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?
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Re: For all that's holy, can you just leverage the web, please?
#2Most AI agents and chatbots should be a web form. Make it easy to self service!
Re: For all that's holy, can you just leverage the web, please?
#3If 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.
Re: For all that's holy, can you just leverage the web, please?
#4For 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.
Re: For all that's holy, can you just leverage the web, please?
#5If 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…
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.
Re: For all that's holy, can you just leverage the web, please?
#6Not 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.
Re: For all that's holy, can you just leverage the web, please?
#7I tried hitting the "identify" button but got the error "LanguageModel is not supported." This is on latest Safari, iPadOS.
Re: For all that's holy, can you just leverage the web, please?
#8I 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?
Re: For all that's holy, can you just leverage the web, please?
#9Not 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 prop…
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.
Re: For all that's holy, can you just leverage the web, please?
#10I 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?
Yep.
When the only tool you know is the hammer you're going to hit inappropriate things with it.