100% Samsung.. Long story short, it took Samsung literally .. from middle of June to the middle of October.. or early October.. I don’t remember now to be honest to get me a new dryer.. because my brand new dryer broke within a month of purchasing it.. Samsung promised me a newer series dryer… then tells me a week later they can’t do that.. I hate Samsung..
I think this is really important: People have taken the time to import the same model phone from various regions. They've backed up the firmware, physically disassembled the phones, swapped the ROMs around. You know what they found? The phones are 100% hardware identical. Literally the only difference between the phones is software enabling and disabling different bands. These companies have gone "Oh? You're in a different region than the intended market? Instead of assuming you moved after buying a phone, we're going to assume you're a CRIMINAL." These companies could have easily, **easily** gone "Oh, we've detected you're in a different region, so we'll disable these frequencies." Nope, they blame the consumer for bringing a device into a different country, and it's never the manufacturers' faults for not making international-ready-and-compliant devices.
You know if government regulation didn't work at the speed of snail sh*t and try to over-regulate everything this wouldn't be an issue. There is no reason that the government needs to rubber stamp every single device for it to be in the country. Samsung should have gone about it better, though, perhaps forcing it into airplane mode so that it could only be used via Wifi until the government gets off its azz (yes you can turn on Wifi with airplane mode enabled).
i agree with you on that ! few years ago when i was buying a phone (samsung s9 edge) my friend start showing me a huawei phones with where much cheaper than samsung . I went on website to look whats inside and to my supriese 80% of parts where exacly f same but 1/3 of a price ...
I could see this be used for phones that are stolen in one country and moved to another to sell them. It is a pretty damn common tactic for any stolen goods.
Part of me thinks its not just that. It could be a simmilar thing to licencing for media. Where phone manufacturers might licence phones with specific official sellers of a region for cheaper but in turn lock it to that region. Because otherwise people would just do what was popular with gaming for a while, cross region purchasing because "poorer" countries tend to have lower prices. This is 100% the reason why they are doing it. Since they want to rake in maximum profit from every country they are selling their phones in. And if they would sell the phone in Burundi africa for the same price they do in EU they would not sell a single one. But Burundi is still a market for them, so they sell it for cheaper there.
@@jer1776 I remember when Chrome came out, and I avoided it like it was a plague-infested corpse. I watched so many other people talk about it, rave about it... And I was just mentally facepalming the whole time.
@@fillerbunnyninjashark271lmao mf that pay $1300 for a phone are stupid tho. Most I've spent is $500-600 , that's a fair price for a year or two old flagship in pristine condition
@@iuse9646That's on the higher end of what I'd pay to buy a phone new, definitely not used. Perhaps 300-400€ for a used flagship, and I'd have to make sure it doesn't have too little storage space available because none* of them have a microsd slot. *excluding Sony phones, which are cool but even more expensive
Locked bootloaders (ie cannot run custom OS) should be banned by law from existing. Locked should just mean that switching OSes will wipe your data. It should NOT block you from switching OSes.
From what I understand, the act of installing an operating system (unless you dual boot) typically results in getting rid of anything on the existing OS (unless you back up the data first)
No, locked bootloaders should not be banned, period, at all. There are major security concerns to shipping devices with unlocked bootloaders. Just make them unlockable like in Pixel devices.
I just got my 2nd hand computer today (to use a my router) and it came with Windows 11. How much I HATE it. What a pain, going through all the settings I hate, and want to turn off. (Let's change the design of stuff so people will have a whale of a time trying to navigate the new W11.)
Samsung is 20% of South Korea’s GDP. There’s no American comparison. The entire agriculture, fishing, forestry and hunting sector (many companies including Cargill and Monsanto) is 1.1% of the United States GDP.
Nokia was equally important to the Finnish economy. Then they f*ed up and nowadays it's rare to see a Nokia phone. However Finland is doing just fine. Samsung upsetting it's customers is a stupid move, and if it hurts the company, it's Samsung's own fault.
Within South Korea, Samsung overrides the laws & civil rights that government guarantees, because... you've guessed it, Samsung is bigger, thus has more authority within the boarders of Republic of Korean then the country's elected officials 🇰🇷 In short, Samsung is a private (not publicly traded) company that owns everything in RoK. Now you know... and knowing is half the battle! ⚔
Are all those industries really only 1%? Not doubting you one bit, since I don't know better. But assuming you are, then it is madness that 20% of a country's GDP is one single company.
I still refuse to buy a Kindle ebook reader because of Amazon's habit of reaching into it and deleting things you've purchased. Having that ability is a deal breaker for me. Big shout out to the Mexican government for protecting their citizens like that. I was amazed by that.
that is STEALING . . . . . . that is WRONG . . . . . that is beyond CRIMINAL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Every time we try to create alternatives, the evils come in & shut it down. This is why there is NO competition & everything is a monopoly. Ever wondered why?
Louis, one of the reasons we buy on the gray market is because the cellphones can be up to 50% cheaper, but also they don't have international features disabled. For example, if you buy a cellphone from any carrier, they will disable any second SIM for dual SIM models. They will put local bloatware which cannot be uninstalled or disabled and will consume data. It's not only about regulations or money, it's about taking control of your device in the way they see fit. Carriers want a slice of that personal data harvesting sh!t everyone is doing.
Indeed, when people still had basic phones, the companies were eager to show the benefits of switching to a smart phone. And now we see that the word "smart" actually applies to companies being able to take control of your device whenever they see fit. Same with cars and their cloud connection, or smart electricity meters, where someone can disable your electric power from behind a desk, if they want, or if someone hacks their network and shuts down customers from electricity. Kudos to the Mexican government for stepping in here.
@@rc-fannl7364"Smart" Meters actually have a place. They're desperately needet for load shifting and sheeding while going to intermittend green energy. Also you can safe money with a digital or smart meter, if you have a energy contractor who can bill hourly. you can use power when its cheaper, and reduce power consumption when its more expensive. And cutting your power is also possible for them by just sending someone removing your fuses. In countrys like slowenia its even mandatory to have them accessible from outside.
This is more but less true nowadays. Many phones remove the old carrier bloatware and install the new carrier bloatware when you swap SIM cards. The way it work is that the phone have stubs from all the major carriers, and install them. Then since they are installed as system apps you can't prevent the initial install from the appstore so the initial version get loaded that way. Those stubs take almost no space, it is basically only the manifest, so a few kb uncompressed. Once compressed in the ROM, it probably take only a few MB for all the carriers in the world, which is nothing when you compare that to the 10+GB of the OS...
The carrier for my backup device even has the balls to have an app with the specific, _clearly defined_ purpose of spying on the user and sending whatever data it wants. Which data specifically? Nobody knows, because the page for their privacy policy is blank.
The "Grey Market" does not exist. It's a term coined to make us feel we're doing something illegal. In Mexico it is legal to buy used phones and or import them from any other country. What Samsung did, on the other hand, is Illegal and unethical!
grey market usually refers to breaking a civil agreement such as TOS to acquire an item you shouldn't have. In this case it's region based, other examples could be sharing/selling netflix passwords.
@@NoelAWinslow The law is very clear. in Mexico: You can buy any phone and use it without constraints by the manufacturer. So much so, that Samsung was forced to backtrack and re activate all blocked phones.
@@silent9077 But that was not the case. You were buying a legal item legally, and Samsung called it Grey Market. Fortunately, the government enforced the law, and Samsung was forced to reactivate all the phones it had blocked.
@@wilh3lmmusic Yeah, android is not that much better. Tried Lineage OS recently after a long while after running stock. Play Integrity API caused some essential apps not function, so back to the stock I go, unfortunately.
The thing that is even more insane here is the double standard for international visitors vs the native population. We live in a global economy where people are *constantly* travelling to foreign countries, using their native/domestically purchased phones in said countries. Technically this could mean they're operating in bands/frequencies that aren't ideal for the location they're visiting - yet I doubt these traveler's phones will be blocked. Identical issues, but held to two different standards... ultimately suggesting the "issues" aren't issues at all.
If you think this is bad, just wait. I'm being stopped from paying freelancers because I'm not in the US & Evernote was just bought out by an evil AI company in Italy & they REFUSED to take my US credit card because I'm not in the US. The evils don't want the slaves moving around because then it's harder to track us. Please wake up to the Truth about what is going on. We are in WWIII. When you want to learn more, reach out.
@abrammanoge Me too. I already had a poor experience with them years ago when they refused to fix a damaged charger port on my phone that was under warranty just because I rooted it. Theyre scummy.
This is why I switched to iPhone. As soon as the android manufacturers all started following suit with the headphone Jack, removable storage and battery I realized they were trying to sell me an iPhone, so I just switched to iPhone.
Kinda. Mexicans are mad because phones they bought on the gray market (bought in the US and then brought to Mexico) are getting targeted. It's like if Apple targeted UK iPhone 15's on the US because of the whole USB-C thing. People do this because they see X benefits of buying on outside markets.
Yes, even if you're a tourist, bought a phone in any part of the world outside Mexico and it just so happens that you activated your phone here because using a different carrier or you gifted it to a friend or family or some other reason, they can block your phone and it actually happened
Do Motorola and Samsung think that makes people consider to buy a "legit" device from them going forwards? That's just fucked up even if there is the possibility of using custom ROMs.
If this happened to me I would go out of my way to never purchase one of their products even if it was the last one in that category to exist. I would go without television if Samsung were the last television maker. I would dry my clothes with a blow dryer if Samsung were the last dryer maker. I would store my data on an abacus if Samsung were the last memory manufacturer. I hope the Mexican people affected by this share my stubborn nature and send them a message
Yeah I dont buy ANY Samsung products anymore and havent for a long time. I am glad you continue to make these vidoes so we know who NOT to give our money to. 🎉 💯
"Voting with your wallet" is a nice thing to say and all, but the problem is the lack of awareness. Most of these kinds of things, I'd never even hear about. How am I supposed to avoid buying stuff when I don't ever hear about these problems? Louis is about the only source I hear about any of this kind of thing from.
So true. Without this channel I'd be in the dark a LOT more. Funny how these liberal POS "protestors" want meaningful change & they are clueless about actual shit going down & they don't carry the message.
I used to work for one of the manufacturers you mentioned and I can tell you their reasoning is BS. If the phones are dangerous, why would the Mexican government allow their import? These phones all use the same parts, regardless of what part of the world they’re sold in. The only difference by region would be the software that’s loaded on the phone, and that’s based on what carrier the phone was built for. However, all of these companies also sell generic phones, which is probably what these gray market phones are. The only thing needed to operate them is a SIM card. If the carrier requires a specific software load to be on the phone, they should be able to flash their specific software on to it when you bring it in to get it connected. The manufacturers have zero reason to brick your phone.
@@GeomancerHT If they’re contraband, why is the government allowing them into the country, and why are the carriers connecting the phones. It’s easy for carriers to flag those types of phones through their IMEI.
@@GeomancerHT If they're contraband, then why did the Mexican government step in and tell the stupid mf'ers at Samsung and Motorola that they can't do what they're doing?
@@GeomancerHTNo, they're not. Under that statement, everything that is being bought on Amazon, eBay, Alibaba, you name it is in fact contraband, because the brand only sells it in China. I can understand if a brand doesn't want to sell a phone in a specific region because of legitimate technical reasons (5G for example), but it's rather ridiculous that I can't buy and use an outside phone just because a brand want me to pay almost 30% to 40% of the US price just because is imported.
As a small note as someone from Mexico, the grey market over here is massive, absolutely massive. Shutting down the grey market for phones would be catastrophic and possibly even affect phone retailers. Rather than making people buy "Samsung authorized phones" they would switch companies instantly, but it would mark a precedent that would eventually swallow all phone companies which would lock us in the lower spectrum of phone performances and possibly set us in the mindset of "We only need a phone for some basic apps and taking pictures", effectvely destroying the high-grade phone market by making it niche. Profeco stepped in because on one side we have a blatant abuse of the consumer, and on the other side they want to prevent a market crash in the future, at least prevent one created by a reason as simple as blatant greed
Yeah but mid to low range devices now are better than ever compared to a neutered (removal of basic features) high end device these days. This isnt 2017 where getting a good device costed more than it does today lol.
@@Matcc True, it's much cheaper nowadays, but it still doesn't address the issue. They grey market can easily reduce the price of a good phone from two month's pay (total pay, not the remaining income AND before taxes) to a bit more than a single month's pay. The mid to low range devices vary from half a month's pay to a whole month's pay nowadays, and while it's possible to buy them it's still a big expense for some people. Now imagine that happening to any kind of appliance or digital device like printers or crazily maybe even fridges. It's a small issue right now that can escalate greatly due to corporate greed, so it was squashed before others got any ideas.
Maybe we should go back to basic functions. We don't actually need a phone that does everything. All it needs to do is call people and send voice over the connection
@@nathanielalderson9111 Not at all. I almost never use a phone call or a SMS these days. All those legacy services offer is scam spam. The only time I use SMS is as a 2FA verification code method, and voice calls is only to call a local business for some reason. The era of phones we have right now for apps is ideal. This is coming from a guy who has always used previous legacy electronics in ways close to the modern offerings. Back in the days of Windows Mobile, you had to search for and buy apps a la carte that could cost $60-300 depending on the use case. My ballistics software was $295. Tethering was able to be done back then using special software as well, giving your laptop a 3G internet connection through your Windows Mobile device. Phones are less useful as phones these days, and honestly should not be thought of as such. They're personal portable computers able to provide connectivity in a compact package able to be carried on you.
To be fair even here in the US, the grey market is a thing. I have a Oneplus 7 Pro that I got in 2019, and 4 years later it is still going strong. My provider won't offer support for it and instead wants me to buy an iphone, a pixel, a samsung, or another top tier brand phone. Solution? I told them I had an iphone and had them ship me the sim card since they don't require an IMEI for iphones. Tossed it in my phone and everything works 100% fine. No way I'm going to spend hundreds of dollars to replace my fully working device.
It wasn't the Mexican government who stepped in, in fact, the Mexican authorities are suspected to be colluding with Samsung AND Motorola with this stupidity. The regular people complained, and technology reviewers like you raised the voice to pressure the authorities to do something about it. This is an example of how companies use politics instead of marketing to protect their income, simply atrocious.
