<< ignore the incredibly smart people at major international corporations and their strategies.

Ignore may be a tad strong. I am merely asking for hardware that is subject to my control to be within my control. I think somewhere along the way executives got a little to comfortable saying 'they will buy what we give them'.

More to the point, maybe there is exactly too many smart people with agendas that don't seem to align well with my current needs vis-a-vis fridges:

I want something that keeps things cool with minimum of fuss and does not die upon update.

In short, that executive should be fired as they are not doing their job: they are actively undermining their own market.