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“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 23 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams
Look around you and ask yourself: is this the type of futuristic life that you thought you’d have? For some of us, that answer is a definite ‘no’ because it strays too far from the idealized things we’ve seen in our favorite sci-fi movies and shows. In real life, there’s too much friction, bad design, and annoyance compared to technological awesomeness. In short, some tech corporations are less than friendly toward their valued customers in their pursuit of profit and never-ending growth.
User u/cutypatotie sparked an interesting discussion on r/AskReddit after asking everyone to share their opinions about the biggest tech scams that have been widely accepted. We’ve collected the most interesting insights to share with you, from how God-awful subscriptions can be to the scourge that is planned obsolescence.
We wanted to learn more about user-(un)friendly companies and product longevity, so we reached out to marketing psychology speaker Matt Johnson, Ph.D., for comment. Johnson is the host of the branding and human nature blogs. You'll find the expert insights he shared with Bored Panda as you read on.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Unsubscribe button not being honored. Tactics include:
1. It takes 15 days to unsubscribe but 1 min to subscribe.
2. Sometimes link does not exists at all.
3. Sometimes it takes you to a non existent page.
4. Sometimes it asks you to login but you never had an account.
5. Sometimes they will randomly send emails even after unsubscribing , especially around holiday season. Like out of the blue they will email, I think they got a new incompetent marketing guy.
6. Them not realizing that they product they sell is not something I buy or need on a regular basis. Eg: indochino , how frequently do you think I buy a new suit.
7. The whole marketing email is an image and not an html. Clicking on it just opens the image or takes you to home page (mostly sites from India )
8. Somehow referencing the canspam act and sending it to their privacy email stops all the emails suddenly. But the. Point 5 happens.
superfluous 9 months ago
How about Microsoft Outlook mail blocking emails you report as spam only if they don't have unsubscribe links? IT IS UNSOLICITED EMAIL - any links are probably fake and get you marked as an active email address for MORE spam! If I requested to be on a mailing list, I DO try to unsubscribe. If I call it spam, it IS spam!
RELATED:
#2
Accepting cookies.
Just to continue on a site they’ll say accept or reject cookies. It’s easier for everyone to just accept. However, we’re selling our data to a host of companies who package it sell it to advertisers
superfluous 9 months ago
How about the boxes with options that pop up and disappear with default allow all before you can make your selection?
#3
“We have changed our terms of service. Click here to accept and continue using our services.”
IamShellingFord:
Forced arbitration and changing the terms of service after the product has been bought
when i bought my device, i had an understanding of what i was buying. it makes my skin crawl knowing that companies can change that after i paid for something and i can't hold them accountable for that.
it's like i bought a pizza with some toppings.
after i buy it with the terms being i can eat the toppings as well, they take away the toppings from the rest of the pizza as soon as I've had a couple of slices.
feels absolutely disgusting to me.
#4
Crypto. Magic internet money with a community of people all just trying to get other people stuck holding the bag.
#5
Subscription Traps: Makes signing up easy but canceling difficult, often hiding the cancellation process.
Janelle Collard 9 months ago
I call my credit card company and say the card was stolen + not to allow any new charges, even recurring ones, without my authorization. 😁
#6
Data caps, literally not a technical reason for it. Throttling may make sense if they get overloaded but caps are literally just money grabs.
#7
Non-replaceable batteries.
Petra Peitsch 9 months ago
Having no smart-phone, will solve your problem. I had one, like 12-13 years ago, Once it had fallen from my night table like 30 cm on a fluffy carpet. And it's screen had become a freaking spider-web. First and last trying for smartphones. I have a normal handy now, what has a 6 days battery-life, and still frustrates me, that I have to charge. Never ever can I go for a phone, what I'd have to charge 2-3 times a day. I have a laptop and a tablet to connect with the internet. For what the f.ucks' sake would I need a smartphone?
#8
Intentionally downgrading older models of just about anything so you’re forced to upgrade.
#9
You don't actually own anything, you just own a license to view/listen/play it... and it can be revoked/edited at any time without consequence.
#10
AI = Certainly artificial but lacking a great deal of intelligence.
munificent:
Training generative AI on copyrighted material laboriously produced by artists and then using the result to put those same artists out of work.
#11
"I accept your 1000 page privacy policy and terms of service"
#13
Hippity hoppity your data is now my property… or something along those lines.
superfluous 9 months ago (edited)
How about all those warnings about keeping my data safe and changing passwords regularly and then some company I haven't done business with in a decade LOSES MY SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER and other information in a data breach of MILLIONS???? And they are only required to give me identity protection for ONE YEAR??? Why the F**K did they hang onto that information for YEARS?????? HOW IS THIS ALLOWABLE???????? (USA AT&T is the company). This makes my head want to blow up. Edit to add I have not personally lost my own information to date, let alone MILLIONS OF OTHER PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!
#15
Here’s a new product! (Uber! DoorDash! Amazon!) It’s so cheap and easy!
