The point isn't to make it easy to register warranty for a product.
The point isn't to make it easy to talk with customer service.
The point isn't to make it easy to communicate with the company.
The point isn't to make it easy to obtain service or replacement parts.
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.
nativeit · 1h ago
100%
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.
mooreds · 1h ago
Huge competitive opportunity here.
All you have to do is hire customer support who is empowered, knowledgeable and actually cares.
Source: support is a competitive differentiator for $CURJOB.
MathMonkeyMan · 1h ago
> All you have to do is hire customer support who is empowered, knowledgeable and actually cares
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.
mooreds · 1h ago
> 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.
dwedge · 20m ago
I've been at two different companies who also had support as a competitive differentiator. Both of them were bought, both had support stripped and outsourced and both are more profitable than they were.
Sadly, as much as we want to believe it, support does not seem to make enough market difference to justify the outlay.
bennettnate5 · 51m ago
When support needs are infrequent enough on the customer end, this effectively becomes a market for lemons--a customer can't know how good your support is until they've bought your product, and by then it's too late for them. People can advertise world-class customer support for one-time purchases because the few customers that encounter the awful support won't move the needle that much compared to shifting money from long term support teams to sales teams.
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.
tristor · 13m ago
This absolutely works, and was the key selling point for Rackspace when I worked there, "Fanatical Support". Unfortunately it got purchased by private equity and subsequently ruined, eliminated almost all US staff, and offshored everything to India, and this included a rebrand to remove Fanatiguy from the logo and the "Fanatical Support" promise.
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.
mschuster91 · 1h ago
that can work out in large scale b2b or expensive consumer goods... but in mass market goods? forget it. people vote with their wallet and only their wallet, as evidenced by the shiploads of (sometimes life-threateningly defective) crap Temu and Alibaba have flooded most Western countries with.
datadrivenangel · 1h ago
Zappos got a huge exit by having exceptional customer service. Enough people notice.
mooreds · 59m ago
Yeah. You can win both ways, by racing to the top with service or racing to the bottom with price. I know which strategy I'd rather be part of.
lesuorac · 45m ago
Honestly, I'd rather have a product that works so I don't have to call support when it breaks ...
Printerisreal · 1h ago
YES and I feel like "Planned obsolescence" needs to be taught to every engineer and web developer and tech people. They will understand why or how some corp. decisions are made and what is the aim.
nativeit · 1h ago
I agree with you, but is awareness among that cohort really the problem? “Planned obsolescence” is engineered by tech people, after all. It certainly wasn’t divine intervention that came up with internal Li-Ion batteries (IMHO the most brazen example, where manufacturers effectively stick a 3-year timer inside your gadgets).
HPsquared · 53m ago
It wouldn't matter so much if they were standardized. With all the billions of devices sold, there could easily be a standard set of a hundred sizes. Someone petition the EU...
Cyphus · 1m ago
The author's example serves as a counterargument to their point.
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.
toastal · 1h ago
> Electrolux washing machine
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.
sifar · 5m ago
Try the Spectre TVs. They are normal oled TVS, not smart. Been using one for a few years now, am very glad they exist.
Night_Thastus · 1h ago
I don't get why people care about about whether a TV is "Smart". I have a "Smart" TV and never use the features, and it doesn't bother me.
I have a PiHole in case it tries to do anything funny, and that's good enough for me.
danielodievich · 16m ago
My smart TV is not on wifi and physically unplugged from the internet except for when I deign to upgrade its firmware. Which I've done once since I bought it 5 years ago. I use 0 (zero) smart features and it is unable to report whatever it may have collected. This seems like a good way to handle them to me.
chrisweekly · 17m ago
On powering up, my TV often switches to its default "smart features, prepackaged video streaming service integrations" mode from the HDMI input (the only source I ever want, given my AV receiver manages everything). If it weren't a "smart" tv, I doubt it would keep trying to switch from the configured settings. /anecdote
dwedge · 19m ago
5G is in large part designed to fix this. Eventually these devices will only ask for wifi as a formality.
soperj · 1h ago
You don't use the features, but those features use you.
