https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/snoo-bassinet-baby-sleeping-subscription-b2597869.html
The bassinet costs $1,700 — then the subscription fee kicks in
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/18776912
Why the hell do rockers need subscription services? This should be illegal. A rocker, which has absolutely zero maintenance upkeep from the company, should not be gouging their customers for money to use features they’ve already paid for.
No, I get it. CapITaLiSm. That’s why this is posted here. Yes, the above is rhetorical. It still pisses me off. I don’t typically advocate violence, but the people who made this business decision need to go take a very long walk off a short pier, with cinder blocks chained around their throats.
My apologies. I needed to vent. Carry on.
PS. This thing costs almost $1400 on Amazon, which is boasting a 20% discount, and the inventor Harvey Karp is complaining the company is not making enough money. You know who else is not making enough money right now? The Pitchfork and Torches store. That’s who.
Luckily I'm still on my family's ForkPitch plan. Let me know if you want to sign up for Torchee, I have a referral code
I hate how much unusable waste these devices produce.
These things could stay in the secondhand market for years and years, instead they're made unusable and end up in the trash.
Welp... Smart designer wouldn't even have included a server. Bluetooth connection to the crib would have been enough. If it needs an app at all.... Our motorized crib hat buttons you know. You are not gonna operate that thing remotely anyways.
It really isn't unless they changed since we used it 5 years ago. It just had a microphone and went through several levels of rocking based on how much sound mics picked up. It worked whether it was connected or not. Internet was just for notifications. Your baby screaming is usually a pretty clear notification.
Doesn't seem all that smart to me. Does the company offer an API to the device so consumers can write their own "server"? No, I'm sure they have it locked down behind some proprietary encryption scheme so that anyone who tries can be charged with violating the digital millennium copywrite act.
If you’ve never had a crying baby, you would not understand the lengths to which people are willing to go for some peaceful sleep.
Also, I know mom / friend groups where the Snoo just gets passed around from mom to mom as they have their children and everyone pays in to defray the cost considerably.
Not defending the subscription, but the Snoo not as stupid as you’re making it sound.
What fucking servers do an app and a Bluetooth enabled device need?
This is just bullshit rent seeking, and blaming it on "servers" is just a lazy excuse for the practice.
The thing costs $1400. A very small fraction of that should be able to pay for a lifetime of Tuya or Amazon or whatever IOT cloud they are using.
Assuming they need a server at all (and that's a big if), the computer time needed to handle a crib should be basically nothing. $1 a year would be an exorbitant charge.
These things are usually billed on a per-call basis. Costs can rise pretty dramatically pretty fast. Plus, you need to hire staff to manage the resources.
Sure, you could set up a VPN to your home network and not have to go through their infrastructure, but 99% of consumers won't do that.
Just another company taking part in the worldwide subscription model scam.
Here's another one: LynkD. I have a few of their NFC padlocks. They're not particularly well made, nor are they particularly secure, but they're convenient and I like them to secure low-importance things like my gym locker or the shed at the back of my garden.
I wanted to buy more. LynkD informed me that the padlocks now require a subscription. It's even written at the bottom of the product page:
Membership to these platforms costs $15/Month + $5/Device + $5/User with the first user free. An active membership is required in order to use this device.
Yes, you read that right: a fucking PADLOCK now requires a subscription.
The mind boggles...
Not only a subscription but one at an absolutely rip off price. Flat. Monthly cost, PLUS per device PLUS per user fees?
at this point, anyone who buys any online "smart" object is in doing so proving that they are not.
Unfortunately there is a real need for these. There's a reason it's like the only bassinet that has an FDA approval rating, as well as why many NICU wards have them for preemies. We literally would not have been able to sleep without it when we had our son, he wouldn't sleep without being either on us or in the SNOO.
We were luckily able to rent one for less total cost than buying one, but for many families I'd imagine the second hand market is the only way they'd be able to afford one. That to me is what makes this introduction of a subscription service even more awful.
There are also bluetooth smart objects which are not much better (smartwatches, etc), but at least we have gadgetbridge for those.
Unrelated to the fuckery of this, the only advice I give to expecting parents is, "don't spend a lot of money solving problems you don't know you'll have." Everyone wants to tell you about some product that was super important to their infant, but babies are all different, and your kid might not need what they used. We nearly spent $300 on a fancy bottle warmer, and it turned out our baby liked cold milk. You don't want to spend $1,7000 on a bassinet only to find out your kid is an easy sleeper.
I told you bro. I fuckin' warned you.
People have called me "paranoid" for years for pointing out that this kind of thing was going to happen, and it's so much worse than I thought it would be but at least I'm vindicated.
Tech companies will literally murder or enslave you if they think it would be good for their bottom line. We know that's true because tech companies are murdering and enslaving people in the global south because it's good for their bottom line. Stop giving them money. Stop buying wifi-enabled garbage that spies on you for the police state.
Maybe it's a good thing that people with entirely too much money are being forced to rock their own crying child instead of having a machine do it. Using robots to soothe your child is a Phillip K. Dick-esque dystopia. Obviously a crying child take a huge mental and physical health toll on everyone in a house, but in a country where poor people are being forced to give birth, maybe the rich people should have to suffer a little bit too.
Philip K Dick is absolutely winning the Predictive Distopian Futures Award out of all the sci-fi authors.
After the recent Disney debacle, I've realized that these subscriptions are a way for companies to limit their liability by making you agree to their terms of use.
Enshittification, once again. Cory Doctorow's latest talk at DefCon about it was pretty good.
I heard the free version stops rocking after 5 minutes, then plays an ad before it starts to rock again.
The product is called Snoo. That’s not a typo. This has nothing to do with the sellout named Snoop Dogg.