> It will sell very well because it a) will be cheaper than non-advertising laden fridges,
Will it? Investors would prefer full price fridges with full price ads.
Most consumers won't even know they've installed adware until the appliance is turned on, and what are they gonna do? go to all the effort of returning and buying another fridge?
Dark patterns like that will die out soon enough and they'll harm the share price: Samsung are going to tell customers what they're getting.
And while investors would prefer full price fridges with full price ads, the ad economy only makes sense once you have decent reach, so it makes sense to lower the cost of acquisition of the device, take the hit as a customer acquisition cost and then sell the larger reach to advertisers.
This is the model for every ad-supported device and service to date, I'm not sure they're going to reinvent those economics for a fridge.
Will it? Investors would prefer full price fridges with full price ads.
Most consumers won't even know they've installed adware until the appliance is turned on, and what are they gonna do? go to all the effort of returning and buying another fridge?
Captive audience