Gobble up all your data to sell to the highest bidder.
sceptic123 · 59m ago
What counts as funny? Have you connected it to the internet? If so it's probably still spying on you and that is why people care.
Night_Thastus · 53m ago
To be honest, looking at the PiHole logs the TV itself hasn't tried to do much of anything. The apps on my streaming device (namely Netflix before I uninstalled it) tried, but the PiHole always caught it.
redserk · 34m ago
At this point I wouldn’t rely on PiHole DNS logs alone. You’d need to check network traffic from the device in general, it could use DoT/DoH.
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.
bitwize · 11m ago
If I have to take defensive maneuvers against an appliance, I don't want the makers of that appliance getting my money.
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.
ajsnigrutin · 1h ago
Some tv's bother you with popups and notifications and all the other crap related to its "smart features".
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.
genewitch · 4m ago
mine used to strobe the light underneath when it lost internet connectivity. used to.
publicdaniel · 45m ago
Don’t forget about DNS over HTTPS which bypasses PiHole
Night_Thastus · 26m ago
Is there a way to set up the modem, router, pihole, or any other part of the network to close that loophole?
inetknght · 1h ago
Wait until TVs come with their own cellular modems so they can give the corporate middle finger to people like us.
Analemma_ · 59m ago
This is the actual reason there was all that hysteria around the "race to 5G" with the dire warnings that we'd be buried by China if we didn't roll out 5G ASAP. The actual reason is that 5G works better with congested cells and large numbers of clients than 4G, so it's a lot easier to put cellular modems in every device and bypass those pesky users.
qwerpy · 1h ago
It was a pain to do, but I have a Sony "Google TV" that I fixed to remove or hide the Sony bloatware and Google adware. I hated how the home screen would display full screen loud ads and the TV would constantly want to update so that it could display an even more obnoxious screen layout with more ads, so I loaded a simple launcher that always displays a static list of hand-picked apps. It required (or successfully dark patterned) me to sign in with a Google account, so I created a dedicated burner account. Google really didn't want to let me create one "please provide a working phone number to verify" but I managed to create one.
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.
edoceo · 41m ago
Open the remote, put insulator over the contacts. Works on Roku/Samsung - voids warranty but, it looks like you're already past that (or moving in that (correct) direction)
genewitch · 2m ago
super glue the buttons in place
dwedge · 17m ago
I bought a projector mostly to avoid the smart stuff. Large monitors are also an option to some extent.
joezydeco · 45m ago
My LG washer and dryer send a push notification to my phone when the load is done, or I can check on the minutes remaining from anywhere. The other stuff I don't care about, but that feature is pretty useful for me. Having an open API would be better, but I know 99% of their customers wouldn't know what to do with that.
jkestner · 1h ago
I personally like the ad-subsidized TVs. The money I save easily covers a used Apple TV on eBay, and I never connect the TV itself. Regardless of TV brand my interface stays the same. Bring back modularity!
Workaccount2 · 1h ago
They are called "Commercial TVs", selection is more limited and the cost a bit higher, but no smart-TV BS.
The parent post saying they “cost a bit higher” is, AFAICT, understating it a wee bit. LG’s consumer 65-inch 4K OLED TVs run between $1200 and $2500 at retail, from a quick search; the 65-inch 4K OLED “professional monitor” linked on that page—e.g., the one that’s closest to an actual TV—retails for around $8000 at B&H. The cheapest OLED commercial TV I could find at b&H was a 55” LG for $3K…and as far as I can tell it’s really just a Smart TV, complete with all internet connectivity, for twice the price because it has the word “commercial” in its name.
seany · 33m ago
The other specs are often different. Things like 100% duty cycle, uv resistant coatings, ipx ratings, serial ports for control etc etc
benbenolson · 1h ago
I got a Spectre TV (pretty cheap, they sell it at Walmart). It's a little more expensive than other TVs in the same class, but has no smart features: you plug HDMI into it and it displays it. You hit "Source" and are greeted with a no-nonsense menu that lets you choose the HDMI port, composite input, etc. It's great.
edoceo · 39m ago
I've got one too! I hope it lasts.