As a Mexican, living in Mexico, I can tell you that we still have usable 2G in our phones all the way to 5G with most carriers. I'm pretty sure there is many subsets of 'regulation compliant' modes to use here.
Also a Mexican living in Mexico and I confirm, my uncle has a 2G phone, has been using it for years without problem. I'm thinking of getting one myself.
All phones use 2g, 3, 4 and if capable 5g. They may say 5G on the top but without getting into detail, they have to access and us 2-4g at all times in the background.
@@user-is7xs1mr9y i honestly believe everyone everywhere should be able to use their product whenever and wherever they want. Seeing companies doing that to mexico and mexicans annoys the living shit out of me. @#$#@ samsung
Profeco actually care for us... they ban a lot of things that are just garbage from being imported, their site have an official complaint form, if enough complaints are summited they start a whole investigation in the product and if it's deemed dangerous or don't follow Mexico regulations they just straight ban them from being sold, there is constantly stuff being pulled from even Amazon for just not have a label in spanish. You can even start a legal claim online for the wrong doings of companies and have a session between Profeco, you and the company's lawyer (all online) to sort the thing out, if they deem the company is at fault they get legally forced to correct it, they get to summit documents, you get to do it too, it's basically mini court lol
@@zomfraggerWhy wouldn't the cartels let the politicians go after Samsung? Politicians can't be corrupted by foreign entities when local cartels provide them with more than enough money. Also, the cartels aren't cartoon villains; they don't actively seek to make the lives of the general population worse. If anything, letting them be happy will make it more likely for them to be overlooked. That's how most organised crime works. While a minority may suffer because of them (addicts in the case of drug cartels), the majority should feel a neutral or even a positive impact from criminal organisations.
Samsung has a history of this kind of foolery. They did the same thing insulting LG OLED TV's in 2021 and then went on to make OLEDs themselves the next year.
They dunk on them for easy publicity, not because they actually disagree with Apple. Most people don't like change, so Samsung can capitalize on that. It's part of corporate strategy.
Neither Apple nor Samsung did it based of they own will under "we care about the envirnoment" greenwashing bs. It's because of EU made it a law to reduce e-waste.
Well... the blockages have been stopped for now here in México, thanks for the coverage and suport.... but there is a little detail you missed from the story.... when Samsung was bricking phones they issued a message that basically said "if your device has been turn into an expensive paperweight, don't worry! we at Samsung are so good and nice that if you give us your blocked and useless phone, we are gonna give you a brand new shiny coupon for 30% off when buying your new phone from our store".
It makes me more worried though, all it takes is one breach and an outside agent could dump ransomware on your device or just plain steal your personal info.
I love Louis. No sponsored content, no fanboy crap, calls out everyone on their bs, does actual legal work to help others, shares knowledge that he uses to earn a living, and doesn't tell me to like and subscribe as if I'm 80yrs old and don't know how TH-cam works...
Only thing that holds him back a little is his way of talking I think, he quickly gets above people's heads and apparently sounds condescending to them. Heh, it's always about stat points I guess. He got the morals, he got the SKILLZ, he's fighting the fight of consumers against big shitty companies that try to cage them. Only thing Louis is missing a little is captivating charisma to get the people rallied
@@sinni800 Charisma was his dump stat since he's clearly a wizard, but even so mans has got that captivating pro-consumer cathartic rage that makes me love the guy
The problem in Mexico is that brands actually sell phones more expensive than in the US and other countries because of "import and legalization fees" that's why peoply buy in the "grey market" because those imported phones do not pay import fees
@@marcolie6171 Because their profits!, how dare you buy the same phone from them, atr a cheaper price than you should pay?. They have the right to your money!. (obviously kidding)
I live in Mexico and I was wondering how to make this issue a bigger PR deal for them, for some reason I didn't think of sharing it with you but I am glad someone did. The issue was not only making unofficial retailers import them, it was also affecting individual people who travelled to the US, bought one there and imported it themselves... Samsung phones are way cheaper in the States than in Mexico so people sometimes do that...
As a Mexican, I would like to add that one of the reasons they did this is because they were probably pressured by Telcel. Phones are crazy expensive and overpricedb through the official channels. A xiaomi mi 12 that could be bought for 700usd in AliExpress was selling for almost 1500usd in telcel. The small s23 was about 1400usd. I can almost promise you that taxes will grow for import phones. 😢
Also, the amount of Bloatware that Robacel puts on the device is outrageous! At least on Samsung devices, flashing a Firmware with CSC MXO can get rid of it without blowing a eFuse or voiding the Warranty. Motorolas will restore the Bloatware even if using a Retail Firmware. I always buy Samsung phones on AliExpress (my S20+ Korean Version and a S22+ US version for my wife) and don't have any issues with AT&T; I suspect Slim is behind this kind of things, because ZTE was the first to do this, and ZTE are sold mostly by Robacel Retailers (so more influenced by Slim).
@@Alpha06R There was a time where the bigger xiaomi retailers in AliExpress were not shipping to Mexico, which coincidentally was the time when Telcel started selling them.
@@Nems271I didn't knew about this. Telcel was a huge part on this shit storm, such a scum move from everyone. Profeco again stepping up for us the Mexican consumer.
Look, we know what this is. It's ransomware. That's how it should be framed. Therefore, they should be charged the same as other criminals (this _is_ a criminal offense after all) and be made to remove all traces from their products. And then _VERY_ heavily fined.
They literally did this for two reasons, they don't want the lower class having access to their status products, they want their phones to be coveted like designer apparel, and because the people ordering in these phones to save money don't have the resources to sue.
Mexico is literally a country, they don't have to sue they could just seize all the resources from their branches and shut them down within the country while banning them from doing business in the country in the future.
Why would that happen? If you bought your phone legitimately in another country you will be OK. The phones being blocked have been imported illegitimately from another region and started for the first time I'm Mexico, if they were started and registered in their original region then all would be good.
@@jonwelch564 It is global market... and it is Korean company and Korea was literally Chinese satelite country for centuries and they are blocking their products for buying it in China? What exactly is illegal here according to you? What law was broken exactly?
@@jonwelch564the phones aren't "illegitimate", just sourced legitimately elsewhere more cheaply than the manufacters wanted to sell them for in that region.
@@jonwelch564 I saw someone in Canada posting that his phone got blocked. Regardless of how he bought it, that shouldn't be happening. "Legitimately" is rather a fake term anyhow. There's nothing inherently illegitimate about buying a product and exporting it again. Greedy companies which trying to artificially inflate prices in some markets are the ones which should be called illegitimate.
@@CaptainKremmen @all_of_the_replies read what I have written again, a no point have I said this is OK have I? I answered the OP's question about a tourist going to Mexico and their phone getting blocked, that isn't going to happen. I then explained why Samsung are blocking phones, I'm not condoning it I'm just saying what's happened. Read what people say, and don't jump,to conclusions. Have a good day.
10 years ago my dad bought a samsung tablet from South Korea and this type of message displayed on the screen too. Empty threat however as the device was fully functional down to the cell usage. It outlasted many devices bought in our domestic country (UK).
So sad that Samsung is turning to a monster. I got their Galaxy Tab S2 6 years ago and it still works very well. Only deteriorations were the charging cable corroded so I got one for $4, and the battery life is about 35% - 45% usable before the tablet cuts and reboot due to voltage dropping. If I want to use it longer I just bring a cheap 10 000mAh powerbank. Which company that isn't a scumbag will I get a decent tablet from now? It'll die at some point. Or in months or a year or two more I might want to change it to run a game or emulator on a newer tablet.
Hey Louis I'm a mexican viewer since your old repair shop in NYC, the little one. I've seen you grow as a channel and as an activist. I've always supported what you do because most of the stuff you fight for leaks to the rest of the world, so any W you get for the state you live in, or your country as a whole, is a W that leaks to the rest of the world. I try and do my part educating people around me to fight for their rights to repair thanks to you. But this was a problem in my country and I'm glad to inform that thanks to people that won't let this shit happen, we raised our voice and the government stopped these shitty companies from getting away with it. I'm just glad to see you covering this topic and giving your viewers the heads up because they won't stop here, they're already trying to do this in other latin american countries. I'm hoping all other governments stop them too. All I know is that my next phone will be a Fairphone.
I am not Mexican, but have a fear that Microsoft could lock their bootloader in the future. Seems that software is getting more locked down with each passing decade. The 2020s is a strange decade, and it all started with these megacorporations trying to get more profit.
Thanks Louis for covering this. Let me give you additional context: * The "official channels" can be as expensive as twice the price of what an imported one from the US can cost (after paying all required taxes and fees). You have no warranty, but you can buy it twice. * The bloatware apps from the service provider (Telcel) and the OS updates coming exclusively through it. * Telcel won't enable VoLTE if your IMEI is not in their database.
I want to add a personal testimony: my company issued me a "Mexican official Motorola phone" because that phone was security-compliant with the internal software. The thing is that the security assessment was done in the US with the global version in mind (Android 13 installed), while the Mexican one was last updated by Telcel on 2021, unable to go beyond Android 11 as is. In the end it was totally useless, because Android 13 was required by the apps, and a lot of workers were affected by this. Having to raise and have temporary access tokens approved each week for months.
It's the same in Brazil. Almost everywhere outside of US and Canada in the Americas suffers from the same insane import duties on electronics. Base model iPhone 15 Plus from Apple store in USA? $899. In Brazil? BRL 8,299 or $1,655
I am from Mexico and I have some things to say: - I am happy that I can see you having the same exact reaction as a I did when I read the news. - After this break to the public I decided to switch to a pixel phone, no more samsung stuff in my house for as long as possible - I think PROFECO was requiring the companies to so something about the gray market but it seems if was shoot in the foot. Then they decided that these actions were to mucho for the public and no doubt of that. - It's so frustrating that you don't own your stuff anymore. I work for a tech company that creates IoT devices and they are great but we don't want to mess with what you already bought. This is the worst things that have happened to the electronics consumer industry since IoT became a thing... - Thanks for being a voice to all of us that we can just weep when this happens...
@@wanderingandroidI’m not from Mexico, but from a different Latin American country, we buy gray market stuff because it’s cheaper, or because there are models that never launch here, as for why it’s cheaper, taxes is the main thing, countries here tax any import of manufactured goods, which includes cellphones, so if you can travel to the US, buy a few phones, and then go back, you have essentially imported them without paying extra tax. Also with second hand phones, they are cheaper in the US because the market there is bigger so more offer but less demand for used phones, for example, I bought my pixel 5 through gray market for 150 bucks, the price for one bought here second hand was 250. This is why the Mexican government is asking them to still fight the gray market, because it’s loss revenue for them, just not to do it by bricking phones
This is exactly why cloud services is dangerous xD Those who willingly give up control of their own bought and paid for products and data for a brief convenience will suffer greatly in the end. We are fast transitioning into a world of most everything in the market being from a subscription service, rather than outright ownership. This is true from the dreams of first home owners evaporating, to cars to the most basic consumer products. "yuu will 003n n00thin" isn't just a douchebaggy slogan - its active policy
I would be on board with this if google didn’t FUCK ME by stopping me from making more than 5 emails to use for being forced to make an account for every website I want to use regularly. They did this by forcing SMS authentication upon making an email now and making more than 5 emails that have been authenticated by the same phone number results in me not being able to make more email accounts. As a result, I am forced to pay for services like iCloud or Proton mail to have the ability to use more decoy emails for making accounts on websites I want to use regularly. Heck, for my merch business, I am forced to use iCloud to make multiple accounts. It sucks ass. As ass-fucking as Twitch is, they did one thing right. In order to make multiple accounts using the same email, you have to verify that email on each account you make. You can have multiple accounts with the same email.
I work in IT as a partner for several vendors. and i have been "Scolded" as a partner by a brand because her words "You partners never learn, we HAD to remove the perpetual license because you guys are still offering it. Stop, the days you sold something are over, you HAVE to sell suscriptions. IF at any chance you need to sell perpetual due to goverment regulation, you have to fill this form and justifify it and we will quote it case by case". This is just an example. Mail servers, voice SIP servers, EVEN FREAKING SWITCHES (Some clients are learning tho) there were plenty of customers that bought Meraki CISCO cloud switches and after their initial 3yr bundle ran off the devices turned into literal bricks without licenses. The company was struggling due to covid, and due to budget they didnt nenew licenses, thinking all they would loss is cloud acces but that network switches should still work. ..HA!
cloud isnt the issue, its the lack of regulation and the free rain companies get to abuse and lie about this because the people making the rules understand nothing and they pay off the media/control it enough that they can cover shit up till it's too late.
People forget that Samsung is part of what is effectively a Corporatocracy in Korea, they're used to being able to interpret the laws as they see fit, and if they can't those laws tend to mysteriously be updated in Samsung's favor. The current Vice Chairman (the only person above him is on vacation most of the year) was not only arrested for, but actually convicted for bribery of the PRESIDENT of South Korea (who was shortly IMPEACHED for the actions involved) as well as perjury, embezzlement, and tax fraud six years ago. Some of the bribery charges were 'suspended' by officials and were dropped despite being part of a conviction, he spent a total of 18 months between jail and parole before he was pardoned (this is, at least, his THIRD pardon for such crimes since the 90's). People within the Korean justice system have, on record, stated that Samsung is above the law. Which makes a twisted kind of sense considering they control between 20% (directly) and 40% (through contracts and procurement) of Korea's ENTIRE ECONOMY. It gets even better when you realize the entire thing is controlled by a single family, and their highest levels of management have a structure uncomfortably like other family run... businesses... around the world. Source: Samsung heir pardoned due to South Korean economic needs - Ars Technica
I've had Samsung phones and other devices for years. I stopped buying Samsung TV's 5 years ago when you couldn't use them without signing up to be shown ads. I'd already decided that I will *NEVER* buy another Samsung phone when this one eventually croaks. I'm actually celebrating the fact that Samsung cellphone income is down 80%, hurrah.
@@GeoMeridiumI've thought about getting a Kyocera DuraForce 5G after my A71 5G croaks. We that use Android as our daily fliers don't tend to leave Android that often.
This is one of many reasons why I have always been vehemently against the whole "everything is online or in the cloud" thing versus devices, software, applications, etc. being stored in ways that can function WITHOUT online connections. Sadly... my opinion doesn't matter. 😕 This is because I am not a wealthy corporation, I am a monetarily poor, individual nobody. That's just how it goes.
