For all that's holy, can you just leverage the web, please?(blog.tomayac.com) |
For all that's holy, can you just leverage the web, please?(blog.tomayac.com) |
Convince me it's a bad idea?
Would this guys experience meet your criteria? What are the consequences for failing?
Is it 10 years of normal use or still 10 years if you basically run a laundrette. What if you never used it at all. What if (and where I live this is a serious use for a washing machine) you only used the washing machine for making a special rum based cocktail?
Plus, the manufacturer can't run a simple website to look up serial numbers, so author prefers their AI-based solution? And then builds one himself? This post reads like satire.
I remember this being absolutely endemic in the Microsoft world in the 00's but the first time I heard it was in the 1980s when the current commander-in-thief was a young upstart punk who leveraged the word "leverage" every chance he could get. For him the real use of leverage in business (e.g. "debt") rapidly turned a moderate-sized real estate empire into a hole in the ground and he recovered by becoming a television performer.
Fail.
It's just a QR-code
The point is to "technically", and therefore legally, offer those things and minimize the cost of offering those things.
All of these things are working precisely as intended. The company is not optimizing for customer experience or product quality, they're optimizing for profit.
Customer support representatives, with very few exceptions, are just going to tell you whatever they think will get you off the phone.
In I.T., this is generally accomplished by blaming whatever adjacent equipment/services they can plausibly pin the issue on.
All you have to do is hire customer support who is empowered, knowledgeable and actually cares.
Source: support is a competitive differentiator for $CURJOB.
A business is in the business of making money. Full stop. I dont care what the service or the product is. The goal in a capitalist society is to make profits. Some are more socially conscious than others, but the goal is the same.
All decisions derive from this goal.
I had to buy one a couple of years ago. Snarkily I asked the floor salesman if I could get the washer “without all the smart features”. He said “let me check”, which had me puzzled. He came back to inform me that they still had last year’s model which was before the “smart” features were rolled out. He said they can sell it on the same warranty, & since it was older I would get a significant discount. I cherish that machine for its dumbness.
…No such luck for TVs.
Of course I'd prefer a plain dumb TV but there weren't any cheaply and conveniently available at the time. Second best thing is a de-Googled TV. Now if only I could figure out a way to disable the Google buttons on the remote so that kids don't accidentally get into the app store (ads!) or activate the voice control.
I have a PiHole in case it tries to do anything funny, and that's good enough for me.
And yes, even when not connected to the internet, then they show you popups to connect it to the internet, updates may be waiting, new features may be in a new update, you software has been last updated 726 days ago, click here to troubleshoot the internet connection, etc.
Sceptre dumb TVs from Walmart's web site. That's the cheat code. If they run out of those, I'll use a large computer monitor. Attach an outboard HTPC or Apple TV and you're set.
So annoying and there is no way to remove this or toggle it off. Oh yeah and when I open the menu to scroll the different inputs or apps there are ads. Paid a few thousand for this thing and it still shows me ads.
Couldn't you just print the product number as a barcode/qrcode and let a "dumb code scanner" read it, instead of having to download a multifunctional LLM?
The page loads but doesn't offer to register the product, which is probably for the best.
When the only tool you know is the hammer you're going to hit inappropriate things with it.
That's also why the author went on a queue: the call-center is not for the washing-machine company, it's an insurance-selling center that works with multiple companies.
This must be the case for so many discarded appliances these days, especially underengineered ones with common issues.
Also, not using the QR code protocols properly is a pet peeve of mine. I recently scanned one that was just a URL in plaintext (no web link protocol). If I was on an iPhone or using a simpler QR scanner, it would not work at all.
Article: "Listen to this overcomplicated warranty registration process with some jabs at overcomplicated IoT bullshit. They print the custom unit serial number on the sticker anyways, why not just also customize the QR code to also embed the serial number?
"Anyways, here's an overcomplicated way that uses AI ML to parse that custom unit serial number from a picture.
"Oops, it doesn't work for complicated browser jerry-rigging reasons."
I tried to figure out if this stuff was available in other browsers but unfortunately came up short.
Googler, opinions my own.
Currently it doesn't work in Brave (at least on my machine), and I can't find anything online suggesting whether they plan on supporting the Prompt API. You can go to brave://flags/ and it shows "Prompt API for Gemini Nano" and "Prompt API for Gemini Nano with Multimodal Input", but it doesn't seem to actually work.
0. https://chromestatus.com/feature/5134603979063296
1. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/web-platfor...
Since it is standard industry practice, I think draconian regulations are appropriate.
Off the top of my head, if you are caught having a policy to do this, you pay all customers $100/hour retroactively for the total time they spent on hold (clawing back executive comp if necessary).