One year later: Sorry! We had to raise prices! Sorry, you have to pay for a membership now! Sorry, we had to make the app really confusing so you’re not really sure what you’re buying! Sorry, you have to wade through 1 million ads to find what you’re looking for!
Sorry, not sorry!
#16
I can't believe I don't see this in here, but the fact that most tech companies use their end users as testers is wild. Tons of the time you get something released that like, half works, and the end users or customers are used to find and fix bugs. It's everywhere man.
#17
Planned obsolescence. Companies need that profit margin, and they will use very underhanded methods to make sure your appliances/electronics will get replaced by their new models when they come out.
Janelle Collard 9 months ago
We have to buy a new microwave every 2 to 3 years, no matter *which* brand we buy or how expensive it was.
#18
McAfee - who in the hell actually needs it?
Janelle Collard 9 months ago (edited)
Worst spam ads ever! Take over my computer so I have to reboot or turn it off.
#19
Trapping customers with subscriptions.
Janelle Collard 9 months ago
And if you don't set a reminder to cancel the free trial, they take your money for-f*cking-ever.
#20
Cable TV packages that include hundreds of channels most people never watch but have to pay for. It forces consumers to overspend on content they don't want just to get access to a few channels they do.
Quarkbeast 9 months ago
I have an antenna - free all the time, and lots of free streaming channels.
#21
Subscription models in general. We're not getting new content or functionality every month, so why the hell am I paying a monthly fee? Just let me buy it, own it, and pay for an upgrade if I want it.
Final score:
4points
Petra Peitsch 9 months ago (edited)
Becauae you are a gen Z, who never built their Pentium III computer? Coming from a woman ... and not blaming the OP . But the '90s in tech-matter were the best! You could do what you want. Literally. Oh, and I still have my pirated 95 Windows on floppys.
#23
A new iPhone being released every year and Apple convincing people it has a ton of improvements.
#24
Extended warranties for electronics, which are rarely worth the cost given the low chance of a malfunction that would fall under the warranty terms, and often overlap with the manufacturer’s warranty.
Petra Peitsch 9 months ago (edited)
And is so infuriating, that all the sales people would like to talk you into it, when you are a woman buying any kind of electronics. Geez, man! I was coming in your store just to grab my device, what I had already researched in every existing forum, what's language I understand, and you have on sale. So, our inetraction will be: Hello-I-want-to-buy-this-thank-you.
#25
selling games that cannot be played offline then turning off the server. i recently tried to play some older games and none that i put a lot of time into now play. what is the point of my 80 quid disc now? i paid for the game so i should be able to play it.
Final score:
1point
StrangeOne 9 months ago
Find an older console. I still have my PS2 that I still use, and a Wii, an NES. Currently looking for a Super Nintendo so I can play Mario 3 again.
#26
Hewlett Packard printers which don't work unless you subscribe. And use their ink.
Final score:
1point
StrangeOne 9 months ago
HP's customer service is a bunch of "grey hatters" who pressure you into paying them with a prepaid visa card before they will help you fix your computer. They will just transfer you to the sales department or billing whether you want to be transferred or not. If you're still on your warranty, their first tactic is to get remote access to your computer.
#27
Longevity of TVs.
My mom gave me her old TV from the 80s and it worked until it stopped turning on in the mid 2000s. So, that was a couple decades we got out of it. Our next big TV came from my, then, bf's parents. They bought it, I think, early 2000s. That TV lasted until 2019. Like, it still worked but the picture was going very orange due to the colour tubes wearing out.
My next big TV I bought in 2018 to replace the one above, the picture wasn't great with the old fashioned plug ins. When I put in the HDMI cable, it was a tad sharper but there was weird green speckling in all the black, dark areas in what was in the picture. Any shadows in the images, green speckles. Tried to correct it by adjusting the picture settings. The speckling fluctuated but became accentuated in other areas of the images. There was also this weird, wavy light border whenever we watched a movie or show. Didn't matter if it was a DVD or VHS. It didn't show up on the TVs intro screen, though. I just replaced my TV, again, this year. I'm hoping nothing goes awry with this one for a while.
Final score:
1point
Nicola Mawson 9 months ago
My Sony lasted a decade. Until the ceiling fell on it. The ceiling was an inch of plaster as I own a duplex. The shoody building work is another story. I've had to replace all the tiles as they were lifting
#28
Longevity of TVs. TVs used to last decades. Now, they barely last half a decade, and sometimes there's something so unusually wrong with them no one can give you a clear, good answer.
Green speckling in the shadows and dark areas of the images in a movie that won't go away no matter how much you try to fiddle around with the picture settings.
Weird, light wavy boarder around the screen that only shows up when playing a movie.
Final score:
0points
StrangeOne (Submission author) 9 months ago
I got an error message that told me to try submitting again. I didn't know my initial post was submitted. Weird. You can just ignore this one.
#29
games that cannot be played offline then turning off the server. why give me a £80 disc if i cant play it from the disc?
Final score:
-3points
#30
games that cant be played offline. why give a disc if it does nothing
Final score:
-4points
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