Even at the very begining I was like "This seems like its not worth it for how bad it could go"> I mean the writing was on the wall day one. And you do matter. The more people refuse to participate in digital serfdom, the bigger the island we live on made of our bodies can be.
@@nobodyshome6792 And I don't know about anyone else, but my wealth/spending power has wildly fluctuated over the course of my life. Thankfully the high quality stuff which I bought when it was high can still serve me when it's low, but with subscriptions I'd just lose everything I was subscribed to.
It does not matter where or how the phone was acquired... The manufacturer should NOT have this kind of power, period. Which is one of the reasons you should always ditch the default OS that comes with your device and install one YOU have chosen. If the device is locked and you can't change the OS, just do not use that device, there is plenty of choice out there.
I'm angry on a daily basis at the actions of pretty much every single manufacturer out there. From the software we use to the devices we use, our privacy is invaded, we own NOTHING that we buy, and these companies abuse their power whenever they feel like it to hold consumers hostage, whether it's this kind of nonsense, or making your perfectly good phone not work anymore so that you're forced to buy another one. When literally NOTHING has changed that would make it worth buying a new one. I have one of the last phones that has a heart rate monitor and a headphone jack, and I like it that way. Removing those things did not make for a better device. Why the hell would I want to downgrade?
My phone also has a headphone jack. It's 4 years old, but i damn well hope it lasts a long time. I don't want a phone that doesn't have a jack because i hate bluetooth headphones and prefer wired ones.
Living in Latin America, I came to realize that big companies have a lot to say about this. In Mexico the larger cellphone companie is also the least interested in cellphones from the grey market. If an iPhone cost in the USA 1300, they will sell it in Mexico for a lot more. Same for Samsung and other brands. If they don't want people buying from the grey market why not open oficial stores and sell at a better price? The same applies for most countries in Latin America.
This holds true in Colombia, it would be alright if devices were a little bit more expensive to account for inflation, currency exchange, even import cost as well. But that is never the case, iPhones are really overpriced.
Lol, absolutely love how wild you got in this one, but are actually completely right in the opinion you support, we need more of you in this world Louis!
@@gressorialNanites We are happy, aren’t we? Because as far as they’re concerned, if there’s demand , they assume we’re happy, and that’s what this HAPPY means.
Yet Samsung manufactured those phones expecting to sell them ? Region lock, blah, blah, blah. Whatever. All this tells me is that you should never make a cell phone the center of your life.
this is crazy to me. what happens to travellers? a few years ago I went to NZ for 2 weeks, the first thing I did when I got off the plane, while waiting on my bags was to buy a local sim card as my carrier charges $5 a day for international roaming and I could get a months access in NZ with decent data for like $25. what would happen to people doing the same thing when traveling to Mexico?
@@UnitSe7en To phrase the person's question another way: how do they know the country of residence of the person who owns that new overseas phone they just detected?
"This is not a pro-consumer company." You got that right. Samsung owes me a $5 Amazon gift card for completing a survery that they have yet to send, yet when I contact customer support, they all say it's not their department that handles this and they act like it's my responsibility to find out which one.
Another reason why custom ROMs are a necessity. If people break the laws in certain countries, it should be up to the country, not the manufacturer, to make sure people only use appropriate frequency bands or whatever. Great video, man! You say what literally every sane person on the planet thinks (which obviously excludes politicians, lobbyists and anti-consumer manufacturers).
You forgot to use the word Corrupt when politicians and lobbyist were mentioned they are the only ones allowed to break our laws and walk away RICH right PELOSI???
@@GeorgeMonet ah i remember back when the FCC didn't track down radio pirates, they just installed spying devices on all the radios sold throughout the early 1900's ...oh wait that's not how it happened at all
Thanks for covering this. Just a reminder, there is this data company called Telcel, it had been a monopoly in Mexico for decades, it is said they pushed this "regulation" until several tech channels from all over the world stepped in to talk about all of this. It was not the government
well, retailers try to get "authorized dealer" sign for a reason. if people don't like it, they can always just go back to pagers and payphones. i don't see why this is even an issue. samsung makes the phones, they have the right to make rules on selling their products. if people don't like the rules, then go somewhere else. it's not like they are pointing a gun at you. all big name brands require retailers to be authorized to sell their products.
I really enjoy your rants Louis!! I hope you have a good 'blood pressure medication' or another alternate to help you cope. I've seen episodes where you are visibly upset and have to practice deep-breathing techniques to maintain composure. I feel your pain. I THANK YOU for your work, your knowledges, your passion for value and 'the customer' and your immense Balls! You Rock Louis!
As a Mexican I can explain that the outrage was bad because not only Samsung Started doing it but it was ZTE , then just Samsung followed their steps as other Phone Manufacturers , the issue became so big when Xiaomi started thinking doing it that it was trending on twitter that day they announced , other tech channels from other countries as well started reporting on it and making it known ,because they were worried this will happened in other countries as well and all combined made the bubble so big it just was too big to hide it anymore so the government stepped in to stop it . The second it was that if this situation started to go to court the Manufactures will lose because the telecom law says you can acquire your phone in any store including amazon ,mercadolibre ebay etc, another thing it was that most phone of grey market are legally imported and payed taxes or were bought by mexican going to the US to buy the devices because are cheaper and other detail to remark is that if you legally bought your phone with legal money and in good faith they should not block your phone like that not even when your phone get stolen here we have that option only IMEI block. We only know that the legal importers ,just tried it to get away with it and well it went south really quick.
"if you legally bought your phone with legal money and in good faith they should not block your phone" - If you legally bought your phone then they are legally NOT allowed to do ANYTHING on it without your permission, even if you bought it from grey import. These bastards have messed up big time.
Quick thing you forgot to mention, phones are more expensive in Mexico and the rest of the americas in general (the example I saw most often for this block stuff was the galaxy a54, which is 340 bucks in the us but is 560 dollars in Mexico) this block specifically affected brand new phones, not used phones from what some people in Mexico were talking about, but a 30% increase in price on average for a country with lessened purchasing power is absurd
It's the same in Brazil. Almost everywhere outside of US and Canada in the Americas suffers from the same insane import duties on electronics. Base model iPhone 15 Plus from Apple store in USA? $899. In Brazil? BRL 8,299 or $1,655
Samsung is a POS for trying this, but Motorola is even worse. If you take an exchange rate of 22 Pesos per Dollar (which is not, it's closer to 19, making this matter even WORSE), some of their phones cost, literally, double here than in the US
Samsung is also a company that believes that after you've purchased their smart TV, they still own a part of the screen to display ads - can't turn that off. They also collect ACR (Automatic Content Recognition) data, and send it to themselves over your internet connection, so that they can monetize and sell to 3rd parties. I've purchased my last Samsung product about 6 years ago, once I learned how horrible they are.
@@TheExileFox Yep recently got a new smart tv and it has never been on the internet and never will be if i need an app or web service ill just use the pc that's connected to it.
Thank you, Louis! I'd thought I was pretty up-to-date regarding corporate villainy, but have learned so much, just in the last two days since I "discovered" you. I was fan of Samsung and Motorola, till now. Seriously considered both and finally bought Motorola last time I needed a phone. No more!
The most recent product type that had me tearing my hair out (what's left of it) was a label printer. The most popular brands have embedded an RFID chip in the core of the roll to force you to buy OEM labels. It took me a while to find a brand committed to allowing you to print on any label of the correct type. (The brand is Rollo in case you're looking for a label printer)
Mine's awful.. does great on things that don't matter like images, but horrible on text and barcodes. My old Datamax is much better.. but it's huge comparatively 😞
There is a printer scanner I'm not sure of the manufacturer that does the same thing if you run out of ink you can't get non-oem ink and you can't even scan. Just because it's out of fucking Ink
There is no such thing as "grey market". You buy something, then you own it... if you interfere with other's property you usually violate the one or the other law. People need to vote with their wallet, as soon as this is known. Only if a company that uses these practices gets an immediate strong financial backlash, or even better wiped from the market, will things improve.🤯
5:04 This. Whether or not it is legal or not for them to disable the phone it this particular case is a completely separate discussion, and irrelevant here. The simple fact that they CAN do it is immediately creepy AF. Thank you for shedding light on such cases, pushing back against such practices, and educating the public that alternative, privacy-respecting mobile operating systems do exist
Greedy companies and unscrupulous government, 100% that it was the owner (Tercel) which colluded with government officials to bleed consumers, used to buy unlocked phones worldwide brand new ( Samsung and Motorola), specifically NorthAmerica market for my loved ones, moving forward, I won’t buy anymore it’s products. Thank you for shedding light to your audience.
This one is a bit of a wake-up call from me as I am admittedly a die-hard Samsung fan. I really like their series and range of phones. But to see that they attempted to disable devices in a market just because they wanted to profiteer from sales via "genuine" channels is wrong. I need to upgrade my Samsung device soon. I should check out other devices.
I wanted a tablet, and bought a Huawei instead of a Samsung. Not gonna lie, for me as a life long Samsung and Google user, the transition to a device with no Google services was absolutely brutal, but you can have outlook for all your calendar and email needs by synch, and various custom apps just save the day. Not to mention, the device is really pleasant to use otherwise. It has wonderful design.
For me it was the 1999€ Fold 3.... after 1,5 years it started to bug out. If unfoldet the wifi switches of and it crashed. So i sendet it in. They said "It has a drop damage and asked for 850€"... I never droped it - there was just a little scratch outside. F*k samsung i use a xiaomi (450€) now...
Honestly, the fact that the phone was able to work in the first place, would tell me that the phone had a way to obtain the needed radio information to operate in Mexico. This information usually comes from the carrier, SIM Card, or the CSC within the Android OS. Every phone I know of today is designed to be used as a "World" phone so it should operate in all countries safely. Granted, when it comes to radio regulations, I know there are a whole bunch of restrictions, such as "FCC Certified Wi-Fi Base Stations" like Access Points being required to have hard-coded country information that cannot be overridden, and those devices likewise can't be exported. Those regulations are more for carrier and vendor grade devices rather than consumer devices which tend to move around. Maybe their concern was with extended usage in a country and the device not being tested with the local authorities (for example, they didn't get KCC or FCC certification on specific SKUs), but shutting down the whole device rather than disabling the high power radio communications and maybe throttling the processor as a precaution is quite a scummy move. I know for sure, companies are not manufacturing "Mexico Only" SKUs of the actual hardware. Good on the Mexican government for putting Samsung and Motorola in their place.
"Maybe their concern was with extended usage in a country and the device not being tested with the local authorities" - That's pure and utter BS. The sole reason for this whole ordeal was greed and probably bribes to the Korean corporate bastards from some Mexican telcos. The phones were perfectly tested and worked fine in Mexico, this was obvious foul play.
This sounds like if you have a Samsung, Motorola, or Oppo device, you probably shouldn’t travel with it. Because, sure, they might comply with Mexico’s demands (maybe) but that’s Mexico. Not Spain, France, Canada, etc. If you travel with these devices, it sounds like you might be risking having Samsung or Motorola bricking your device for having a device out of compliance for the region. As Louis says, this is a shit test to see what will be tolerated. Kinda like Tesla voiding a warranty for driving a car in heavy rain in Ireland.
Oh Louis, as someone living in a "third world country" I only can say that I fear for our "all digital" future...imagine if xiaomi wanted to disable all their phones around here..no one wold be able to buy anything anymore cause we almost only use our digital bank apps....
Holy cow, this is insane. How can any companies possibly be allowed to do any of things legally speaking?! We've truly walked into a dystopian future. I used to use phones from other regions (still paying local import tax!) as it was the only way I could afford a new device at the time and granted I'm not in Mexico but this is crazy. Good on the government of Mexico for actually bothering to do something.
Big companies get a lot of say in what's legal or not by financing electoral campaigns, lobbying and by the fact that the privately owned press is friendly to their interests since they're often owned by the same people. And even if the law is not on their side they often calculate that the punishments they get will be less than the profit to be made so they break the law anyway. Microsoft is particularly notorious for this, they ruin their competitors unfairly then ten years later when the trial is over and it's too late, they pay a fine while reaping the rewards of being an even bigger monopoly.
@@HamidKarzaithen it is a good thing that electoral campaigns can't receive private money in Mexico, well they technically can but it is capped to just a small percentage of the public funding for those campaigns. The public funding of the campaigns means that the taxpayer foots the bill, true, but it also means that companies can't lobby the politicians to the same outrageous degree that they can in the USA and why politicians in Mexico are more than willy to stand up and screw companies when they get into anti consumer practices that will anger the population and demand actions to be taken against such companies, because they can afford to screw the companies without risking the funding of their parties campaigns. To that add the money given to them by the narcos under the table and there is nothing that companies like Samsung have offer to the politicians to buy their favour.
Thank you Louis! I'm delighted that Mexico's consumer protection agency stood up for their citizens. My fear is that other products such an new vehicles and appliances will be similarly remotely altered. With all the craziness, it will happen. The technology is in place already with cars having always-on cellular connectivity not controlled by the owner.
If internet connectivity for new appliances like a refrigerator, oven/stove, dishwasher, clothes washer, clothes dryer, microwave oven, etc. or even a vehicle becomes mandatory I'm going to be fighting it somehow. Home appliances, as far as I'm concerned, have a certain function and needing to connect to the internet is not one of them; that's what certain computer devices are for. I don't want my clothes washer, for example, having the hot and cold water turned off so I can't wash clothes because using water is a subscription. Or it was turned off because we're in a drought so can't use water for anything.
The same phone can cost more than 50% in local/official markets in Mexico. If you go directly to a Samsung store in Mexico and want to buy a Galaxy S23 Ultra, it'd cost you 1700 USD, if you go to Amazon, an international version costs $999. Its a significant difference and this is what companies want to avoid.
@@spaghettigod43 carriers want to a juicy piece of cake and make abusive price increases due to their biased import taxes, which isn't that much to begin with, as well as regulatory checks (aka Mexican's NOM institute). They're always like playing dirty in our market.
@@adanedsstudiowouldn't a slightly lower price mean more phones sold? The price will push many people to find cheaper phones and skip Samsung all together. Why make the phone almost impossible for some people to buy?
