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Comment by jancsika | Hacker News Reader

> To be fair, it could also get functionality updates

This is an important point that owners[1] sometimes miss.

For example, if the owner makes a deal to partner with the maker of a particular detergent tab, the owner could create a new feature that only works with those tabs and not regular powder detergent.

1: Owner: the person who owns the firmware being sent over WiFi.

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Yeah but usually what happens is that no new development of that sort occurs during the (intentionally limited by cheaped-out hardware design) lifetime of the appliance. If they do push any updates, they'll either be to fix security problems (only if you're lucky enough that they get fixed at all), or they'll push some horrible software feature users didn't ask for which worsens their experience vs how it operated when purchased and brings new bugs. Appliance manufacturers are terrible at firmware/software. You get all the downsides and none of the upsides.

And just general bug updates. Remember how buggy appliances used to be, back in the bad old days when they were too simple to run whole operating systems? A couple months after release these things will be mostly free of glitches!

This is why you should never allow a printer to directly connect to the internet.

Never is a strong word. If corporations can take advantage of you, so you can you of them. I’m yet to pay a single dollar for ink. The free 10 pages a month plan with HP allows me to use it to print the occasional recipes and labels in full color for free. I knew I’m not going to print too much stuff and I can swap it out for my own ink if my need changes. I keep the printer plugged out except when I need to print and it works out well for me so far. (This was why HP was trying to phase out the plan).

That might soon be mandatory as an anti-banknote-photocopy measure.

Or, maybe the detergents don't matter all that much and should be generic enough that you can use them in any dishwasher.

Pretty sure the person you were responding to was pointing out more ways that wifi is an anti-feature for a dishwasher

This still sounds terrible.

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