LauraMedia · 2h ago
I fail to see a useful usage for AI in this case.
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?
shellac · 2h ago
The author works in Google developer relations, and while devrel aren't quite marketing they will use the latest and greatest Google hammer.
bee_rider · 1h ago
His demo is pretty slick, though. Less than 100 lines of code to get “the box I want on literally every customer service site.”
sokoloff · 1h ago
Less than 100 lines of code to give the overwhelming majority of consumers "LanguageModel is not available." and a free snipe hunt for 0.5% of them to try to figure out how to enable it via chrome flags or snapshot browsers.
pjmlp · 50m ago
Provided one is using ChromeOS "standards".
mrbombastic · 1h ago
Yeah maybe it is overkill but this would be a semi hard computer vision task not too long ago, it is pretty amazing you can get it that easily nowadays
keybored · 1h ago
So now marketing is working through the disgruntled-at-stupid-tech HN bait (as someone who works on the built-in AI team)? Or wait, how long have they been doing that?
No comments yet
contravariant · 2h ago
They could, that very qr code is on there and contains the product number and serial number inside a URL query that links to qr.electrolux.com.
The page loads but doesn't offer to register the product, which is probably for the best.
pbhjpbhj · 2h ago
I was thinking just have it included in the QR code, so the URL the QR points to is prod-reg.example.com/pid/91234567 or whatever.
crinkly · 2h ago
Yep.
When the only tool you know is the hammer you're going to hit inappropriate things with it.
exabrial · 2h ago
Why not just print a $.0001 sticker and stick it the machine listing all of the info needed to fix the machine... instead of building a $86million datacenter and burning through $100,000 of clean electricity every month that could have been used to power homes, but was instead used doing this?
Workaccount2 · 1h ago
As someone who has a side job doing repairs, I charge more when customers try to repair things themselves.
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.
mid-kid · 1h ago
On the one hand what you're saying seems somewhat fair, but on the other hand, I prefer encouraging the attempt. A portion of the people who do this will never have to call you, having managed to solve the issue, and any experience gained with the attempt will go into doing it better next time.
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 :)
MostlyStable · 45m ago
Yeah, I had the pump on my washing machine go out. I called the repair guy, he said there was nothing to fix, it just needed a new pump. He told me he could do it for $X (on top of the call-out fee), but it wasn't that hard and I could find the replacement pump online for ~1/3X and do it myself. I did that and it took 20 minutes. We will definitely be using that repair company in the future for anything that isn't immediately obviously trivial
Hackbraten · 38m ago
> but not smart enough to recognize their limited ability.
Exploring the boundaries of one's own ability is not being "not smart enough." It's learning.
tristor · 8m ago
> As someone who has a side job doing repairs
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?
Nevermark · 2h ago
As long as, and some suppliers seem to find this onerous, the sticker can be peeled off cleanly.
(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.)
freedomben · 1h ago
Fender did this with my bass guitar. Trying to get the sticker off without scratching it was impossible, and even after using alcohol there's still some residue D-:
hedora · 1h ago
Goo Gone is your friend.
My usual flow chart: Nothing, water, alcohol, goo gone.
I’ve never ended up with a marred surface.
Nevermark · 1h ago
Tried that on the transparent cooker cover and it took off just enough of the cover surface with the sticker to look horrible.
Otherwise, yes!