@@lightkira4119The largest carrier in Mexico might be at fault in that, as they upsell the device to make more income with each sale, in turn obligating Samsung to match the higher price. Even if this is not the case, any product here in Mexico is sold at $30 MXN per each $1 USD, when it should just be $20 per each US dollar at worst.
@@GH0STST4RSCR34M Why would I be joking? There's always reasons for regional pricing. Be it shipping costs, tariffs, cartel behavior etc. I'm only asking why it is.
As a Mexican, i will lile to thank yoj for your sincerity. I wish we all as a society could collectively come together to fight this greedy CEOs, if they care so much about the world why do they hire cheap labor like kids to their phones.
Louis -- Thanks for bringing this info out. I had been anti-Apple for a while, and have a Samsung phone. But to hear this, I will now actively check the latest in what companies are doing AGAINST their customers. Every video you do to bring out this garbage is super appreciated.
Windows is absolutely not safe, I don’t trust Microsoft at all. Unfortunately your only real option for phones is to run a custom ROM at minimum, or a Linux based phone if you want complete control, but that comes with large sacrifices in usability.
Here in Sweden it's very costumary to include two sets of tyres when you buy a car, especially used, one summer and one winter set. If they didn't I'd feel scammed to pay the full price; and that's how I feel about not having a charge cable following with the new phone.
To be fair, Louis is not entirely correct in this video. Some Samsung phones do come with a charger, and IIRC, all of them come with a cable at least. My A52s did come with a charger. I know the flagships don't come with a charger, but they do come with a cable I think. And honestly, I would prefer not to get any more chargers, because I already have a few of them and a dozen USB C cables. 2 chargers with USB C cables from VR headset and phone. 2 USB C cables from mouse and keyboard. 1 more cable from controller. 1 USB C cable I bought because I needed an extra long one. And that's not including all the chargers and cables that other family members have.
The companies have been sending these messages for months and the government was fine, if they stopped this it is thanks to all the people who spoke up and pointed out the violation of consumer rights when the block was announced. It is suspected that this started because Telcel (the main operator in Mexico and other countries in LATAM) was seeing less profit from phone sales in the last two years, so they made this plan with their partner brands to reduce gray market sales, and probably even buying some people at the IFT (Federal Telecommunications Institute) along the way. If they weren't stopped, they would've gone further, Colombian consumers started to receive those messages in the last week. Thank you for covering this!
I used to sell appliances at a home improvement store and had to stop doing it because I couldn't morally tolerate myself for convincing good people to give their money to companies that do this sort of thing.
When I was a teen and worked in retail they wanted everyone to sell useless warranties and make outrageous fraudulent claims about what the warranties would cover. They would even award $1 for every warranty sold. I never sold a single one whereas everyone else was selling 20 per week and even though I kept getting shit on by the managers for not selling any warranties. $1 is just not worth the cost to myself.
I stopped buying Samsung a few years ago now when they refused to fix my TV with dead pixels, they said the dead pixels weren't in the "viewing area." I assumed, wrongly it seems, that the whole of the screen is viewing area or did I buy a 55" TV to only view 43" of it. I eventually took the supplier to court where they were ordered to repair the TV and compensate me. This process took 18 months and cost me about GB£500 up front (I got my costs back)......
Used to own Sony Trinitron tv's in the 90's & early 2000's. Those were the big, bulky heavy TV. Got a Toshiba flat screen TV around 2010. It purposely went dead exactly 1 yr after the warranty was over. NEVER Toshiba AGAIN. Had no problem with my 2 LG TV's, but I hear LG fridges are crap.
This should genuinely scare people and alert them to what our corporate overlords, and their paid political puppets in some countries are up to. Thank you for posting this.
Apple learnt their lesson when they tried to shut down third party repair shops several years ago and PROFECO told them to pound sand and that they had to make spare parts avaible to sale for everyone to buy it or they would breaking article 27th of the Mexican constitution and thus commiting a federal crime and exposing Apple higher ups to life sentences to prison for constitutional crimes. Yeah, Tim Cook might not travel too much to Mexico but it would be quite a bad PR for him to have an arrest warranty from the largest USA trading partner.
Thank you. My favorite thing about this video is the swearing. A spade should absolutely be called a spade when it's being predatory with customers (especially those of poor economic status) and on top of that outrageously dishonest about the reasons. It gets sickening to see all the TH-camrs who downright kiss tyrannical corporates' asses (especially Microsoft recently - they've been kissing its ass way too hard), so it's refreshing to see someone who will gladly call them pieces of shit. I enabled all notifications for this channel. Keep it up! :)
A couple of years ago I bought a Samsung SSD on Amazon. About 6 months in it died. They refused to replace it because the serial number indicated that it was not meant to be sold in the country I live in. WhyTF does that matter? It has to break in the appropriate country before they'll honor a repair/replacement.
If you bought it on Amazon, doesn't that technically mean you bought it in US, but then had it shipped overseas? That's not the same as buying an import set in another country.
Honestly, this might help me push my husband to switch. This is vile. And will absolutely work against them in the long run. Thank you for spreading info!
@@jackskellington6sic6 Samsung usually will follow in Apple's footsteps. Samsung made fun of Apple for the non removable battery and removing the head phone jack and they did the exact same thing. They even got rid of their SD card slot.
So companies can take advantage of cost-of-living differences among different countries by exporting labor to cheaper countries, but those same companies won't let people take advantage of COL differences by selling the finished product in other countries. At this point, I don't think I'd expect anything else
I posted about it in LTT's comments but this could get worse. If I were to purchase a factory unlocked model, in the United States, went on vacation to Japan but decide to stay there for an extended period of time; would they disable my device? •Bought in the USA •Physical SIM activated in USA •Travel to Japan and activate a "Tourist eSIM" •Stay permanently in Japan. If the device wasn't bought in Japan, does that essentially get rid of the market for "Tourist SIMs" and basically force the tourists to also have to rent the phone, on top of the SIM and service plan? How long does a "foreign" device have to be connected to a country's cellular network before it gets bricked?
I actually run a phone shop in Germany and sell imported phones from the US, Korea, China and Japan. Customers love them, because they are cheaper and usually better equipped (i.e. special colors, differnt chipset and usually more storage). A problem that I always deal with is software and bootloader locks. For example, not allowing to change a Korea ROM to a global ROM even though the bands and hardware are the same. Honestly, I am moving away from Samsung and Huawei. Xiaomi and co. are better brands and offer better handsets anyways.
Seriously, despite the week-long wait to unlock a Xiaomi device, after that process they are off your back. You can switch regions, downgrade firmware, even change the partition layout. The bootloader just doesn't care. Your warranty is still valid, no unnecessary warnings or boot delays, and some devices even fully revert when relocked (no e-fuses blown, SafetyNet passing)
As a mexican I want to say that not only from AliExpress, but from other 3rd party sellers too, for example, we have something like Amazon called Mercado Libre, that's basically selling phones, that may be from US but unlocked, at lower prices than the oficial stores, sometimes even 150-200USD price difference. So yeah, basically they tried to F'D us really hard. That added that phones are sometimes expensive over here because of taxes/customs that the companies have to "pay" to bring those products to us. As a mexican I feel that these was just an *ssh*le move from all these companies. But I just hope that they don't try to do something sh*tti*r that this. Also, we need Google to start shippung Pixels to Mexico asap. Btw, I'm a great fan from you, and of all you're doing for the repair community. Thanks Louis!!!
yes and no google slash alphabet slash youtube how are going have for library and odyssey for being competitors of youtube governments and the world government of the united nations and world economic forum controls google slash alphabet they will use every means possible to stop people want to be free and own their own data that is why we need to stop for line on the central was servers central our servers on the tor network
Serious question, which is the bigger POS company, Apple or Samsung?
Yes
You need to wipe after either one .
You want brain cancer or lung cancer?
TH-cam: plays Samsung ad on a "f*ck you Samsung" video...
100% Samsung..
Long story short, it took Samsung literally .. from middle of June to the middle of October.. or early October.. I don’t remember now to be honest to get me a new dryer.. because my brand new dryer broke within a month of purchasing it..
Samsung promised me a newer series dryer… then tells me a week later they can’t do that.. I hate Samsung..
I think this is really important:
People have taken the time to import the same model phone from various regions. They've backed up the firmware, physically disassembled the phones, swapped the ROMs around. You know what they found?
The phones are 100% hardware identical. Literally the only difference between the phones is software enabling and disabling different bands.
These companies have gone "Oh? You're in a different region than the intended market? Instead of assuming you moved after buying a phone, we're going to assume you're a CRIMINAL."
These companies could have easily, **easily** gone "Oh, we've detected you're in a different region, so we'll disable these frequencies." Nope, they blame the consumer for bringing a device into a different country, and it's never the manufacturers' faults for not making international-ready-and-compliant devices.
You know if government regulation didn't work at the speed of snail sh*t and try to over-regulate everything this wouldn't be an issue. There is no reason that the government needs to rubber stamp every single device for it to be in the country. Samsung should have gone about it better, though, perhaps forcing it into airplane mode so that it could only be used via Wifi until the government gets off its azz (yes you can turn on Wifi with airplane mode enabled).
These kinds of things should simply be illegal. Get my like, stranger.
i agree with you on that ! few years ago when i was buying a phone (samsung s9 edge) my friend start showing me a huawei phones with where much cheaper than samsung . I went on website to look whats inside and to my supriese 80% of parts where exacly f same but 1/3 of a price ...
I could see this be used for phones that are stolen in one country and moved to another to sell them. It is a pretty damn common tactic for any stolen goods.
Part of me thinks its not just that. It could be a simmilar thing to licencing for media. Where phone manufacturers might licence phones with specific official sellers of a region for cheaper but in turn lock it to that region.
Because otherwise people would just do what was popular with gaming for a while, cross region purchasing because "poorer" countries tend to have lower prices.
This is 100% the reason why they are doing it. Since they want to rake in maximum profit from every country they are selling their phones in. And if they would sell the phone in Burundi africa for the same price they do in EU they would not sell a single one. But Burundi is still a market for them, so they sell it for cheaper there.
That's basically a ransomware.
Yeah, a ransomware from the official manufacturer.
So evil.
Yep. Ransomware, spyware and adware is perfectly legal if you're a big corporation.
Yep, Mexican government should have started criminal investigations and issue arrest warrant to all related CEOs through ICC.
@@jer1776
I remember when Chrome came out, and I avoided it like it was a plague-infested corpse. I watched so many other people talk about it, rave about it... And I was just mentally facepalming the whole time.
@@manictigersame, I won't touch chrome with a 10 foot pole
Here's how to stop the gray market: Stop overcharging for crappy devices. Build okay phones for a fair price. $1299 for a phone is an absolute joke.
People don't buy cheap phones in first world countries 🤷♂️
@@fillerbunnyninjashark271lmao mf that pay $1300 for a phone are stupid tho. Most I've spent is $500-600 , that's a fair price for a year or two old flagship in pristine condition
@@iuse9646 even mid range phones are around 1k now
@@fillerbunnyninjashark271 yes they do
@@iuse9646That's on the higher end of what I'd pay to buy a phone new, definitely not used. Perhaps 300-400€ for a used flagship, and I'd have to make sure it doesn't have too little storage space available because none* of them have a microsd slot.
*excluding Sony phones, which are cool but even more expensive
The power the companies have on devices WE should own - is utter evil.
@@DickCheese10 Yea well we need some alternative and yet, not given any.
Locked bootloaders (ie cannot run custom OS) should be banned by law from existing. Locked should just mean that switching OSes will wipe your data. It should NOT block you from switching OSes.
From what I understand, the act of installing an operating system (unless you dual boot) typically results in getting rid of anything on the existing OS (unless you back up the data first)
The bootloader on Samsung devices can be unlocked but it will irreversibly break a lot of features and apps.
@@JarbasCoqueiro Can you please state source or name what ? I was planning unlock Samsung phone boot-loader in the near future.
No, locked bootloaders should not be banned, period, at all. There are major security concerns to shipping devices with unlocked bootloaders. Just make them unlockable like in Pixel devices.
I just got my 2nd hand computer today (to use a my router) and it came with Windows 11.
How much I HATE it. What a pain, going through all the settings I hate, and want to turn off.
(Let's change the design of stuff so people will have a whale of a time trying to navigate the new W11.)
Samsung is 20% of South Korea’s GDP. There’s no American comparison. The entire agriculture, fishing, forestry and hunting sector (many companies including Cargill and Monsanto) is 1.1% of the United States GDP.
Nokia was equally important to the Finnish economy. Then they f*ed up and nowadays it's rare to see a Nokia phone. However Finland is doing just fine.
Samsung upsetting it's customers is a stupid move, and if it hurts the company, it's Samsung's own fault.
Within South Korea, Samsung overrides the laws & civil rights that government guarantees, because... you've guessed it, Samsung is bigger, thus has more authority within the boarders of Republic of Korean then the country's elected officials 🇰🇷
In short, Samsung is a private (not publicly traded) company that owns everything in RoK.
Now you know... and knowing is half the battle! ⚔
Oh hey, it's the real Tay Zonday.
Are all those industries really only 1%? Not doubting you one bit, since I don't know better. But assuming you are, then it is madness that 20% of a country's GDP is one single company.
Ture... but the SK GDP is no where near that of USA.
I still refuse to buy a Kindle ebook reader because of Amazon's habit of reaching into it and deleting things you've purchased. Having that ability is a deal breaker for me.
Big shout out to the Mexican government for protecting their citizens like that. I was amazed by that.
no crap, when they call it buy i expect to buy the damn thing not rent it.
Amazon does that?
that is STEALING . . . . . . that is WRONG . . . . . that is beyond CRIMINAL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Gotta put android on em or there not worth using
@ticktockbam Yeah there was a case of them doing it with one particular book because of some licensing reason
TH-cam's actions proving exactly why we need alternatives. Keep up the good work.
Every time we try to create alternatives, the evils come in & shut it down. This is why there is NO competition & everything is a monopoly. Ever wondered why?
It's everywhere now...
Large corporations + a few dodgy politicians = effective monopolies.
Louis, one of the reasons we buy on the gray market is because the cellphones can be up to 50% cheaper, but also they don't have international features disabled. For example, if you buy a cellphone from any carrier, they will disable any second SIM for dual SIM models. They will put local bloatware which cannot be uninstalled or disabled and will consume data. It's not only about regulations or money, it's about taking control of your device in the way they see fit. Carriers want a slice of that personal data harvesting sh!t everyone is doing.