An amount equal to the total automatically goes to the whistleblowers that reported the behavior (even if they engaged in it).
I can't imagine any way that could be abused... (Cue "I'm going to write me a new mini-van this afternoon.")
When you buy an Apple product it has a number on it Axxxx and a serial number somewhere. That's all you need to identify your product to anyone. That includes service manuals and spare parts.
And as far as warranty registration goes, they register it at the point of sale/activation as the warranty starting. Job done. No humans / lookups / anything required. It just happens.
As for finding service manuals and user manuals - maybe what they need isn't the web but FTP. I mean, if it were still supported by browsers. I remember when some vendors just used to have folders with PDFs you could browse.
The problem with "the web" is that this is no longer a website, but a content management system, or worse, a "customer engagement platform" that is hostile to creating a folder full of PDFs that have stable links. They probably still have that FTP site in a webified form somewhere for service partners, just not for Joe Public.
Relying on a feature that requires enabling an experimental flag in the latest version of Chrome to work is "leveraging the web" in the worst way.
Twenty years ago I would have agreed with this sentiment.
Today... definitely not.
Leveraging the web is an unfortunately-implicit invitation to all kinds of tracking about me, my computer, my stuff. I already get too much spam, no I don't want your f***ing newsletter that I will not read when you send it to me after I already declined receiving it.
> They could still offer to register the machine by telephone as an alternative
They "do". You had the experience of that call. They literally do not want you to actually call. That's a tragedy because even in 2025 there are plenty of people who don't have smartphones, don't have computers, and many of them don't even want one. I certainly don't want to have to install some f***ing app on a smartphone just to register a washing machine. Do you?
As a tech-savvy person and someone who relocated recently, I rely a lot on tech solutions for daily problems. When I was choosing my medical insurance company, I concentrated on one that has a good app and English interface. When I need a barber, I search Google Maps and look for barbers who have a website where I can book an appointment. Same for doctors, workshops, or leisure activities. And most of the websites are crap. It's some obscure reservation system, or a generic website with poor design built on Wix or something.
And from one side, I feel like there is an untapped potential here. Any good developer who can build and design a website, can just offer this to their barber or dentist. But on the other hand, I also understand that I'm not the only one who came up with this idea, so there must be a different reason why non-tech people / companies seem to neglect their digital presence. Could it be because they still think that digital presence is not important (and only tech-savvy people like me search for a barber on Google Maps)? Or maybe it's because most small businesses can't / don't want to pay a few thousands for a website and a Google Maps presence (but rather pay $39/mo for Wix), meaning that despite the fact that we are basically surrounded by tech 24/7, the general population still expects tech to be free, or nearly free.
- most business comes from local word of mouth, so digital presence is not a priority
- existing solutions are good enough; contact info and maybe a scheduling flow is all the website needs, regardless of UX polish
- changing tech solutions (e.g. website migration) is painful; they have more important things to do with their time and energy
- will investing a few thousand dollars in a website pay off? Probably not, and hard to convince them even if true; they have more important things to do with their tight budget
- I think there's a lot of mediocre devs and agencies offering mediocre work; the talented devs delivering great, user-friendly work are probably not pursuing these projects
Contrast with apps that force you to update and redeploy every few years.
This enshittification cycle runs every day in the world and I don't know how we can stop it.
I worked at a large insurance company and this was definitely the approach. There was a website, but you had to call to realistically get almost anything done.
One product manager's big innovation was to completely remove passwords. Every time you wanted to log in, you had reset the password and be sent a link via email. Of course the didn't announce this, so you would be probably spend 20 minutes frantically looking for your password that didn't exist.
edit: I see a number of people have already suggested this. Clearly a very obvious answer.
There is a whole class of people who are smart enough to fix simple things, but not smart enough to recognize their limited ability. They will strip out all the screws on the machine and then claim warranty after replacing random electronic components on the control board. In reality the problem will be a dirty contact that is a 5 minute fix.
In a world where people know less and less about how to solve problems themselves, I think repair skills are incredibly important for people to have.
Personally, I would happily pay more if you show me what you're doing and/or explain what I did wrong :)
And how did you build the skillset to do this as a side job if it wasn't by making the attempt yourself using available information and learning? Isn't your position just ladder-pulling that creates a population of less informed and less capable people?
Exploring the boundaries of one's own ability is not being "not smart enough." It's learning.
(I once bought a grass rake with 2 or 3 dozen metal tines, and it arrived with a huge sticker across all the tines. Which when I attempted to peel off, left a scattered layers of paper hard glued to all the tines. Not happy.