1970-01-01 · 1h ago
+hair dryer heat, between nothing and water, can make a difference in a difficult peel.
hedora · 1h ago
For the same reason the rep hung up on him after he sat on hold.
imgabe · 2h ago
The sticker will get lost, peel off, get scratched until it's unreadable and then the user has no way to get that information. Maybe if they are really on top of things they will take a picture of the sticker when they first get the machine and save it somewhere that they will remember 5 years later when they need it, but most people will not do that. And if you aren't the first owner of the machine, well then, you're just sol.
crinkly · 2h ago
Rubbish. The sticker is still on my 14 year old washing machine.
Hell I've got a 55 year old piece of electronic equipment here with the serial number sticker still on it.
semi-extrinsic · 1h ago
I've got a 65 year old FM radio with manufacturer-supplied circuit diagram still inside the case.
hedora · 1h ago
I’ve got a tube based oscilloscope with a hand written sticker saying service is due in the ‘40s. The important info is stamped metal (model, serial number), or internal paper stickers (field manual).
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. :-)
ElevenLathe · 1h ago
Do you really think this cloud service will be up and functioning for 20+ years? How much stuff like that was set up in 2005 and is still working?
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.
Printerisreal · 1h ago
instead of sticker, they can just code something like dog tag, that is thing for century or more
joaomacp · 1h ago
The actual reason they tell you to register for warranty via a phone number is for a salesperson to pick up, and upsell you on "enhanced warranty" or "insurance". It's proven that people feel awkward saying no to a salesperson, and agree to pay extra much more often than they would do online (they'd just tick "no" on the enhanced warranty paid product).
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.
Liftyee · 2h ago
Not criticising the article or the decision to buy a new washing machine (20 years is a long time), but just noting that the old machine was likely fixable. If spare parts are even still available, that is. Whether it's deemed worth fixing is another matter.
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.
thisissomething · 26m ago
> This must be the case for so many discarded appliances these days, especially underengineered ones with common issues.
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.
hn_throw_250903 · 2h ago
As someone who just replaced the bearings on a washing machine motor (carbon-commutator), I uhh… agree?
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.
hedora · 2h ago
Conterpoint: We had a new samsung washer dryer pair with a 90 day warranty; they advertise something like 10 years, but it is a lie. The electrolux in the article is probably similar.
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.
pbhjpbhj · 1h ago
>There’s no reason these things shouldn’t last more than 20-30 years on average.
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.
hedora · 1h ago
I can think of a few solutions:
- 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.
pessimizer · 1h ago
> 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?
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.
Perz1val · 1h ago
I've read somewhere, that washing machines need to be run on hotter programs (at least 60°C) from time. This dissolves detergent accumulation on the bearing, slowing it's wear down. Apparently bearing failure is more common with modern washing machines as eco 30°C programs are used more often.
sokoloff · 1h ago
By the time detergent and water reaches the bearing, you've already lost. There is a seal that prevents that from happening and when that seal fails, the bearings will be not far behind.
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.
jorgen123 · 1h ago
No need to go anonymous. I fondly remember my achievement of taking apart my washing machine to replace the drum bearing. Thanks to the interweb gods for making blogs and videos that helped me.
xp84 · 1h ago
> QR properly
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.
happens · 2h ago
Do you know where I can read more about QR code protocols? I was under the impression that a simple URL (with http/s) is common, and I've never had it not on any device.
rokkamokka · 1h ago
Same, am I making qr codes wrong? Like you, I've never seen a simple https link in a qr code fail
kleiba · 1h ago
Don't know about washing machines, let alone this particular one, but my reasoning for replacing a twenty year old machine is that a new one will hopefully use less energy and might be better for the environment thus?!
skwee357 · 21m ago
There is something I can't seem to understand in the relationship between technology and non-tech people / companies.
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.
Telemakhos · 2h ago
I tried hitting the "identify" button but got the error "LanguageModel is not supported." This is on latest Safari, iPadOS.
kraig911 · 2h ago
I believe it's the nightly build on windows currently. Actually just looked and came back I'm mistaken it's on mac looks like too. Not sure why it's not working.