Indeed, when people still had basic phones, the companies were eager to show the benefits of switching to a smart phone. And now we see that the word "smart" actually applies to companies being able to take control of your device whenever they see fit. Same with cars and their cloud connection, or smart electricity meters, where someone can disable your electric power from behind a desk, if they want, or if someone hacks their network and shuts down customers from electricity. Kudos to the Mexican government for stepping in here.
@@rc-fannl7364"Smart" Meters actually have a place. They're desperately needet for load shifting and sheeding while going to intermittend green energy. Also you can safe money with a digital or smart meter, if you have a energy contractor who can bill hourly. you can use power when its cheaper, and reduce power consumption when its more expensive.
And cutting your power is also possible for them by just sending someone removing your fuses. In countrys like slowenia its even mandatory to have them accessible from outside.
This is more but less true nowadays.
Many phones remove the old carrier bloatware and install the new carrier bloatware when you swap SIM cards.
The way it work is that the phone have stubs from all the major carriers, and install them. Then since they are installed as system apps you can't prevent the initial install from the appstore so the initial version get loaded that way.
Those stubs take almost no space, it is basically only the manifest, so a few kb uncompressed. Once compressed in the ROM, it probably take only a few MB for all the carriers in the world, which is nothing when you compare that to the 10+GB of the OS...
The carrier for my backup device even has the balls to have an app with the specific, _clearly defined_ purpose of spying on the user and sending whatever data it wants. Which data specifically? Nobody knows, because the page for their privacy policy is blank.
@@rc-fannl7364 Connectivity is our doom. We really ought to step back and reconsider some of these things.
The "Grey Market" does not exist. It's a term coined to make us feel we're doing something illegal. In Mexico it is legal to buy used phones and or import them from any other country. What Samsung did, on the other hand, is Illegal and unethical!
Grey market been around man. There are often grey areas of the law until the courts decide to interpret.
If you're buying an illegal item illegally, that's black market. If you're buying a legal item illegally, that's grey market.
grey market usually refers to breaking a civil agreement such as TOS to acquire an item you shouldn't have. In this case it's region based, other examples could be sharing/selling netflix passwords.
@@NoelAWinslow The law is very clear. in Mexico: You can buy any phone and use it without constraints by the manufacturer. So much so, that Samsung was forced to backtrack and re activate all blocked phones.
@@silent9077 But that was not the case. You were buying a legal item legally, and Samsung called it Grey Market. Fortunately, the government enforced the law, and Samsung was forced to reactivate all the phones it had blocked.
Also this is why unlocked Bootloaders (or root minimum) should be the law.
No, no sense it's a big security issue
@@fippo717not much compared to the ones the manufacturer makes
@@wilh3lmmusic Yeah, android is not that much better. Tried Lineage OS recently after a long while after running stock. Play Integrity API caused some essential apps not function, so back to the stock I go, unfortunately.
The price we pay for convenience huh @@eziitis8
THE FUCKING LAW
The thing that is even more insane here is the double standard for international visitors vs the native population. We live in a global economy where people are *constantly* travelling to foreign countries, using their native/domestically purchased phones in said countries. Technically this could mean they're operating in bands/frequencies that aren't ideal for the location they're visiting - yet I doubt these traveler's phones will be blocked. Identical issues, but held to two different standards... ultimately suggesting the "issues" aren't issues at all.
If you think this is bad, just wait.
I'm being stopped from paying freelancers because I'm not in the US & Evernote was just bought out by an evil AI company in Italy & they REFUSED to take my US credit card because I'm not in the US.
The evils don't want the slaves moving around because then it's harder to track us.
Please wake up to the Truth about what is going on. We are in WWIII.
When you want to learn more, reach out.
If a company gets away with this. Everyone will follow suite . It's ridiculous
What do you do when no company can be trusted, not do business?
@havenbastion I've been a loyal samsung user for years now but this is making me reconsider. This is shady behavior
@abrammanoge Me too. I already had a poor experience with them years ago when they refused to fix a damaged charger port on my phone that was under warranty just because I rooted it. Theyre scummy.
Samsung start doing this in Colombia last week
This is why I switched to iPhone. As soon as the android manufacturers all started following suit with the headphone Jack, removable storage and battery I realized they were trying to sell me an iPhone, so I just switched to iPhone.
so let me get this straight, if you bought a phone and traveled to the wrong place, you get hit by a ransomware? that escalated quickly
Kinda. Mexicans are mad because phones they bought on the gray market (bought in the US and then brought to Mexico) are getting targeted.
It's like if Apple targeted UK iPhone 15's on the US because of the whole USB-C thing. People do this because they see X benefits of buying on outside markets.
Yes, even if you're a tourist, bought a phone in any part of the world outside Mexico and it just so happens that you activated your phone here because using a different carrier or you gifted it to a friend or family or some other reason, they can block your phone and it actually happened
@@CarLostisgo on a longer holiday, buy a local sim card to avoid roaming cost, blocked
Open borders for all illegal immigrants! But not phones though. That might benefit the native population.
Do Motorola and Samsung think that makes people consider to buy a "legit" device from them going forwards?
That's just fucked up even if there is the possibility of using custom ROMs.
If this happened to me I would go out of my way to never purchase one of their products even if it was the last one in that category to exist. I would go without television if Samsung were the last television maker. I would dry my clothes with a blow dryer if Samsung were the last dryer maker. I would store my data on an abacus if Samsung were the last memory manufacturer.
I hope the Mexican people affected by this share my stubborn nature and send them a message
You guys are too much
@@rodneylake2you’re just not enough
@@rodneylake2 no, SAMSUNG LOCKING PHONES is too much.
Maybe they've seen Apple screw over their customers for so long and their sheeple keep "upgrading" 🤷♂️🤣🤦♂️
Yeah I dont buy ANY Samsung products anymore and havent for a long time. I am glad you continue to make these vidoes so we know who NOT to give our money to.
🎉 💯
"Voting with your wallet" is a nice thing to say and all, but the problem is the lack of awareness. Most of these kinds of things, I'd never even hear about. How am I supposed to avoid buying stuff when I don't ever hear about these problems?
Louis is about the only source I hear about any of this kind of thing from.
So true.
Without this channel I'd be in the dark a LOT more.
Funny how these liberal POS "protestors" want meaningful change & they are clueless about actual shit going down & they don't carry the message.
A self-serving response, but the obvious answer, subscribe to angry man in chair.
@@rossmanngroupYour nicer than I am about it.
And now you understand why corporations are so invested on controlling journalism and social media.
@@rossmanngroupangry man in chair is an awesome way to describe your channel 😂
I used to work for one of the manufacturers you mentioned and I can tell you their reasoning is BS. If the phones are dangerous, why would the Mexican government allow their import? These phones all use the same parts, regardless of what part of the world they’re sold in. The only difference by region would be the software that’s loaded on the phone, and that’s based on what carrier the phone was built for. However, all of these companies also sell generic phones, which is probably what these gray market phones are. The only thing needed to operate them is a SIM card. If the carrier requires a specific software load to be on the phone, they should be able to flash their specific software on to it when you bring it in to get it connected.
The manufacturers have zero reason to brick your phone.
They are contraband...
@@GeomancerHT If they’re contraband, why is the government allowing them into the country, and why are the carriers connecting the phones. It’s easy for carriers to flag those types of phones through their IMEI.
@@GeomancerHT If they're contraband, then why did the Mexican government step in and tell the stupid mf'ers at Samsung and Motorola that they can't do what they're doing?
They actually have a reason: to make you pay more money.
@@GeomancerHTNo, they're not. Under that statement, everything that is being bought on Amazon, eBay, Alibaba, you name it is in fact contraband, because the brand only sells it in China.
I can understand if a brand doesn't want to sell a phone in a specific region because of legitimate technical reasons (5G for example), but it's rather ridiculous that I can't buy and use an outside phone just because a brand want me to pay almost 30% to 40% of the US price just because is imported.
As a small note as someone from Mexico, the grey market over here is massive, absolutely massive. Shutting down the grey market for phones would be catastrophic and possibly even affect phone retailers. Rather than making people buy "Samsung authorized phones" they would switch companies instantly, but it would mark a precedent that would eventually swallow all phone companies which would lock us in the lower spectrum of phone performances and possibly set us in the mindset of "We only need a phone for some basic apps and taking pictures", effectvely destroying the high-grade phone market by making it niche. Profeco stepped in because on one side we have a blatant abuse of the consumer, and on the other side they want to prevent a market crash in the future, at least prevent one created by a reason as simple as blatant greed
Yeah but mid to low range devices now are better than ever compared to a neutered (removal of basic features) high end device these days. This isnt 2017 where getting a good device costed more than it does today lol.
@@Matcc True, it's much cheaper nowadays, but it still doesn't address the issue. They grey market can easily reduce the price of a good phone from two month's pay (total pay, not the remaining income AND before taxes) to a bit more than a single month's pay. The mid to low range devices vary from half a month's pay to a whole month's pay nowadays, and while it's possible to buy them it's still a big expense for some people. Now imagine that happening to any kind of appliance or digital device like printers or crazily maybe even fridges. It's a small issue right now that can escalate greatly due to corporate greed, so it was squashed before others got any ideas.
Maybe we should go back to basic functions.
We don't actually need a phone that does everything. All it needs to do is call people and send voice over the connection
@@nathanielalderson9111 Not at all. I almost never use a phone call or a SMS these days. All those legacy services offer is scam spam. The only time I use SMS is as a 2FA verification code method, and voice calls is only to call a local business for some reason.
The era of phones we have right now for apps is ideal. This is coming from a guy who has always used previous legacy electronics in ways close to the modern offerings. Back in the days of Windows Mobile, you had to search for and buy apps a la carte that could cost $60-300 depending on the use case. My ballistics software was $295. Tethering was able to be done back then using special software as well, giving your laptop a 3G internet connection through your Windows Mobile device.
Phones are less useful as phones these days, and honestly should not be thought of as such. They're personal portable computers able to provide connectivity in a compact package able to be carried on you.
To be fair even here in the US, the grey market is a thing. I have a Oneplus 7 Pro that I got in 2019, and 4 years later it is still going strong. My provider won't offer support for it and instead wants me to buy an iphone, a pixel, a samsung, or another top tier brand phone. Solution? I told them I had an iphone and had them ship me the sim card since they don't require an IMEI for iphones. Tossed it in my phone and everything works 100% fine. No way I'm going to spend hundreds of dollars to replace my fully working device.
It wasn't the Mexican government who stepped in, in fact, the Mexican authorities are suspected to be colluding with Samsung AND Motorola with this stupidity.
The regular people complained, and technology reviewers like you raised the voice to pressure the authorities to do something about it. This is an example of how companies use politics instead of marketing to protect their income, simply atrocious.
As a Mexican, living in Mexico, I can tell you that we still have usable 2G in our phones all the way to 5G with most carriers. I'm pretty sure there is many subsets of 'regulation compliant' modes to use here.
i heard a story that one of the cartel made a mobile network for themself
Also a Mexican living in Mexico and I confirm, my uncle has a 2G phone, has been using it for years without problem. I'm thinking of getting one myself.
As Im aware we wont have 2G next year, sadly.
All phones use 2g, 3, 4 and if capable 5g. They may say 5G on the top but without getting into detail, they have to access and us 2-4g at all times in the background.
@@user-is7xs1mr9y i honestly believe everyone everywhere should be able to use their product whenever and wherever they want. Seeing companies doing that to mexico and mexicans annoys the living shit out of me. @#$#@ samsung
Respect to Mexico for doing what nobody else seems willing to do though, holy shit
Profeco actually care for us... they ban a lot of things that are just garbage from being imported, their site have an official complaint form, if enough complaints are summited they start a whole investigation in the product and if it's deemed dangerous or don't follow Mexico regulations they just straight ban them from being sold, there is constantly stuff being pulled from even Amazon for just not have a label in spanish.
You can even start a legal claim online for the wrong doings of companies and have a session between Profeco, you and the company's lawyer (all online) to sort the thing out, if they deem the company is at fault they get legally forced to correct it, they get to summit documents, you get to do it too, it's basically mini court lol
Respect nothing. The gov only did it out the "bad publicity".
No don’t, respect them, they are behind all of this garbage
I'm more surprised the cartels let them.
@@zomfraggerWhy wouldn't the cartels let the politicians go after Samsung? Politicians can't be corrupted by foreign entities when local cartels provide them with more than enough money.
Also, the cartels aren't cartoon villains; they don't actively seek to make the lives of the general population worse. If anything, letting them be happy will make it more likely for them to be overlooked. That's how most organised crime works. While a minority may suffer because of them (addicts in the case of drug cartels), the majority should feel a neutral or even a positive impact from criminal organisations.
Funny how Samsung dunked on Apple for not including a charger and went on to do the exact thing the following release.
Funny how Samsung dunked on Apple for getting rid of 3.5mm jack and then got rid of it in the following release.
Samsung dunks on Apple then goes ahead does the same thing and then something worse. And Samsung fanboys continue to shit on Apple fanboys
Samsung has a history of this kind of foolery. They did the same thing insulting LG OLED TV's in 2021 and then went on to make OLEDs themselves the next year.
They dunk on them for easy publicity, not because they actually disagree with Apple. Most people don't like change, so Samsung can capitalize on that. It's part of corporate strategy.
Neither Apple nor Samsung did it based of they own will under "we care about the envirnoment" greenwashing bs. It's because of EU made it a law to reduce e-waste.
Well... the blockages have been stopped for now here in México, thanks for the coverage and suport.... but there is a little detail you missed from the story.... when Samsung was bricking phones they issued a message that basically said "if your device has been turn into an expensive paperweight, don't worry! we at Samsung are so good and nice that if you give us your blocked and useless phone, we are gonna give you a brand new shiny coupon for 30% off when buying your new phone from our store".
What a ripoff, people should sue Samsung for this bs
@@quisqueyanguy120 Or stop buying Samsung and motorola phones
Scary how companies can just access your device for arbitrary reasons, let alone disable or block features.
Scary how my phine cannot work AT ALL if it's not connected to them ...
George Orwell missed the date by 30 years...
