It’s pretty cool how things we purchase can just lose functionality at the drop of a hat.
Should be allowed to return products at a full refund when they do something like this, and for an additional 25% value in a gift card for the inconvenience.
an additional 25% value in a gift card for the inconvenience.
Plus countering inflation, of the company reaps rewards from sitting on that cash in between.
In September of 2023, Amazon announced the Echo Show 8 Photos Edition. It looked just like the regular Echo Show 8 smart display/speaker but cost $10 more. Why? Because of its ability to show photos on the home screen for as long as you want—if you signed up for a $2 monthly subscription to Amazon’s PhotosPlus. Now, about a year after releasing the Echo Show 8 Photos Edition, Amazon is announcing that it’s discontinuing PhotosPlus. That means Echo Show 8 Photos Edition users will be forced to see ads instead of their beloved pics.
i’m sorry but if you were enough of a rube to sign up for a $2/mo subscription for that then this might be darwinistic capitalism
A lot of people really have a hard time parsing what they’re buying with digital products and I think it’s unfair to expect them to compete with international mega corporations that love to surprise folks with gated featured/subscriptions as you go “caveat emptor.”
Clearly not enough people were. I’m taking this as a W for the common man
Here’s to hoping the development of a good local replacement from Home Assistant. Like the Lenovo teams screen thing.
Man, Amazon is giving Google a run for their money on enshittification and product cancellation.
This is more hilarious because the spy device not only cost more for the ability to show you photos, but it ALSO had a subscription fee to do so on top of that.
I’m completely befuddled as to what the hell they were thinking, and why they think replacing family pictures with more ads is somehow going to make people do anything other than Ron Swanson these stupid things into the nearest dumpster.
So I bought one of Spotify’s Car Things when they were flushing them after realizing nobody knew fuck all about them.
The device itself works alright for it’s purpose, but is basically just a fancy way to change tracks or answer your phone. There’s no GPS or messaging integration that you’d get with CarPlay. It doesn’t even tell the time. Still, it works and is useful.
A few months ago, Spotify sent out emails that, as of December, they will be bricking all of them and to dispose of them via whatever recycling service you have.
Pretty shitty that we’ve entered an era where companies can just destroy something you paid for because they want to… There need to be laws against this.
Yes. And also be careful when you’re shopping.
In case you didn’t know, you can contact support. D get a credit to your Spotify subscription, usually in the amount that you paid for the Car Thing. You’ll just need your receipt.
Oh look, more e-waste.
Companies should be forced to pay per pound of their shit that people throw away before a certain time
The description of that device and subscription is so fucking stupid I’m not even mad. If you fell for it that hard, you deserve whatever they throw at you.
“You’re stupid so you deserve to be screwed over by massive corporations”. What a shitty take.
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This is a good reason not to buy a kindle, or another one if you have one already. If they’re doing this they’ll just as easily steal the books I bought when they randomly decide to.
They already did. 1984 of all books, too.
I only buy authors that refuse to DRM their work.
Agreed. Its really annoying since i love the Paperwhite. But I just don’t trust Amazon as a company.
Jokes on them, i actually own my epubs
Gotta love Calibre.
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There was a bunch of noise over a book that they rescinded from Kindles a couple / few years ago. I don’t recall the details, but it made headlines.
It was 1984. Surprise!
You shouldn’t need a fucking subscription to display your photos on your hardware.
The subscription is for the 25gb cloud storage space… Of course a 64gb USB Stick would be cheaper and doesn’t rely on an online connection.
Just as a little tip, in the US if you switch your Echo’s language to US-CAN it displays way less ads :)
Ah, similar trick works with some viruses. If you set the keyboard layout or timezone to Russian, the ransomware will not encrypt your files.
Those things have ads? Why would you intentionally buy an advertisement billboard for your house?
It’s a toss up, but it pretty much only shows just photo/link ads. The one that they’ve really been pushing recently is that Disney platformer game on the Switch for some reason.
Yea but you still willingly put a little billboard in your house and you even paid them to do it 🤷♂️
I love paying a faceless corporation that hates humans to remind me everyday that capitalism is killing me!
Sorry, what I meant was that the ads are extremely easy to ignore, and you can immediately swipe through them if you want to. I use mine exclusively as an alarm clock anyways.
A $2/mo subscription for a fucking screensaver?!
Some people really are that dumb. I guess the silver lining is that there weren’t enough dumb people to keep this dumb service alive.
Digital photo frame as a service. Wow thanks big tech, so innovative, I can ask it about the weather.
“Now fetching the weather, but first a word from our sponsors!”
Don’t forget the spyware
Samsung already did this for their Frame TV, and charged around $5.99/month
Samsung Art Store | Art For The Frame TV | Samsung US - https://www.samsung.com/us/televisions-home-theater/tvs/the-frame/digital-art-store/
A picture frame with ads? My god Jim
That device has gullible written all over it.
Crap like this is why I stopped buying things.