Spoom · 1h ago
chrome://flags/#prompt-api-for-gemini-nano to enable this on current Chrome (at least on Linux). It worked after I enabled that flag and restarted Chrome, though it required two tries (apparently it needed to download a model).
I tried to figure out if this stuff was available in other browsers but unfortunately came up short.
Googler, opinions my own.
johnfernow · 5m ago
The Prompt API [0] works in Edge, though it uses the Phi-4-mini model instead of Gemini Nano. [1]
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.
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."
toyg · 2h ago
PromptAPI seems to be the usual fire-and-motion Chrome move.
john_minsk · 2h ago
It doesn't work for me in Chrome either. Oh irony.
danieldk · 2h ago
Same on Vivaldi, macOS.
monkaiju · 2h ago
Same on Fennec
nickff · 1h ago
Quite ironic for someone at Google to be complaining about a lack of long-term support for customers, when Google seems to have basically no customer support at all.
ale42 · 2h ago
For such an operation like an ownership registration for a washing machine, this is totally true. But for some things (e.g., asking details about an invoice) I need to speak to someone, not to fill a form I receive an answer to in 3 days (and possibly not what I need). I say this because some companies are actually removing the option to call them in the first point, or hide it so it's very hard to find the number to call.
hedora · 1h ago
I’ve dealt with multiple companies that hang up after hearing what your issue is, before and after AI became common.
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).
sokoloff · 1h ago
> 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.")
hedora · 40m ago
Yeah; to avoid trouble, the call centers would need to avoid the appearance of impropriety, which is a higher bar than not engaging in the behavior.
jamesnorden · 6m ago
Pay for an ad, Google.
leonewton253 · 46m ago
I was thinking the samething about subway. Ideally everyone would just order a sandwich online and by the time they arrive its ready to go. You scan a QR code(or enter a code) and your sandwhich pops out of hole. Having the option to make or in front of you slows down production and is awkward talking over fans and such.
robertlagrant · 1h ago
For all that's holy, can you just say use instead of leverage, please?
datadrivenangel · 2h ago
Most AI agents and chatbots should be a web form. Make it easy to self service!
yomismoaqui · 1h ago
One of the better things about the web is it's staying power. A thing you do today with HTML, plain JS and CSS will work the same after 10 years.
Contrast with apps that force you to update and redeploy every few years.
soperj · 1h ago
Or, since they're already printing something unique when they print out the product number with the qr code, just print a qr code that goes to a website with the product number already encoded. No AI necessary.
edit: I see a number of people have already suggested this. Clearly a very obvious answer.
tziki · 1h ago
I'd say this goes for a lot of developers too. The amount of push back I see online when Chrome implements something that was previously only available in app land is weirdly high. Like do you seriously want to write separate ios app for everything?
leoc · 2h ago
Inside the heart of every customer support department there are two wolves. One is "do whatever we can to prevent them from phoning us: use every resource, every trick and every stalling measure to try to make sure they don't call". The other is "meh, just direct them to the call centre".
dj_gitmo · 2h ago
> The other is "meh, just direct them to the call centre".
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.
mdavid626 · 1h ago
You could just add the serial number directly to the URL in the QR code too.
amelius · 27m ago
> LanguageModel is not supported.
Fail.
Tronno · 1h ago
Author chose a brand based on loyalty instead of doing research. Leverage the web indeed - Google Search would have quickly revealed Electrolux is mediocre.
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.
PaulHoule · 49m ago
I hate the word "leverage" as a substitute for "use".
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.
pbhjpbhj · 1h ago
How about a minimum warranty period on white goods of 10 years mandated by government?
Convince me it's a bad idea?
etothepii · 1h ago
Define white goods. Define warranty.
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?
user3939382 · 1h ago
I have a better proposal. Let's scrap the web. It's corrupted and broken, it hasn't been fun since MySpace. We serve native apps like VNC over kitty graphics protocol + mosh/ssh + ios/android/windows/macos mosh/ssh client. Even if we need to distribute a customized terminal to make it work. Get rid of the browser and the app stores at the same time.
pphysch · 1h ago
How is your "customized terminal" not yet another browser?
philipwhiuk · 28m ago
AI?