The microphone is ALWAYS live and the camera is too, taking IR pics every 5 seconds or so.
That's why I bought a case that blocks the camera. Can't do much about the microphone. @@GrzegorzDurda
It makes me more worried though, all it takes is one breach and an outside agent could dump ransomware on your device or just plain steal your personal info.
I love Louis. No sponsored content, no fanboy crap, calls out everyone on their bs, does actual legal work to help others, shares knowledge that he uses to earn a living, and doesn't tell me to like and subscribe as if I'm 80yrs old and don't know how TH-cam works...
among other things.
Only thing that holds him back a little is his way of talking I think, he quickly gets above people's heads and apparently sounds condescending to them.
Heh, it's always about stat points I guess. He got the morals, he got the SKILLZ, he's fighting the fight of consumers against big shitty companies that try to cage them. Only thing Louis is missing a little is captivating charisma to get the people rallied
So true. I like the part of someone thinking you are an 80 yr old man being asked to subscribe and like..hahaha 😂😅😊👍👏
@@sinni800 Charisma was his dump stat since he's clearly a wizard, but even so mans has got that captivating pro-consumer cathartic rage that makes me love the guy
@@sinni800 I find Louis captivatingly charismatic! LOUIS FOR PRESIDENT!! 😃
The problem in Mexico is that brands actually sell phones more expensive than in the US and other countries because of "import and legalization fees" that's why peoply buy in the "grey market" because those imported phones do not pay import fees
hmmm... why does it matter? it is free trade globalization. it is the same brand right?
@@marcolie6171 Because their profits!, how dare you buy the same phone from them, atr a cheaper price than you should pay?. They have the right to your money!. (obviously kidding)
I live in Mexico and I was wondering how to make this issue a bigger PR deal for them, for some reason I didn't think of sharing it with you but I am glad someone did. The issue was not only making unofficial retailers import them, it was also affecting individual people who travelled to the US, bought one there and imported it themselves... Samsung phones are way cheaper in the States than in Mexico so people sometimes do that...
Not just in Mexico, people all across the EU do that too, what those Korean corporate psychopaths did was truly insane.
It's almost certainly tax laws, not "corporate psychopaths" making the phones more expensive in Europe than America.
yea 100% my gf buys her phone in the states too. How are they gonna forbid us from buying tech abroad
@@maxime_vhw have they not heard the team roaming, the where you can pay at least three time alocal call when abroad on business or a holiday
@@rightwingsafetysquad9872I assumed he meant the remote locking rather than the price policy
The mexican government actually holding tech companies accountable compared to, like Us?(the US). Im impressed and proud of them.
As a Mexican, I would like to add that one of the reasons they did this is because they were probably pressured by Telcel. Phones are crazy expensive and overpricedb through the official channels. A xiaomi mi 12 that could be bought for 700usd in AliExpress was selling for almost 1500usd in telcel. The small s23 was about 1400usd. I can almost promise you that taxes will grow for import phones. 😢
Also, the amount of Bloatware that Robacel puts on the device is outrageous! At least on Samsung devices, flashing a Firmware with CSC MXO can get rid of it without blowing a eFuse or voiding the Warranty. Motorolas will restore the Bloatware even if using a Retail Firmware.
I always buy Samsung phones on AliExpress (my S20+ Korean Version and a S22+ US version for my wife) and don't have any issues with AT&T; I suspect Slim is behind this kind of things, because ZTE was the first to do this, and ZTE are sold mostly by Robacel Retailers (so more influenced by Slim).
@@Alpha06R There was a time where the bigger xiaomi retailers in AliExpress were not shipping to Mexico, which coincidentally was the time when Telcel started selling them.
@@Nems271I didn't knew about this. Telcel was a huge part on this shit storm, such a scum move from everyone.
Profeco again stepping up for us the Mexican consumer.
Exactly. And they act like the drug mafia!
Telcel adds a shit ton of "suggestions" to a phone.
Oh, and you can't uninstall them.
Fuck Telcel and Samsung too
I’m glad you’re talking about this, it got some coverage here in the country but I was surprised it wasn’t really covered on international tech news
Look, we know what this is. It's ransomware. That's how it should be framed. Therefore, they should be charged the same as other criminals (this _is_ a criminal offense after all) and be made to remove all traces from their products. And then _VERY_ heavily fined.
Fines don't do shit.
The only thing that ever worked was CEO jail time.
@@Muoteck They pass those fines off as cost of business expenses, which ultimately are paid by the consumer.
God dam. This is beyond belief. Mexico should sue
They should charge and extradite all the board members ceos included for trial.
And then? Samsung is South Korea, South Korea is Samsung. Mexico can't do anything; the other side wouldn't even need to care.
They literally did this for two reasons, they don't want the lower class having access to their status products, they want their phones to be coveted like designer apparel, and because the people ordering in these phones to save money don't have the resources to sue.
@@bencheevers6693uh no, they have phones at every price tier including the lowest
Mexico is literally a country, they don't have to sue they could just seize all the resources from their branches and shut them down within the country while banning them from doing business in the country in the future.
Imagine being a tourist and your Samsung/Motorola phone locks you out after a week. That’s absolutely ridiculous.
Why would that happen? If you bought your phone legitimately in another country you will be OK.
The phones being blocked have been imported illegitimately from another region and started for the first time I'm Mexico, if they were started and registered in their original region then all would be good.
@@jonwelch564 It is global market... and it is Korean company and Korea was literally Chinese satelite country for centuries and they are blocking their products for buying it in China?
What exactly is illegal here according to you? What law was broken exactly?
@@jonwelch564the phones aren't "illegitimate", just sourced legitimately elsewhere more cheaply than the manufacters wanted to sell them for in that region.
@@jonwelch564 I saw someone in Canada posting that his phone got blocked. Regardless of how he bought it, that shouldn't be happening.
"Legitimately" is rather a fake term anyhow. There's nothing inherently illegitimate about buying a product and exporting it again. Greedy companies which trying to artificially inflate prices in some markets are the ones which should be called illegitimate.
@@CaptainKremmen @all_of_the_replies read what I have written again, a no point have I said this is OK have I?
I answered the OP's question about a tourist going to Mexico and their phone getting blocked, that isn't going to happen.
I then explained why Samsung are blocking phones, I'm not condoning it I'm just saying what's happened. Read what people say, and don't jump,to conclusions.
Have a good day.
10 years ago my dad bought a samsung tablet from South Korea and this type of message displayed on the screen too. Empty threat however as the device was fully functional down to the cell usage. It outlasted many devices bought in our domestic country (UK).
So sad that Samsung is turning to a monster. I got their Galaxy Tab S2 6 years ago and it still works very well.
Only deteriorations were the charging cable corroded so I got one for $4, and the battery life is about 35% - 45% usable before the tablet cuts and reboot due to voltage dropping. If I want to use it longer I just bring a cheap 10 000mAh powerbank.
Which company that isn't a scumbag will I get a decent tablet from now? It'll die at some point. Or in months or a year or two more I might want to change it to run a game or emulator on a newer tablet.
@@familhagaudir8561maybe NEC?,might be slightly hard to repair,but better than Scumsung
Giving themselves the ability to do such things is in and of itself proof they cannot be trusted, whether or not it's ever used.
Hey Louis I'm a mexican viewer since your old repair shop in NYC, the little one. I've seen you grow as a channel and as an activist. I've always supported what you do because most of the stuff you fight for leaks to the rest of the world, so any W you get for the state you live in, or your country as a whole, is a W that leaks to the rest of the world.
I try and do my part educating people around me to fight for their rights to repair thanks to you.
But this was a problem in my country and I'm glad to inform that thanks to people that won't let this shit happen, we raised our voice and the government stopped these shitty companies from getting away with it. I'm just glad to see you covering this topic and giving your viewers the heads up because they won't stop here, they're already trying to do this in other latin american countries. I'm hoping all other governments stop them too.
All I know is that my next phone will be a Fairphone.
I am not Mexican, but have a fear that Microsoft could lock their bootloader in the future. Seems that software is getting more locked down with each passing decade. The 2020s is a strange decade, and it all started with these megacorporations trying to get more profit.
Ìwhat the law says? It is dictating the customer. If every one boycott then this problem will be resolved
Not "W" But AIDS itself ...
Thanks Louis for covering this. Let me give you additional context:
* The "official channels" can be as expensive as twice the price of what an imported one from the US can cost (after paying all required taxes and fees). You have no warranty, but you can buy it twice.
* The bloatware apps from the service provider (Telcel) and the OS updates coming exclusively through it.
* Telcel won't enable VoLTE if your IMEI is not in their database.
I want to add a personal testimony: my company issued me a "Mexican official Motorola phone" because that phone was security-compliant with the internal software.
The thing is that the security assessment was done in the US with the global version in mind (Android 13 installed), while the Mexican one was last updated by Telcel on 2021, unable to go beyond Android 11 as is.
In the end it was totally useless, because Android 13 was required by the apps, and a lot of workers were affected by this. Having to raise and have temporary access tokens approved each week for months.
It's the same in Brazil. Almost everywhere outside of US and Canada in the Americas suffers from the same insane import duties on electronics. Base model iPhone 15 Plus from Apple store in USA? $899. In Brazil? BRL 8,299 or $1,655
nevir isn't updated on the last taxes, that value was before the new tax of 91 fucking % just approved.
I am from Mexico and I have some things to say:
- I am happy that I can see you having the same exact reaction as a I did when I read the news.
- After this break to the public I decided to switch to a pixel phone, no more samsung stuff in my house for as long as possible
- I think PROFECO was requiring the companies to so something about the gray market but it seems if was shoot in the foot. Then they decided that these actions were to mucho for the public and no doubt of that.
- It's so frustrating that you don't own your stuff anymore. I work for a tech company that creates IoT devices and they are great but we don't want to mess with what you already bought. This is the worst things that have happened to the electronics consumer industry since IoT became a thing...
- Thanks for being a voice to all of us that we can just weep when this happens...
why were people in mexico buying samsung phones in the gray market anyway?
Most probably cheaper
@@wanderingandroidI’m not from Mexico, but from a different Latin American country, we buy gray market stuff because it’s cheaper, or because there are models that never launch here, as for why it’s cheaper, taxes is the main thing, countries here tax any import of manufactured goods, which includes cellphones, so if you can travel to the US, buy a few phones, and then go back, you have essentially imported them without paying extra tax. Also with second hand phones, they are cheaper in the US because the market there is bigger so more offer but less demand for used phones, for example, I bought my pixel 5 through gray market for 150 bucks, the price for one bought here second hand was 250. This is why the Mexican government is asking them to still fight the gray market, because it’s loss revenue for them, just not to do it by bricking phones
Pixel???
You do realize that Google is even more draconian than Samsung ever dreamed of being, right??
@@wanderingandroid because the official stores are too expensive. Ate least for the ship flag models like the S23 ultra...
This is exactly why cloud services is dangerous xD
Those who willingly give up control of their own bought and paid for products and data for a brief convenience will suffer greatly in the end.
We are fast transitioning into a world of most everything in the market being from a subscription service, rather than outright ownership. This is true from the dreams of first home owners evaporating, to cars to the most basic consumer products.
"yuu will 003n n00thin" isn't just a douchebaggy slogan - its active policy
I would be on board with this if google didn’t FUCK ME by stopping me from making more than 5 emails to use for being forced to make an account for every website I want to use regularly. They did this by forcing SMS authentication upon making an email now and making more than 5 emails that have been authenticated by the same phone number results in me not being able to make more email accounts.
As a result, I am forced to pay for services like iCloud or Proton mail to have the ability to use more decoy emails for making accounts on websites I want to use regularly.
Heck, for my merch business, I am forced to use iCloud to make multiple accounts. It sucks ass.
As ass-fucking as Twitch is, they did one thing right. In order to make multiple accounts using the same email, you have to verify that email on each account you make. You can have multiple accounts with the same email.
I work in IT as a partner for several vendors. and i have been "Scolded" as a partner by a brand because her words "You partners never learn, we HAD to remove the perpetual license because you guys are still offering it. Stop, the days you sold something are over, you HAVE to sell suscriptions. IF at any chance you need to sell perpetual due to goverment regulation, you have to fill this form and justifify it and we will quote it case by case".
This is just an example.
Mail servers, voice SIP servers, EVEN FREAKING SWITCHES (Some clients are learning tho) there were plenty of customers that bought Meraki CISCO cloud switches and after their initial 3yr bundle ran off the devices turned into literal bricks without licenses.
The company was struggling due to covid, and due to budget they didnt nenew licenses, thinking all they would loss is cloud acces but that network switches should still work.
..HA!
cloud isnt the issue, its the lack of regulation and the free rain companies get to abuse and lie about this because the people making the rules understand nothing and they pay off the media/control it enough that they can cover shit up till it's too late.
Subscription*
@@Jadtyalready fixed. Autocomplete is a bit fruity sometimes.
People forget that Samsung is part of what is effectively a Corporatocracy in Korea, they're used to being able to interpret the laws as they see fit, and if they can't those laws tend to mysteriously be updated in Samsung's favor.
The current Vice Chairman (the only person above him is on vacation most of the year) was not only arrested for, but actually convicted for bribery of the PRESIDENT of South Korea (who was shortly IMPEACHED for the actions involved) as well as perjury, embezzlement, and tax fraud six years ago. Some of the bribery charges were 'suspended' by officials and were dropped despite being part of a conviction, he spent a total of 18 months between jail and parole before he was pardoned (this is, at least, his THIRD pardon for such crimes since the 90's).
People within the Korean justice system have, on record, stated that Samsung is above the law. Which makes a twisted kind of sense considering they control between 20% (directly) and 40% (through contracts and procurement) of Korea's ENTIRE ECONOMY. It gets even better when you realize the entire thing is controlled by a single family, and their highest levels of management have a structure uncomfortably like other family run... businesses... around the world.
Source: Samsung heir pardoned due to South Korean economic needs - Ars Technica
Wow the worst corporate servitude
Its called fascism.
Thanks!
this shouldn't be tolerated at all
or they'll start to do the same in other regions
I've had Samsung phones and other devices for years. I stopped buying Samsung TV's 5 years ago when you couldn't use them without signing up to be shown ads. I'd already decided that I will *NEVER* buy another Samsung phone when this one eventually croaks. I'm actually celebrating the fact that Samsung cellphone income is down 80%, hurrah.
