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Comment by einarfd | Hacker News Reader

If you live in the right jurisdiction consumer protection laws might be able to force the seller to get this defect fixed or have them take back and refund the tv.

Where I live (Norway), there is a five year warranty on long lived products, which a tv is, and if it breaks during that period, the seller needs to fix or replace the product. Motion smoothing that can't be turned off seems a serious breakage, and if they seller pushes back, you can point out that Tom Cruise and a bunch of other movie luminaries think motion smoothing ruins movies.

Not sure what the rules are with software updates after the tv is out of warranty. But I do suspect the seller would still be in hot water, if the update breaks important functionality.

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> Motion smoothing that can't be turned off seems a serious breakage, and if they seller pushes back, you can point out that Tom Cruise and a bunch of other movie luminaries think motion smoothing ruins movies.

Is this the standard in Norway, where the consumer can just call something they personally dislike "serious breakage" and demand their money back? Does this work? Would you actually invoke your Tom Cruise argument and expect that to change anyone's mind?

Or is the culture there just so passive and avoidant that they'll give you your money back just so you go away and stop bothering them?

Whole thing seems wild to me.

Fundamentally altering the way the picture is shown without anyway to revert to the original functionality is obviously a severe deviation from how the product was originally sold. It's akin to not having blue anymore.

But it's not akin to not having blue anymore. Not having red anymore is akin to not having blue anymore.

Having the video play in a way you personally dislike is perhaps upsetting to you, but it's a TV and the video still plays.

So if it downscales to 512x288, your contention is “the video still plays” even though the quality is horrid. If not, what do you imagine the important distinction to be?

> So if it downscales to 512x288,

Sorry I misread the article and didn't realize this happened. You're right, my bad.

Kind of, yes. Terminology used in Australian consumer law is that devices must be "fit for purpose" and of "acceptable quality", especially in regards to other similar products. A software update changing the product in a significant and negative way after purchase definitely would be grounds for a "remedy".

It's a TV! It plays video. How is that not "fit for purpose" and of "acceptable quality."

Honestly just seems nuts to me for the law to be so vague.

Why don't they just say, "Refund under any circumstance the customer feels inconvenienced and upset" and be done with it?

I find that much more honest and easier to follow than what you're describing.

Caveat emptor and all.

I think you're being unreasonable. "Acceptable quality" is whatever a reasonable person accepts an argument for. If Roku doesn't want to run afoul of these laws perhaps they should make these kinds of features optional instead of forcing them on people? I remember back in the day when a software update removed my ability to play FM radio on my phone and that was certainly frustrating for me. I personally continued using the phone but I could see how someone who purchased the phone for that feature would be dismayed at its sudden removal.

The whole point of these laws is to prevent manufacturers from squeezing people by making products that fail early, or that are difficult to use. If you don't understand why this is important then I'd question how much life experience you really have.

> If Roku doesn't want to run afoul of these laws perhaps they should make these kinds of features optional instead of forcing them on people?

Maybe they don't care about running afoul of these laws? Or feel that they are on solid ground?

> The whole point of these laws is to prevent manufacturers from squeezing people by making products that fail early, or that are difficult to use.

But neither of those things happened in this case did they? The TV still TVs (it didn't fail early) and it's not suddenly more difficult to use. The person just dislikes the update.

> I personally continued using the phone but I could see how someone who purchased the phone for that feature would be dismayed at its sudden removal.

I guess this is where we differ. Somebody feeling dismayed does not mean the company owes them a refund (in my opinion) and governments should not (in my opinion) be writing laws that protect people from being dismayed with their purchases.

I can understand not caring about motion smoothing, but I cannot fathom being totally okay with manufacturers being able to retroactively change features of a product after you've purchased it and without your consent. Would you not mind if your car got an over the air update and suddenly had a governor at 70 mph and half the acceleration? Would you be okay with your airpods suddenly deciding that they can only pair with sufficiently new apple devices? Any change that would materially affect the purchase price or decision to purchase absolutely must not be imposed unconditionally after purchase. It's fraud with extra steps.

> I cannot fathom being totally okay with manufacturers being able to retroactively change features of a product after you've purchased it and without your consent.

I can! It's a thing that presumably I was happy with for some amount of time. Things change.

> Would you be okay with your airpods suddenly deciding that they can only pair with sufficiently new apple devices

Yes! It's a risk of buying something. I can evaluate that risk and I can make different buying decisions in the future if I get burned.

Are you okay with a bait and switch executed on a shorter time frame? How about a third party breaking into your house and breaking your things, or is that only alright when the original manufacturer does it?

> Are you okay with a bait and switch executed on a shorter time frame

If I pay for it, I’m OK with it. If I decide I’m not OK with it, I’ll either not buy it or learn my lesson and make a different decision in the future.

> How about a third party breaking into your house and breaking your things, or is that only alright when the original manufacturer does it?

Why don’t you take a wild guess here?

>Why don’t you take a wild guess here?

I think that the only position consistent with your prior statements is that burglary is just one of those things that happens sometimes, and if the homeowner really didn't like it, they'd move. Caveat emptor.

Call me crazy but I think there's a difference between breaking and entering and theft of physical objects and motion smoothing being turned on in a TV set.

> dismayed with their purchases

Software updates throw a spanner in the works.

They were not dismayed with their purchase - presumably they liked the product they bought. Then Roku changed their purchase through a software update to something they thought was worse. The same would be true if a software update removed motion smoothing as an option if you like it.

You can understand how this is behaviour from companies - removing functionality from products through software updates - is something that pro-consumer countries might want to discourage?

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