Same with a rolling hot dog cooker. Glued “temporary” sales sticker covering half the transparent hinged top. Not happy.)
Hell I've got a 55 year old piece of electronic equipment here with the serial number sticker still on it.
But even without that calculus, you can put a bunch of stickers on, all over the machine. They cost nothing and can be applied automatically. Better yet, punch it into some central metal part of the washing machine like the VIN on a car.
While it's true that lots of those old appliances are easily fixable, depending on how old they are it's better to replace due to other factors.
I just recently replaced my 10 years old washing machine instead of fixing it. I was absolutely surprised by the difference. The newer one uses less electricity, less water, washes and dries in half the time, and is absolutely silent.
I only hope it lasts as long as the old one.
I'm pretty sure that's the fault of terrible tooling being available to most people. No devices have built-in easy-to-find QR generating abilities, so to create a QR code most people end up searching the Web which is overrun with trashy URL-shortening-and-analytics services, freemium or paid, that wrap your link in their crap and make the URL expire or die with their fly-by-night website. Hackers know that it's possible and free to just make QR codes of the right type, and are able to find proper software to do it, but most people are throwing darts with the assistance of Google so they end up with crap usually.
Includes patterns for wifi credentials, calendar events, and a few more.
The old machines are absolute workhorse beasts and they can work indefinitely as brand new with some maintenance here and there.
However my expectation of people doing this are basically zero. So this is an anomalous post. By the time you write a blog post complaining about how a machine has a required IoT thing, you could have fixed a handful of issues short of soldering in new relays or triacs on the control board.
Anyway, it said it lost communication between two boards. I opened it up, checked the wiring harness, and found zero visible problems. I replaced both boards. Same error code. There are 3-4 other computers in that model, so I guess the next step was to replace all of them.
The first two were already a substantial fraction of the price of a new washer, so the entire setup went to the dump (or, hopefully a parts reuse company, but I doubt it). Most technicians refuse to touch Samsung appliances because they are impossible to debug.
Anyway, we replaced the pair with a brand that’s supposedly repairable. Fingers crossed.
I wonder if they ever made front loaders that were affordable, energy efficient and reliable/repairable. There’s no reason these things shouldn’t last more than 20-30 years on average. Maybe there’s a market for such hypothetical old machines.
Hosting a product manual doesn't need to be some whizbang React SPA with the framework of the month. It can be plain HTML that will work for 30 years.
It is a grease-lubricated bearing; 60°C detergent-laden water would be slightly worse than 30°C detergent-laden water, but neither is helpful.
Sneaky cellular access hasn't happened so far, not because the vendors wouldn't like the capability, but (IMO) because it would introduce enough of its own costs and complications to be unprofitable. It's easier to piggyback on customers' internet and disregard the small fraction of privacy-conscious buyers.
The number of users who opt out of connecting their smart TV to Wi-Fi is so damn tiny that it is a rounding error for TV makers. They just don't care.
It still worked last time I plugged it in. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to find someone to calibrate it when the 40’s roll around again. :-)
My usual flow chart: Nothing, water, alcohol, goo gone.
I’ve never ended up with a marred surface.
Otherwise, yes!
And I suppose there’s the even-creeper Amazon Sidewalk: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...
I hate sounding like I’m wearing a foil hat but there are a lot of easy ways to get around trying to neuter smart devices now.
This is actually a difficult problem I feel. Misaligned incentives aside. How do you keep a company running if it is so good it captures the whole market in 15 years, but it takes 30 years before it's products need replacing? (This is a simplistic presentation of the issue, but I feel it's understandable enough to start to formulate ideas on how? You could think of lightbulbs that last a century if you like {would lack of competition inhibit progress??}.)
I would love to buy Samsung's washer division, say, and work to make the machines invincible and completely repairable. Then use the profits to bootstrap other such projects. Eventually make the company cooperative, etc, maintain the longevity and work on reducing running costs, improving cleaning, etc.
I think that you don't. Things don't have to be infinite money-spinners to deserve doing. Use the googobs of money you made to invest in something else, and let the parts and repair for the old product take over the majority of the old business. Fire up the lines once a year to make new ones, and keep a few engineers working the rest of the year to look for improvements. Or just keep a tiny shop assembling new ones all year, whatever's cost efficient; if you focused on durability and repairability, your best customers probably could put their own unit together from your parts catalog, so you certainly can at any scale.
That might be a good metric for repairability. Could one of your customers build one of your products if they purchased everything from your parts catalog (assuming prequisite knowledge)? If so, you can scale down indefinitely.
The point here is to optimise societal benefit of the production.