I'm not a Samsung fan, but where is that market share going? Apple? Huawei?
Like Louis would say, Samsung is looking for quarters in the couch, so they're doing more evil practices
I have a xiaomi and I am happy with it@@GeoMeridium
@@GeoMeridiumI've thought about getting a Kyocera DuraForce 5G after my A71 5G croaks. We that use Android as our daily fliers don't tend to leave Android that often.
You have to sign into something tonuse rhe fricking tv? Wtf
This is one of many reasons why I have always been vehemently against the whole "everything is online or in the cloud" thing versus devices, software, applications, etc. being stored in ways that can function WITHOUT online connections.
Sadly... my opinion doesn't matter. 😕 This is because I am not a wealthy corporation, I am a monetarily poor, individual nobody. That's just how it goes.
I detest "software as a service". And I abhor "hardware as a service".
It literally says "you don't own this".
Even at the very begining I was like "This seems like its not worth it for how bad it could go">
I mean the writing was on the wall day one. And you do matter. The more people refuse to participate in digital serfdom, the bigger the island we live on made of our bodies can be.
your opnion does matter because I whleheartedly agree and really want to boycott almost all tech and software
same for cash, use it or lose it
@@nobodyshome6792 And I don't know about anyone else, but my wealth/spending power has wildly fluctuated over the course of my life. Thankfully the high quality stuff which I bought when it was high can still serve me when it's low, but with subscriptions I'd just lose everything I was subscribed to.
Louis you are maniacal!!! The world needs you buddy, more now than ever. Keep up your good work!!!!
It does not matter where or how the phone was acquired... The manufacturer should NOT have this kind of power, period.
Which is one of the reasons you should always ditch the default OS that comes with your device and install one YOU have chosen. If the device is locked and you can't change the OS, just do not use that device, there is plenty of choice out there.
To truly own your computer (including a smartphone) you MUST have the ability to install your own OS on it
@@wilh3lmmusicAbsolutely. Computer, phone, tablet... Same thing.
Technical literacy is extremely low, in the majority of the world. That problem must be overcome if you want to make an actual difference.
The fact that they want to even know were I am is a problem for me.
I'm angry on a daily basis at the actions of pretty much every single manufacturer out there. From the software we use to the devices we use, our privacy is invaded, we own NOTHING that we buy, and these companies abuse their power whenever they feel like it to hold consumers hostage, whether it's this kind of nonsense, or making your perfectly good phone not work anymore so that you're forced to buy another one. When literally NOTHING has changed that would make it worth buying a new one. I have one of the last phones that has a heart rate monitor and a headphone jack, and I like it that way. Removing those things did not make for a better device. Why the hell would I want to downgrade?
You will own NOTHING & be happy about it. Also eat bugs because Klaus said so. 🤣😂
My phone also has a headphone jack. It's 4 years old, but i damn well hope it lasts a long time. I don't want a phone that doesn't have a jack because i hate bluetooth headphones and prefer wired ones.
Living in Latin America, I came to realize that big companies have a lot to say about this. In Mexico the larger cellphone companie is also the least interested in cellphones from the grey market. If an iPhone cost in the USA 1300, they will sell it in Mexico for a lot more. Same for Samsung and other brands. If they don't want people buying from the grey market why not open oficial stores and sell at a better price? The same applies for most countries in Latin America.
This holds true in Colombia, it would be alright if devices were a little bit more expensive to account for inflation, currency exchange, even import cost as well. But that is never the case, iPhones are really overpriced.
Lol, absolutely love how wild you got in this one, but are actually completely right in the opinion you support, we need more of you in this world Louis!
They should go after them for submitting false statements to the court.
YOU WILL OWN NOTHING, AND YOU WILL BE HAPPY
They have made huge strides in the first half, when can we expect the second?
I told everyone around me about it. No one cares!!!
It is worrying.
Best and most truest comment here.
guess they don't know the definition of "happy"
@@gressorialNanites We are happy, aren’t we? Because as far as they’re concerned, if there’s demand , they assume we’re happy, and that’s what this HAPPY means.
Yet Samsung manufactured those phones expecting to sell them ? Region lock, blah, blah, blah. Whatever.
All this tells me is that you should never make a cell phone the center of your life.
Region lock started with Hollywood. It's been a problem since it's invention
It should be a common sense since the first smartphones (or even 'dumbphones with internet access') have been sold to people. But it's not.
this is crazy to me. what happens to travellers? a few years ago I went to NZ for 2 weeks, the first thing I did when I got off the plane, while waiting on my bags was to buy a local sim card as my carrier charges $5 a day for international roaming and I could get a months access in NZ with decent data for like $25. what would happen to people doing the same thing when traveling to Mexico?
This is not that.
@@UnitSe7en how do they tell the difference between a local who bought a grey market phone and a tourist with a local sim?
@@myopinion69420In my country Bangladesh, tourist sims have 3 months validity period. Not sure about other places.
@@common_sense_supreme this was not a tourist sim, it was a normal every day sim, just like any local would buy.
@@UnitSe7en To phrase the person's question another way: how do they know the country of residence of the person who owns that new overseas phone they just detected?
"This is not a pro-consumer company." You got that right. Samsung owes me a $5 Amazon gift card for completing a survery that they have yet to send, yet when I contact customer support, they all say it's not their department that handles this and they act like it's my responsibility to find out which one.
Lol
I'm sure you had more important reasons, but I prefer to pretend that you really broke up with Samsung over a $5 gift card you never received 😂
@iamoliverblake What do you think Samsung would do if you stole 5 bucks from one of their stores?
@@coreygraham860 they didn’t steal $5 from you though lol, so not the same.
@@TheRealFlap They stole 5 bucks worth of my time.
Another reason why custom ROMs are a necessity. If people break the laws in certain countries, it should be up to the country, not the manufacturer, to make sure people only use appropriate frequency bands or whatever.
Great video, man! You say what literally every sane person on the planet thinks (which obviously excludes politicians, lobbyists and anti-consumer manufacturers).
EXCEPT the ONLY way the government can control this is through the manufacturer. They can't afford to send police officers door to door.
IF YOUR PHONE CAN NOT ACCESS A NETWORK DUE TO FREQUENCY DIFFERENCES, THE PHONE IS THE CAUSE, GOVERNMENT NEEDS TO KEEP ITS NOSE OUT!
@@GeorgeMonetPHONE SERVICE IS NOT UNDER ANY PIG RELATED PROBLEM, IT IS A CIVIL MATTER.
You forgot to use the word Corrupt when politicians and lobbyist were mentioned they are the only ones allowed to break our laws and walk away RICH right PELOSI???
@@GeorgeMonet ah i remember back when the FCC didn't track down radio pirates, they just installed spying devices on all the radios sold throughout the early 1900's
...oh wait that's not how it happened at all
Thanks for covering this. Just a reminder, there is this data company called Telcel, it had been a monopoly in Mexico for decades, it is said they pushed this "regulation" until several tech channels from all over the world stepped in to talk about all of this. It was not the government
Carlos Slim's company, I'm guessing, right? Mexico is such a mess.
@@manictiger Yes, it is
well, retailers try to get "authorized dealer" sign for a reason. if people don't like it, they can always just go back to pagers and payphones. i don't see why this is even an issue. samsung makes the phones, they have the right to make rules on selling their products. if people don't like the rules, then go somewhere else. it's not like they are pointing a gun at you. all big name brands require retailers to be authorized to sell their products.
@@cynicaldudeMe You have no idea what you're talking about, keep trying
I really enjoy your rants Louis!! I hope you have a good 'blood pressure medication' or another alternate to help you cope. I've seen episodes where you are visibly upset and have to practice deep-breathing techniques to maintain composure. I feel your pain. I THANK YOU for your work, your knowledges, your passion for value and 'the customer' and your immense Balls! You Rock Louis!
As a Mexican I can explain that the outrage was bad because not only Samsung Started doing it but it was ZTE , then just Samsung followed their steps as other Phone Manufacturers , the issue became so big when Xiaomi started thinking doing it that it was trending on twitter that day they announced , other tech channels from other countries as well started reporting on it and making it known ,because they were worried this will happened in other countries as well and all combined made the bubble so big it just was too big to hide it anymore so the government stepped in to stop it . The second it was that if this situation started to go to court the Manufactures will lose because the telecom law says you can acquire your phone in any store including amazon ,mercadolibre ebay etc, another thing it was that most phone of grey market are legally imported and payed taxes or were bought by mexican going to the US to buy the devices because are cheaper and other detail to remark is that if you legally bought your phone with legal money and in good faith they should not block your phone like that not even when your phone get stolen here we have that option only IMEI block. We only know that the legal importers ,just tried it to get away with it and well it went south really quick.
The manufacturers started doing it after that lawsuit but also that law mentioned in that lawsuit
"if you legally bought your phone with legal money and in good faith they should not block your phone" - If you legally bought your phone then they are legally NOT allowed to do ANYTHING on it without your permission, even if you bought it from grey import. These bastards have messed up big time.
So did they backed up completely or are they still fiddling with the idea?
Should hire American and Mexicans lawyers to sue manufacturers at same time
@@technocody9296 How on Earth would an American lawyer help against a South Korean cell phone manufacturer doing foul play in Mexico?
Quick thing you forgot to mention, phones are more expensive in Mexico and the rest of the americas in general (the example I saw most often for this block stuff was the galaxy a54, which is 340 bucks in the us but is 560 dollars in Mexico) this block specifically affected brand new phones, not used phones from what some people in Mexico were talking about, but a 30% increase in price on average for a country with lessened purchasing power is absurd
It's the same in Brazil. Almost everywhere outside of US and Canada in the Americas suffers from the same insane import duties on electronics. Base model iPhone 15 Plus from Apple store in USA? $899. In Brazil? BRL 8,299 or $1,655
Samsung is a POS for trying this, but Motorola is even worse.
If you take an exchange rate of 22 Pesos per Dollar (which is not, it's closer to 19, making this matter even WORSE), some of their phones cost, literally, double here than in the US
because in 3rd world countries, corrupt politicians tend to abuse poor people than rich people.....
@@Nevir202not to mention minimum wage of 280$ lmao
Samsung is also a company that believes that after you've purchased their smart TV, they still own a part of the screen to display ads - can't turn that off. They also collect ACR (Automatic Content Recognition) data, and send it to themselves over your internet connection, so that they can monetize and sell to 3rd parties.
I've purchased my last Samsung product about 6 years ago, once I learned how horrible they are.
I don't want to hook up a smart-tv to my network, much less give it internet access.
@@TheExileFox Yep recently got a new smart tv and it has never been on the internet and never will be if i need an app or web service ill just use the pc that's connected to it.
Thank you, Louis! I'd thought I was pretty up-to-date regarding corporate villainy, but have learned so much, just in the last two days since I "discovered" you. I was fan of Samsung and Motorola, till now. Seriously considered both and finally bought Motorola last time I needed a phone. No more!
The most recent product type that had me tearing my hair out (what's left of it) was a label printer. The most popular brands have embedded an RFID chip in the core of the roll to force you to buy OEM labels. It took me a while to find a brand committed to allowing you to print on any label of the correct type. (The brand is Rollo in case you're looking for a label printer)
Mine's awful.. does great on things that don't matter like images, but horrible on text and barcodes.
My old Datamax is much better.. but it's huge comparatively 😞
There is a printer scanner I'm not sure of the manufacturer that does the same thing if you run out of ink you can't get non-oem ink and you can't even scan. Just because it's out of fucking Ink
What was the brand of the printer that pulled the RFID shit? Just so everyone else knows what company needs to go out of business.
There is no such thing as "grey market". You buy something, then you own it... if you interfere with other's property you usually violate the one or the other law. People need to vote with their wallet, as soon as this is known. Only if a company that uses these practices gets an immediate strong financial backlash, or even better wiped from the market, will things improve.🤯
Wallets? Man - shut down all Samsung offices in Mexico for 3 months. Let THEM vote if they want to stay or not :)
5:04 This. Whether or not it is legal or not for them to disable the phone it this particular case is a completely separate discussion, and irrelevant here. The simple fact that they CAN do it is immediately creepy AF.
Thank you for shedding light on such cases, pushing back against such practices, and educating the public that alternative, privacy-respecting mobile operating systems do exist
Greedy companies and unscrupulous government, 100% that it was the owner (Tercel) which colluded with government officials to bleed consumers, used to buy unlocked phones worldwide brand new ( Samsung and Motorola), specifically NorthAmerica market for my loved ones, moving forward, I won’t buy anymore it’s products. Thank you for shedding light to your audience.
This one is a bit of a wake-up call from me as I am admittedly a die-hard Samsung fan. I really like their series and range of phones. But to see that they attempted to disable devices in a market just because they wanted to profiteer from sales via "genuine" channels is wrong.
I need to upgrade my Samsung device soon. I should check out other devices.
What non-Samsung devices have you considered getting, friend?
Sad thing is if they manage to get away with this every other brand will follow....
Also looking to upgrade coming from an s21. I want to try custom OS without losing a bunch of apps samsung will disable if I root.
I wanted a tablet, and bought a Huawei instead of a Samsung. Not gonna lie, for me as a life long Samsung and Google user, the transition to a device with no Google services was absolutely brutal, but you can have outlook for all your calendar and email needs by synch, and various custom apps just save the day. Not to mention, the device is really pleasant to use otherwise. It has wonderful design.
For me it was the 1999€ Fold 3.... after 1,5 years it started to bug out. If unfoldet the wifi switches of and it crashed. So i sendet it in. They said "It has a drop damage and asked for 850€"... I never droped it - there was just a little scratch outside. F*k samsung i use a xiaomi (450€) now...
Honestly, the fact that the phone was able to work in the first place, would tell me that the phone had a way to obtain the needed radio information to operate in Mexico. This information usually comes from the carrier, SIM Card, or the CSC within the Android OS. Every phone I know of today is designed to be used as a "World" phone so it should operate in all countries safely. Granted, when it comes to radio regulations, I know there are a whole bunch of restrictions, such as "FCC Certified Wi-Fi Base Stations" like Access Points being required to have hard-coded country information that cannot be overridden, and those devices likewise can't be exported. Those regulations are more for carrier and vendor grade devices rather than consumer devices which tend to move around.
