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by jandrese 2337 days ago
The headline made it sound like the horrible mess that Freecell has become, but this is fairly low key.
1 comments

this is fairly low key

Only if you're inured to this kind of corporate intrusion on your machine that you paid for with your money.

My toaster barking, "Hey, wouldn't you like a nice Thomases' English Muffin instead? Nooks and crannies!" is also fairly low-key, but not something I want.

> My toaster barking, "Hey, wouldn't you like a nice Thomases' English Muffin instead? Nooks and crannies!" is also fairly low-key, but not something I want.

On the bright side, my kids would get to (briefly) see a reproduction of After Dark's "Flying Toasters" screensaver.

It's more like your toaster saying "we have another model that provides xyz features you may or may not want"
Maybe more like you rent an apartment that comes with a basic toaster, and has a sticker on the said that says "full feature toaster available, inquire with the landlord if you are interested".

Mildly annoying and silly, but maybe some people wouldn't even consider the possibility if you didn't tell them about it.

Why is that even remotely OK?
If done well, it could just be a way to inform customers of an improved product.

Lets say Apple launched iTunes2 as a separate product and one day you opened iTunes and saw the banner "Try iTunes2!" would that be equally upsetting? Or you go to gmail.com and see a banner for "Try Inbox!" etc.

This isn't candy crush in WordPad, it's an ad for an enhanced text editor

> Lets say Apple launched iTunes2 as a separate product and one day you opened iTunes and saw the banner "Try iTunes2!" would that be equally upsetting

It would, actually. I don't want to be sold to, at all.

I honestly can't imaging who this could be "done well".

> Lets say Apple launched iTunes2 as a separate product and one day you opened iTunes and saw the banner "Try iTunes2!" would that be equally upsetting?

Yes.

Agreed. The fact that we're making comparisons to worse scenarios just shows how low standards have become.
It really does get as annoying as you'd expect. The Sci-Fi comedy Red Dwarf has a toaster that does essentially this, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRq_SAuQDec