I think the problem is you have a VP of this and VP of that, each of whom are tasked to squeeze pennies today via this vertical or that gizmo or else find a new job tomorrow. It's endemic, becoming an entrenched feature of big (U.S.) business. The people in those positions are incentivized to not give two hoots about a $2,000 lost sale eight years from now; they are employed literally to squeeze the extra $20 from replacement filters now. That's it.
Builtin ads or DRM should be a major point in any review or feature comparison matrix.
I believe it's colloquially known as a "racket."
But yeah, I wish more reviewers would do this, especially now that DRM and EULAs are finding their way into what were previously dumb appliances.
Because high-margin goods aren't spare change. Look at the razor:
I can sell you the razor at cost-plus for $20 on a $19 manufacturing cost. I can sell you each individual razor cartridge at 90% profit for $1. At the end of the year I've sold, say, 5 razors and 50 blades, for a total of $150.
On the one hand, the razors made up the bulk of my gross revenue ($100/$150).
On the other hand, looking at the actual profit I've generated, $45 came from blades and $5 came from razors - that is, 90% of my profit came from those "pennies" that the razors brought in.
If you can strong-arm people into buying high-margin goods, that's a strong bonus to your bottom line, even if the absolute price isn't that high.
Let's plug a fridge into those numbers.
A nice new GE fridge can be had for something in the vicinity of $800 (sears website is showing me stuff $600-$1000, so let's just split the difference). Amazon has GW RPWFE filters up at $50 a pop.
You buy a fridge, what, every ten years? Every twenty? Those filters "should" be replaced every quarter? Let's be generous and say every half a year.
Those filters generate the same profit as the fridge at 16 years out, at the same profit margins. At asymmetric profit margins (say, 30% vs. 5%) they've produced profits equal to that of the fridge in a handful of years.
These aren't pennies.
This behavior is so consistent in new appliances that I'm convinced companies are designing in the failures on purpose, because they've figured out that consumers will tolerate it and because the dearth of actual major appliance competitors leaves consumers no other choice.
People will say, "yes , but the Xbox or PS4 home screen also shows ads". In my opinion those ads are far less annoying than having an ad on the actual TV. If I want something totally ad free I also have my HTPC connected to the screen.
I don't see giving any TVs the wifi password or a direct Ethernet cable any time in the future.
Another example: 4K on Netflix on a PC - you can't do it (unless using Intel IGPU > kabylake and Edge on Win 10 only). Mac users need to use a Win VM. But my TV app works.
It sucks, it really really sucks.
https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23931
Netflix is available in Ultra HD on Windows computers and tablets. To stream in Ultra HD, you will need:
A Windows 10 computer or tablet with the latest Windows updates installed.
The Microsoft Edge browser or the Netflix app for Windows 10.
A 60Hz 4K capable display (with HDCP 2.2 connection if external display).
NOTE: Every monitor connected to your computer must meet these requirements to successfully stream in Ultra HD. Intel's 7th generation Core CPU (i3, i5, or i7 models in the 7xxx or 7Yxx series) or newer, or a NVIDIA GPU that meets these requirements.
A plan that supports streaming in Ultra HD. You can check which plan you're currently on at netflix.com/ChangePlan.
A steady internet connection speed of 25 megabits per second or higher.
Streaming quality set to Auto or High. More information about video quality settings can be found in our Playback Settings article.
https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23742
https://medium.com/@rihardsgailums/adventures-of-netflix-win...
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/chromium-mic...
The problem is I don't gaming on TV so I buy STB with crappy SoC.
There's even a feature where you can directly access a channel's "smart" features from that channel (so if I'm watching Arte I press the red button and get replay episodes etc)
And then they force ads down my throat :(
The projector is dumb. It has its own remote, but we don't need to use it; the recent Fire Stick remotes understand how to control the volume and how to turn it off, and that's all you need.
HDMI-CEC means the Fire Stick turns on the projector when you click on it, so you don't need to turn on multiple devices.
I can only find a list of useless apps (other than Netflix, YouTube)
I didn't mention the brand because I haven't gone back in to double check what's happening here.
Besides that their access to the internet is blocked on my firewall.
I don't want nor need "smart" features and I would have paid more for the same panel with fewer features.
Have you seen all the ads on an Nvidia Shield? So now I have to also install LineageOS?
1. GE can only count the dollars it makes from this little scam, not the dollars it lost. It doesn't see the fact that I now resent them (I discovered this "feature" a month ago) and will likely avoid even buying lightbulbs with their logo on them can't factor into their model.
2. These aren't items you replace often, so it will take years for any negative effect to set in, unless the reviews tank.
Cell phones are the hardest case there, and I'll probably break my rule in that case. But in general, I'm not paying rent on things I already bought, even if that tax is in the form of stupid ads.
[1] I'm also not going to play what-about-this-edge-case with quibblers.
If buyers go for sticker prices and $10 make or break a deal, then it doesn't matter if the product costs $1000. If somebody can offer a similar product for $990, people will buy that. With all the features and options, what else but price is relevant unless you have time to study the subject?
Does it match your decor?
I think you’d be surprised by the number of people who buy something that’s in their price range but also matches their idea of what that thing should look like.
Style.
From my perspective, a $1000 screen is a significant purchase.
Hell, spending $500 on an appliance gives me pause.
