To brag about them on social media, just like designer clothing etc.

I highly doubt that. High end appliances that are actually social media worthy are essentially the opposite of these tacky things.

If you're going to downvote then at least prove me wrong: the social media darling is the viking tuscany range, fridges are colorful 70's inspired with no "tech" -- smeg and it's competitors. Negative signaling at it's finest, it's a flex if you don't have any "smart" appliances.

	▲	squarefoot 21 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> fridges are colorful 70's inspired with no "tech" -- smeg and it's competitors. Agreed on that but probably there are different ways to waste money on shiny expensive things, likely depending on age, culture etc. Also general excessive trust in advertised technology paired with lesser knowledge about the dangers, especially when some appliance becomes obsolete after a few years, receives no security updates, if any, but keeps connecting to the Internet from the user LAN. That however is a completely different topic that someone soon will have to address to not turn any IoT installation in a field day for malicious actors. ps. I can't know if you were downvoted but if it happened it wasn't me. I never downvoted anyone just for disagreeing with me.