Maybe their concern was with extended usage in a country and the device not being tested with the local authorities (for example, they didn't get KCC or FCC certification on specific SKUs), but shutting down the whole device rather than disabling the high power radio communications and maybe throttling the processor as a precaution is quite a scummy move. I know for sure, companies are not manufacturing "Mexico Only" SKUs of the actual hardware.
Good on the Mexican government for putting Samsung and Motorola in their place.
"Maybe their concern was with extended usage in a country and the device not being tested with the local authorities" - That's pure and utter BS. The sole reason for this whole ordeal was greed and probably bribes to the Korean corporate bastards from some Mexican telcos. The phones were perfectly tested and worked fine in Mexico, this was obvious foul play.
country informations in samsung phones are flashable ;)
This sounds like if you have a Samsung, Motorola, or Oppo device, you probably shouldn’t travel with it. Because, sure, they might comply with Mexico’s demands (maybe) but that’s Mexico. Not Spain, France, Canada, etc. If you travel with these devices, it sounds like you might be risking having Samsung or Motorola bricking your device for having a device out of compliance for the region.
As Louis says, this is a shit test to see what will be tolerated. Kinda like Tesla voiding a warranty for driving a car in heavy rain in Ireland.
Oh Louis, as someone living in a "third world country" I only can say that I fear for our "all digital" future...imagine if xiaomi wanted to disable all their phones around here..no one wold be able to buy anything anymore cause we almost only use our digital bank apps....
Holy cow, this is insane. How can any companies possibly be allowed to do any of things legally speaking?! We've truly walked into a dystopian future. I used to use phones from other regions (still paying local import tax!) as it was the only way I could afford a new device at the time and granted I'm not in Mexico but this is crazy. Good on the government of Mexico for actually bothering to do something.
Bad on Mexico's government for charging insanely high taxes on local phones that push people to import them in the first place.
Big companies get a lot of say in what's legal or not by financing electoral campaigns, lobbying and by the fact that the privately owned press is friendly to their interests since they're often owned by the same people. And even if the law is not on their side they often calculate that the punishments they get will be less than the profit to be made so they break the law anyway. Microsoft is particularly notorious for this, they ruin their competitors unfairly then ten years later when the trial is over and it's too late, they pay a fine while reaping the rewards of being an even bigger monopoly.
@@HamidKarzaithen it is a good thing that electoral campaigns can't receive private money in Mexico, well they technically can but it is capped to just a small percentage of the public funding for those campaigns.
The public funding of the campaigns means that the taxpayer foots the bill, true, but it also means that companies can't lobby the politicians to the same outrageous degree that they can in the USA and why politicians in Mexico are more than willy to stand up and screw companies when they get into anti consumer practices that will anger the population and demand actions to be taken against such companies, because they can afford to screw the companies without risking the funding of their parties campaigns.
To that add the money given to them by the narcos under the table and there is nothing that companies like Samsung have offer to the politicians to buy their favour.
Thank you Louis!
I'm delighted that Mexico's consumer protection agency stood up for their citizens. My fear is that other products such an new vehicles and appliances will be similarly remotely altered. With all the craziness, it will happen. The technology is in place already with cars having always-on cellular connectivity not controlled by the owner.
The last month bribes paid by Samsung were probably not high enough.
Yeah hopefullly this doesnt keep going because i buy appliances here in the us then ship them to my family in mexico.
If internet connectivity for new appliances like a refrigerator, oven/stove, dishwasher, clothes washer, clothes dryer, microwave oven, etc. or even a vehicle becomes mandatory I'm going to be fighting it somehow. Home appliances, as far as I'm concerned, have a certain function and needing to connect to the internet is not one of them; that's what certain computer devices are for. I don't want my clothes washer, for example, having the hot and cold water turned off so I can't wash clothes because using water is a subscription. Or it was turned off because we're in a drought so can't use water for anything.
@@TheKuptis They can already "turn off" your bank account, that's enough to control you for most practical purposes.
The same phone can cost more than 50% in local/official markets in Mexico. If you go directly to a Samsung store in Mexico and want to buy a Galaxy S23 Ultra, it'd cost you 1700 USD, if you go to Amazon, an international version costs $999. Its a significant difference and this is what companies want to avoid.
What are the reasons that it's so much more expensive in Mexico?
@@spaghettigod43 carriers want to a juicy piece of cake and make abusive price increases due to their biased import taxes, which isn't that much to begin with, as well as regulatory checks (aka Mexican's NOM institute). They're always like playing dirty in our market.
@@adanedsstudiowouldn't a slightly lower price mean more phones sold?
The price will push many people to find cheaper phones and skip Samsung all together. Why make the phone almost impossible for some people to buy?
@@lightkira4119The largest carrier in Mexico might be at fault in that, as they upsell the device to make more income with each sale, in turn obligating Samsung to match the higher price. Even if this is not the case, any product here in Mexico is sold at $30 MXN per each $1 USD, when it should just be $20 per each US dollar at worst.
@@GH0STST4RSCR34M Why would I be joking? There's always reasons for regional pricing. Be it shipping costs, tariffs, cartel behavior etc. I'm only asking why it is.
You’re the best. I’m so glad you’re so vocal about basic human rights
It's more fundamental than right
As a Mexican, i will lile to thank yoj for your sincerity. I wish we all as a society could collectively come together to fight this greedy CEOs, if they care so much about the world why do they hire cheap labor like kids to their phones.
Louis -- Thanks for bringing this info out. I had been anti-Apple for a while, and have a Samsung phone. But to hear this, I will now actively check the latest in what companies are doing AGAINST their customers. Every video you do to bring out this garbage is super appreciated.
Is any device safe? Feels like EVERY company is out there to punish the consumer.
Windows can be trusted, if you're smart enough to modify the system files so that some services are deactivated
@@gandalfwiz20007no, not since windows as a service
And blindly cooperating with glowies too. We need more quality open source/hardware options.
@@gandalfwiz20007no it can't lol
Windows is absolutely not safe, I don’t trust Microsoft at all.
Unfortunately your only real option for phones is to run a custom ROM at minimum, or a Linux based phone if you want complete control, but that comes with large sacrifices in usability.
I don't see all of your videos, but when I do, I always learn something, and I'm always entertained. Thanks Louis!
Don't fank hem leaf hem some tipp
Here in Sweden it's very costumary to include two sets of tyres when you buy a car, especially used, one summer and one winter set. If they didn't I'd feel scammed to pay the full price; and that's how I feel about not having a charge cable following with the new phone.
To be fair, Louis is not entirely correct in this video. Some Samsung phones do come with a charger, and IIRC, all of them come with a cable at least. My A52s did come with a charger. I know the flagships don't come with a charger, but they do come with a cable I think.
And honestly, I would prefer not to get any more chargers, because I already have a few of them and a dozen USB C cables. 2 chargers with USB C cables from VR headset and phone. 2 USB C cables from mouse and keyboard. 1 more cable from controller. 1 USB C cable I bought because I needed an extra long one. And that's not including all the chargers and cables that other family members have.
The companies have been sending these messages for months and the government was fine, if they stopped this it is thanks to all the people who spoke up and pointed out the violation of consumer rights when the block was announced.
It is suspected that this started because Telcel (the main operator in Mexico and other countries in LATAM) was seeing less profit from phone sales in the last two years, so they made this plan with their partner brands to reduce gray market sales, and probably even buying some people at the IFT (Federal Telecommunications Institute) along the way.
If they weren't stopped, they would've gone further, Colombian consumers started to receive those messages in the last week.
Thank you for covering this!
I used to sell appliances at a home improvement store and had to stop doing it because I couldn't morally tolerate myself for convincing good people to give their money to companies that do this sort of thing.
When I was a teen and worked in retail they wanted everyone to sell useless warranties and make outrageous fraudulent claims about what the warranties would cover. They would even award $1 for every warranty sold. I never sold a single one whereas everyone else was selling 20 per week and even though I kept getting shit on by the managers for not selling any warranties. $1 is just not worth the cost to myself.
💯🎯Love that you're not afraid to throw a little French and sign language around when giving your opinion. Definitely makes it more authentic!
Louise exprecing our frustration about the reality we as consumers are facing is just pure gold ❤
He has been warning about this kind of behaviour for years, if not a decade or more.
wym? @@tnetroP
I stopped buying Samsung a few years ago now when they refused to fix my TV with dead pixels, they said the dead pixels weren't in the "viewing area." I assumed, wrongly it seems, that the whole of the screen is viewing area or did I buy a 55" TV to only view 43" of it. I eventually took the supplier to court where they were ordered to repair the TV and compensate me. This process took 18 months and cost me about GB£500 up front (I got my costs back)......
Screw them! I hope their brand gets banned!
Used to own Sony Trinitron tv's in the 90's & early 2000's. Those were the big, bulky heavy TV. Got a Toshiba flat screen TV around 2010. It purposely went dead exactly 1 yr after the warranty was over. NEVER Toshiba AGAIN. Had no problem with my 2 LG TV's, but I hear LG fridges are crap.
This should genuinely scare people and alert them to what our corporate overlords, and their paid political puppets in some countries are up to. Thank you for posting this.
I am pretty shocked that Apple is not one of them. They should be the first company that comes to mind when thinking about something like this.
Apple learnt their lesson when they tried to shut down third party repair shops several years ago and PROFECO told them to pound sand and that they had to make spare parts avaible to sale for everyone to buy it or they would breaking article 27th of the Mexican constitution and thus commiting a federal crime and exposing Apple higher ups to life sentences to prison for constitutional crimes.
Yeah, Tim Cook might not travel too much to Mexico but it would be quite a bad PR for him to have an arrest warranty from the largest USA trading partner.
This is insane.
Yes, and think what happens next if they get away with this.
Thank you. My favorite thing about this video is the swearing. A spade should absolutely be called a spade when it's being predatory with customers (especially those of poor economic status) and on top of that outrageously dishonest about the reasons. It gets sickening to see all the TH-camrs who downright kiss tyrannical corporates' asses (especially Microsoft recently - they've been kissing its ass way too hard), so it's refreshing to see someone who will gladly call them pieces of shit. I enabled all notifications for this channel. Keep it up! :)
What's the character on your pf
A couple of years ago I bought a Samsung SSD on Amazon. About 6 months in it died. They refused to replace it because the serial number indicated that it was not meant to be sold in the country I live in. WhyTF does that matter? It has to break in the appropriate country before they'll honor a repair/replacement.
If you bought it on Amazon, doesn't that technically mean you bought it in US, but then had it shipped overseas? That's not the same as buying an import set in another country.
This is my new favorite channel. Louis makes so much sense!
Honestly, this might help me push my husband to switch.
This is vile. And will absolutely work against them in the long run. Thank you for spreading info!
I don't think you have to switch. I think you can install custom firmware, so Samsung can't access your phone.
@@russellmania5349 Sell that garbage Samsung and buy a pixel. Best Android when it comes to the system.
Nope don't switch
Switch to what? If you mean to apple instead they do much worse things. If it's another Android brand then you'll still mostly run into its own issues
@@jackskellington6sic6
Samsung usually will follow in Apple's footsteps. Samsung made fun of Apple for the non removable battery and removing the head phone jack and they did the exact same thing. They even got rid of their SD card slot.
There's a thin line between tyranny and remotely shutting off a citizen's phone.
No line at all even
Those things are the same side of the line, what are you talking about?
I mean, I guess, if you consider the grout lines in this BS mosaic to be a line in this context.
So companies can take advantage of cost-of-living differences among different countries by exporting labor to cheaper countries, but those same companies won't let people take advantage of COL differences by selling the finished product in other countries. At this point, I don't think I'd expect anything else
I posted about it in LTT's comments but this could get worse.
If I were to purchase a factory unlocked model, in the United States, went on vacation to Japan but decide to stay there for an extended period of time; would they disable my device?
•Bought in the USA
•Physical SIM activated in USA
•Travel to Japan and activate a "Tourist eSIM"
•Stay permanently in Japan.
If the device wasn't bought in Japan, does that essentially get rid of the market for "Tourist SIMs" and basically force the tourists to also have to rent the phone, on top of the SIM and service plan?
How long does a "foreign" device have to be connected to a country's cellular network before it gets bricked?
I actually run a phone shop in Germany and sell imported phones from the US, Korea, China and Japan. Customers love them, because they are cheaper and usually better equipped (i.e. special colors, differnt chipset and usually more storage).
A problem that I always deal with is software and bootloader locks.
For example, not allowing to change a Korea ROM to a global ROM even though the bands and hardware are the same.
Honestly, I am moving away from Samsung and Huawei.
Xiaomi and co. are better brands and offer better handsets anyways.
Seriously, despite the week-long wait to unlock a Xiaomi device, after that process they are off your back. You can switch regions, downgrade firmware, even change the partition layout. The bootloader just doesn't care. Your warranty is still valid, no unnecessary warnings or boot delays, and some devices even fully revert when relocked (no e-fuses blown, SafetyNet passing)
@@3lH4ck3rC0mf0r7 now I want Xiaomi...
As a mexican I want to say that not only from AliExpress, but from other 3rd party sellers too, for example, we have something like Amazon called Mercado Libre, that's basically selling phones, that may be from US but unlocked, at lower prices than the oficial stores, sometimes even 150-200USD price difference. So yeah, basically they tried to F'D us really hard. That added that phones are sometimes expensive over here because of taxes/customs that the companies have to "pay" to bring those products to us. As a mexican I feel that these was just an *ssh*le move from all these companies. But I just hope that they don't try to do something sh*tti*r that this. Also, we need Google to start shippung Pixels to Mexico asap. Btw, I'm a great fan from you, and of all you're doing for the repair community. Thanks Louis!!!
Holy f--k this is dirty. This s--t should be outright criminal.
Sir I've been fuckin saying shit for a while now you're fine
TH-cam is putting nails in their own coffin and don't even realize it.
yes and no google slash alphabet slash youtube how are going have for library and odyssey for being competitors of youtube governments and the world government of the united nations and world economic forum controls google slash alphabet they will use every means possible to stop people want to be free and own their own data that is why we need to stop for line on the central was servers central our servers on the tor network
I feel like the EU would have a field day with this company overreach
I didn't know Mexico was part of the EU..
@@SanderEvers Australia either, yet it participates in Eurovision Song Contest in last couple years ;]