politics

This page considers the politics of the internet refrigerator and other 'dot appliances', embodying an ideology of display rather than day to day use.

It covers -

• introduction
• producers
• retailers
• media
• government
• civil society
• consumers

     introduction

What are the politics of the net fridge? What visions of the world do they embody? What is driving their development and adoption (or non-adoption), as technology isn't situated outside an economic and social context?

We can start to answer those questions by looking at a range of actors –

• designers
• manufacturers
• retailers and service providers
• government
• civil society organisations
• reporters and analysts
• consumers.

Fridge design reflects relationships within the whitegoods industry, traditionally driven by engineering and production concerns, where 'design' has been 'conflated with 'style' (and a decorator such as Raymond Loewy being imported to remedy lagging sales by wrapping a fashionable skin around someone else's hardware).

     producers

With the whitegoods industry reliant on economies of scale and generally using technology that's changed little since the 1950s, designers are members of the 'whitecollar proletariat'. As with concept cars in Detroit, working on an internet fridge is one way to pique their interest - and aid the recruitment of talent. Unfortunately the usability barriers discussed below suggest that most of the creativity was expended in writing media releases rather than on design of the device.

Why are manufacturers interested in the internet fridge? The answer appears to be branding rather than revenue; some of their statements about expectations are at best disingenuous. The major manufacturers such as LG and Electrolux apparently don't expect the fridge to make a major contribution to their sales or revenue figures and the device is not available in most retail outlets.

The fridge is instead a promotional exercise, with companies in a low tech industry being able to spritz up their brand with "the technology of the future" and boost their market value by capturing "some New Economy allure". Alas, that allure proved transitory, with share prices more affected by misadventures such as LG's disastrous credit card subsidiary.

The net fridge is the whitegoods equivalent of the Detroit concept car - expensive, exotic, destined never to get into production but suggesting to consumers that good things are just around the corner, magic is under the hood and dreams are achievable. Making big white boxes - or the red enamel or stainless variety - is a low-growth, low-margin business, with competition from emerging manufacturers with low labour costs, consumers generally choosing on the basis of price and replacing fridges every ten to twelve years.

Electrolux executive Michael Treschow thus rather plaintively explained that "We have to stop being just a hardware maker and become a service provider", although that provision would presumably involve acquisition of a bank or an etailer rather than parking a small touchscreen on the refrigerator door.

     retailers

The same vision of revenue from services appears in statements from retailers and telecommunication providers.

In Australia Telstra - whose market dominance has enabled indulgence in a variety of projects for promo purposes - proclaimed that it had decided to "update the archetypal whitegood for the new millennium". Its Windows 98 based fridge was relegated to the back room after five years.

Electrolux's partner Tele Danmark explained that "We have to get beyond commodity calls and offer high value-added services". The basis for delivery of services through the fridge is unclear, with likely resistance by consumers to being tied to a fridge/manufacturer-specific ISP or internet gateway. More money might be made in connectivity charges for video displayed on a large high definition flat screen that is independent of the box used for storing yoghurt and lettuce.

And retailers? Our sense is that there has been little interest once it became clear that consumers were not treating the fridge as a 'must have', that stock was not readily available on attractive terms and that free popcorn or barbequed treats were more effective in attracting traffic into the store.

     media

General and technical media have been largely enthusiastic in reporting the internet fridge, attributable to some of the ideological issues highlighted later in this page and to its funkiness and non-threatening nature. Everyone, it seems, can conceptualise or relate to the cold enamel box whereas the arcana of packet switching or steganography are either too threatening or result in resort to the fast forward button.

One disappointing, albeit unsurprising, aspect of that coverage is that most reporting has had a 'gee whiz' flavour – often attributable to recycling of manufacturer media releases and backgrounders – with little attention to likely markets and issues such as usability.

There has thus been recurrent reporting of consumer comments that the concept would be 'kewl', less reporting that the same consumers don’t intend to buy (or merely can not afford to buy) and even less coverage of what happened when consumers were given – or lent – a web fridge.

Responses by analysts in the public and private sectors reflect broader stances regarding technologies, in turn often associated with chosen roles. Some commercial and academic pundits have expressed an almost delirious enthusiasm, prophesying large-scale uptake by consumers. That enthusiasm is triumphalist, with the fridge positioned as the latest – and necessary - breakthrough in ICT.

Others - whether from better grasp of reality, a desire to flout conventional wisdom or an awareness of the media value of being contrarian – have been more sceptical. The fridge has thus increasingly been deemed unworthy of serious consideration or relegated to footnotes in scholarly discussion of home networking.

     government

Government, in contrast, has been indifferent, apart from use of the fridge as an illustration in ministerial speeches and in glossy documents that seek to associate particular individuals/plans with attributes of vision, funkiness and mastery of new technologies.

Use of the fridge in an official speech is typically an indicator that the author is suffering from intellectual poverty or – more sadly – worried that the target audience may have fallen asleep over the rubber chicken. There have been no national internet fridge development initiatives backed by substantial public sector funding, no grandstanding about subsidised access and no major regulatory studies.

     civil society

Civil society organisations have been similarly silent, apart from the sporadic enthusiasm of particular members. We haven't encountered rhetoric about an 'internet fridge divide' or, conversely, claims that the fridge expose kids to cyberporn while they are eating their cornflakes or zapping noodles in the microwave after school.

     consumers

Contrary to claims of high demand for the web fridge, consumers do not seem to have purchased the 'must have' machine in significant numbers or used it as the manufacturer and marketers intended.

As noted in a preceding page, sales have been desultory. Neither academic studies nor anecdotal reports substantiate forecasts that households would persistently scan food being placed in/removed from the fridge (as the basis for online shopping lists) or rely on it for messaging and media. That is unremarkable, given claims about the fridge and fundamental usability problems.

   next page  (usability)