look on newegg.com, you can just about buy a full cheap motherboard with CPU for the same price and get more ports and probably more speed as long as you can handle the size.

          • _cerpin_taxt_@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            Haha I accidentally bought an extra right before prices skyrocketed, and am just saving that bitch for when the right project comes along. Came close to returning it, but am damn glad I didn’t.

  • d4rknusw1ld@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    31
    ·
    1 year ago

    So I can’t do the wash without buying a subscription for it to play Sirius XM? Like wtf is going on. This corpo greed shit has to stop. I hope every single union walks out of the job with these actors and writers. We need to bring power back to the worker a bit.

    • vic_rattlehead@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      21
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      I don’t understand the mindset of people who tolerate ads. No way I’m ever hooking up a smart tv to my network!

      • SnepKayz@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        20
        ·
        1 year ago

        Most smart products are security nightmares, too. Smart TVs, refridgerators, thermometers, all of them have OS’s that arent regularly updated, dont give the user any way to peek into the system, (you get a virus on your computer, and you generally know pretty quick) and usually lack the security features that your phone or PC may have. They’re easy points for your network to be compromised.

        The Internet of Things is more like the Internet of Shit.

  • DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    29
    ·
    1 year ago

    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.