I Want Dumb Things

Look, fancy features are nice and all, but you know what I really want? I want the appliances and other gear I buy and own to be as dumb as a back of bricks.

I recently read about how Samsung was putting ads onto its $3,000+ refrigerators. I have several thoughts about that. One, why does a fridge need a screen? Seriously, I want my refrigerator to keep my milk cold and my ice cream frozen. I don't need a screen for that, I have one in my pocket. Two, why does a fridge need wifi? Are they trying to subscribe you to some kind of refrigerator subscription or hold your milk hostage? Pay us $20 a month or your milk gets warm and your ice cubes melt. Three, ads for someone who just shelled out 3 grand on a fridge? Do you want to drive your customers away. Okay, maybe not everyone can just go out and get a new fridge right away, but if they paid $3k for one, maybe they're in the group that can. If not, you're basically going to be driving away any future customers.

It was an expensive start to the year for me when we ended up having to replace our dishwasher, washer, and dryer. I wasn't a fan of having to buy three large appliances in the span of a couple months. But I'll tell you one thing, I wanted them all to be as dumb as possible. I didn't want push notifications telling me when the dishes were done, I didn't need a washer to alert me that it was time to switch my laundry. I want them to wash dishes, wash my clothes, and dry my clothes. Any smart features would just increase the cost and be something else that might break later down the line and I don't trust them to be built such that the "smart" features breaking would not also cause more necessary features to also break.

I know this probably makes me sound like a Luddite or someone who hates technology. I'm not, I enjoy technology (most of the time anyway), I just don't need everything to have a wifi connection or other smart features. I need them to do what they're supposed to do and work.