I like your ideas about repairability and such. One thing in the back of my mind here is the issue in the UK where we used to lead, somewhat, in nuclear power. We stopped building new power stations and lost the ability as a nation to do so. One would want not just the 30 year old washing machine to be manufacturable, but also for tech improvements to be added in over time. One would also want to extend the manufacture from washing machines to other goods in order to extend the societal benefit. If it can't sustain personnel, then that impacts societal benefit too; as well as impacting ability to attract talent. People being able to insert a replacement control board is different to the company making new control boards that include necessary modifications for changes in the power supply system or improvements to the motors, say.
I appreciate your response, thanks.
- support model. You pay 1/10th the manufacturing cost per year. They immediately give you a new one if it fails. Profits are dictated by the difference between the real mean time to failure and ten years. “10” is set by law.
- the price of the machine includes the cost of supplying the above service contract for 30 years, by law. The price of the machine therefore drops as the reliability increases.
- all machines must be 100% recycled by the manufacturer, who also pays for environmental externalities. They pay a prorated multiple equal to the number of years under 10 that a machine is in service before replacement.
- warranties must be 10 years and renewable, and must cover parts, labor, and installation, including things like modifications to cabinets and and legally required code improvements
Not everyone would buy a new fancy machine the same year, so in steady state, they should be able to sell machines, just fewer per capita than today.
> including things like modifications to cabinets
Or perhaps require that the "plan" being purchased includes specs on min/max dimension and max weight.
> the price of the machine includes the cost of supplying the above service contract for 30 years
This seems like a recipe for bankruptcy though. For example, suppose Acme Appliances has a lot of customers, and then that country elects a crook as President who abruptly declared an (illegal?) import-tax (tariff) of one bajillion percent on all the spare parts.
Source: boycotting samsung because all of their products are like this except their cellphones, those just explode. Boycotting for 12 years, this year.
Also front loading machines are notorious for having a multitude of issues, from mold, to leaking seals, to bearing issues. There's a reason laundromats don't use them.
In fact, get a speedqueen if you want reliability. I bet they even have HE2 washers, now.
That being said, I realize this dynamic is likely much different for frequent/long-term buyers such as B2B solutions where quality support does translate to better retention and word-of-mouth advertising.
Those people you have to pay, because they can do well in other positions. But paying them contradicts the goal of minimizing cost.
I'm not saying there isn't an opportunity to invest in top notch customer service as a product differentiator, but it's probably a safer bet to have barely-existing support and lower the sticker price.
Depends on the product and the size of the company selling. Sure, in certain circumstances it makes sense to skimp on customer support. In others, it absolutely does not.
While you /can/ make a premium offering with competent support as a competitive advantage, the most short-term profit to be made is then to buy that company after it's established a brand reputation and burn that brand reputation as fuel to produce extra profit until it becomes worthless and anyone who held your stock previously is left holding the bag.
Private equity asset stripping is a cancer.
Sadly, as much as we want to believe it, support does not seem to make enough market difference to justify the outlay.
The only possible solution is some sort of regulation of transparency in ownership structured similarly to banking regulations (routinely moving amounts of money just under reporting limits or in any other way seeming to attempt to dodge scrutiny is considered malfeasance), so customers are promptly and continuously informed when Mom and Pop Shop is bought out by Established PE Vultures™ or Scrappy Small Business gets acquired by S&P #342, Enshitiffication Incorporated or a majority of Public Infrastructure Corporation is owned by Slacktivist Investors Group.
I want it to be obvious, and I want ownership to necessarily be as prominent as branding. "A Unilever Brand since 2003" needs to be just as big as "Natural Small Local Foods Coop Inc, since 1913," so that we can start to associate the corrosion of service and product quality with ownership and acquisition and corporate mandates, and any attempts to overly convolute the source of a clear business direction with scattered minority ownership just happening to band together needs to be treated as fraud.
And most of industry today—but especially the tech industry—is laser-focused on making sure they never actually have to compete on a level playing field with anyone.
In the PLC market, I've worked with Schneider-Electric, Wago, and Emerson support. All three were excellent. They're excellent because they know we're going to choose which vendor to use for our next project based on our experience with the current project.
For protocol bridges, I've dealt with Digi and Real Time Automation. Digi's support was halfhearted at best. RTA spent hours talking on the phone and even dug through a closet to find documentation for an ancient version of one of their products in order to help me figure out how to interface with it. Guess who we used for the next project?
Price is important but my time is expensive. Good support for a more expensive product wins over poor support for a cheap one.
But all this only works because of the nature of our industry. For consumer goods, good support will lose to price nearly every time.
However Google still seems to be able to sell services with barely any support.