Mind you, you’d probably laugh out loud if you saw what us locally employed (ie, not FIFO) tradespeople get paid.
We have a french door fridge and I loathe it. Someone told me to skip that and get a bottom freezer single-door, but my wife really wanted the french door. We regret it. The recommendation to avoid was spot-on.
The margins for appliance manufacturers are tight. 3-5% is not uncommon.
Features like wifi connectivity and premium finish are how you start increasing profitability but even then you aren't making significant profit per unit until you hit the very top product lines – think Samsung's Dacor or GE's Monogram.
Any proposed change to the appliance goes through a cost/benefit analysis that is more rigorous than anything I've seen in a software company: if your BOM or cost to assemble go up by pennies you have to convince executives that either cost of quality goes down to compensate, OR that it will drive sales.
Water filters, on the other hand, have margins that have 2 or even 3 zeros at the end.
I want a basic fridge with maybe $200, tops (manufacturing & material cost) of improvements to things that actually matter (castors on drawers make a huge difference for the feel of fridge drawers, for example) + non-ugly exterior. Counter depth (so less material!). No ice maker, no water integrated, none of that stuff. Certainly no damn screens. Just a compressor with a cabinet. A good and useful layout, or "UX" if you prefer (this adds no cost, or very little, past the initial design, which can be re-used indefinitely). I will pay a $600-800 premium over the most basic model for this, retail. Call it $1500.
... but in fact the nice parts I want aren't available except on very "high-end" models that start at like $2.5k from a dent-n-ding outlet (let alone full retail) with tons of extra crap, and you pay significantly more for counter depth in most cases (I guess economies of scale make them solidly 10% more expensive, despite the savings in materials?). It sucks, I just want a basic fridge that looks & feels nice and doesn't stick out into my kitchen like some kind of menacing mechanical monster, but is not a rip-off. Pretty much doesn't exist.
[EDIT] actually it's fair to say that "nice, simple, and reasonably priced for the extras it takes to achieve 'nice'" is a category markets often fail to deliver for me. They seem to be great at delivering cheap and crappy, cheap and kinda OK (think: all non-Ikea flat-pack furniture for the former, Ikea for the latter), expensive and crappy, and expensive and actually good. There's a middle-market that seemingly never gets served and sends me looking for antiques, when possible. I suspect the reason for these outcomes boil down to information asymmetry, like lots of problems with markets.
Many manufacturers sell to retailers under a unilateral minimum price policy. You can buy from the manufacturer and stock your showroom, but you are not allowed to mark it below a certain price. You'll also see payments from the manufacturer to the retailer in the form of "advertising support" to drive certain models. So you'll end up with a retailer:
* Paying $500 per unit (A) which they cannot mark below $399, but buying a certain amount at a loss to receive a payment from the manufacturer for paper/web/TV advertisements contingent on including A in the advertisement and possibly even presenting it in a certain way on the sales floor (endcap, front display, etc.)
* Paying $450 per unit for unit (B) which they cannot mark below $599
The goal for the retailer is then obviously to buy as few of the first unit as possible to get the manufacturer payment and then push as many customers as possible to buy the second. The manufacturer is happy because unit A was last year's model rebadged and they could clear inventory and move towards retiring it.
The real top end items are sold under unilateral fixed pricing: you pay $X and must retail it for $Y. Manufacturers have people employed to mystery shop and look for violations. If a retailer marks up or marks down, they are blacklisted. Possibly for all lines, not just the marquee brand - depends on your sales.
Surely this is as simple as adding a small fan so that air circulates inside?
It's also worth noting that just insulating better isn't really an option (without developing better insulation) because refrigerators need to have as large as possible interior volume compared to exterior volume to be competitive, what can be fit inside is a definite selling point.
I guess I'm not saying how this fits
[0]: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/080515/econo...
Controllers (Licensed accessories)
Services (online)
soon everyone will do this, by the time someone who had this happen to them and got mad gets around to buying another fridge it will be industry wide procedure - therefore they will accept it (or do without a fridge) and then they will buy our product based on some other calculation than if it has the mal-feature that every other fridge will have.
Sadly this means products often arnt designed for you or me (I hate the idea of advertising built into Samsungs TV). But those are the economics in this situation...
People would ask him why they wouldn't offer a linux version.
The answer was - it would cost more because their monetization strategy netted something like $60 per machine - which actually made the linux machine more expensive.
(this was a couple of years ago, numbers might be different)
Considering they have the most market share, people do not care enough about the malware they install versus the lower price offered on the malware ridden TVs.
We're starting to see this kind of practice on an increasing number of big-ticket items where the consumables (filters in this case) represent a tiny fraction of the overall cost. GE isn't making the majority of their money off of selling you replacement filters, yet they've gone and done this to make a few extra bucks. I have a Samsung TV that tries to show me postage stamp sized ads when I'm in it's interface. I spent thousands on the thing and Samsung will be lucky to get pennies from those ads. I add filters to block the domains those ads are coming from to my router periodically, but Samsung keeps coming up with new ones.
The next TV I buy will not be a Samsung, and I suspect the author of this article has bought his last GE appliance. Why are companies driving away people who make multi-thousand dollar purchases with scummy behaviour that nets them spare change? Do the vast majority of people just not care? That's the only way the math makes sense.