It's just a QR-code
crinkly · 2h ago
This stuff really annoys me but the problem is really well solved elsewhere.
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.
Citizen8396 · 2h ago
Product/warranty registration is often a way to collect more data about you as a first party.
No comments yet
bux93 · 1h ago
I mean, the thing is, the warranty starts automatically, there's no need to register or activate anything. As per EU consumer protection laws (the author lives in Spain).
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.
01HNNWZ0MV43FF · 2h ago
I wonder if I could register the display washers sitting in Home Depot
Mistletoe · 2h ago
If I had to guess, they don't want to leverage the web because calling the phone number to get the 10 year warranty is a dark pattern they hope most people give up on. And they know the current version of the Electrolux washer is hot garbage that won't make it 10 years, compared to the previous one that made it 20 years. Now this is not great long term for the brand, but Yannick Fierling, the new CEO, just started in January 2025 after stepping down from being CEO of Haier Europe in March 2024, a job he kept for 9 years. The previous CEO, Jonas Samuelson, started on February 1, 2016, so why would Yannick care? Yannick will probably be out with a nice golden parachute and have a shorter life than the washer. Yannick is 54 years old and I guarantee the only thing he thinks about every day is retiring soon with as much money as possible.
This enshittification cycle runs every day in the world and I don't know how we can stop it.
rlpb · 2h ago
They may also try to use the warranty registration as an opportunity to sell insurance products, such as "protection" for other white goods. I had this with a new boiler (American English: "furnace"). They took the registration but wanted to sell me a further warranty on related heating system components not directly part of the boiler. Interestingly, it was a different company that specialises in such products. I think they probably have a business arrangement with the manufacturer to handle the warranty registration admin and possibly the warranty servicing too, presumably at a discounted price compared to the raw cost of merely servicing the warranty itself, in return for the opportunity for upselling their own products.
taeric · 2h ago
My guess would be more that they don't have a support org in house. Were likely running very lean on a manufacturing pipeline and are adding a lot of other services on through partnerships.
toyg · 1h ago
But they don't have in-house capabilities precisely because of the above-mentioned enshittification cycle: CEO-monkey does not care about long-term. CEO-monkey lowers costs today. CEO-monkey moves on to new job soon.
taeric · 55m ago
Maybe? It is as likely that the company focused on manufacturing for so long that they decided to keep their focus there.
toyg · 34m ago
Electrolux has existed for almost 100 years, and on its way it acquired a lot of other companies. The chances that none of those companies ever developed any sort of in-house assistance, over that time, are close to zero.
taeric · 25m ago
That is precisely a path that would lead to you not having a coherent support network, though? My assertion is that they did mergers to consolidate manufacturing. Any support orgs that they acquired along the way were not the aim of the acquisition. Quite the contrary, they complicated things in ways that are not as easy to work with as getting new manufacturing expertise.
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.
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.
Sadly, as much as we want to believe it, support does not seem to make enough market difference to justify the outlay.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I have a PiHole in case it tries to do anything funny, and that's good enough for me.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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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.
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 :)
Exploring the boundaries of one's own ability is not being "not smart enough." It's learning.
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?
(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.)
My usual flow chart: Nothing, water, alcohol, goo gone.
I’ve never ended up with a marred surface.
Otherwise, yes!
Hell I've got a 55 year old piece of electronic equipment here with the serial number sticker still on it.
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. :-)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
- 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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."
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.")
Contrast with apps that force you to update and redeploy every few years.
edit: I see a number of people have already suggested this. Clearly a very obvious answer.
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.
Fail.
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.
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?
It's just a QR-code
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.
No comments yet
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.
This enshittification cycle runs every day in the world and I don't know how we can stop it.