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Auto giants like BMW, GM and Toyota make drivers ‘subscribe’ for basic features

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Re: Auto giants like BMW, GM and Toyota make drivers ‘subscribe’ for basic features

#91

Post by KennyBlanken »

chris72205 wrote: post #26

All of these aren't quite the same though. Charging to use hardware that is already present in a vehicle and contained to that vehicle (heated seats) is not the same as charging to use an app that requires a network of hardware behind the scenes to start a vehicle remotely. The latter has continuing costs and it's foolish to believe that would be free forever. Should you be _forced_ to pay this? No. But that's a diff…

Any vehicle that was available with "telematics" already collects and transmits a huge amount of information, regardless of whether you have a telematics subscription, including location, speed, interior and exterior temperature, whether the wipers are in use, engine parameters, accessory settings, you name it.

Whether you're paying for any services or not your vehicle is generating a substantial amount of data, so the notion that remote start needs to 'earn its keep' is nonsense.

Re: Auto giants like BMW, GM and Toyota make drivers ‘subscribe’ for basic features

#92

Post by lotsofpulp »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #39
josephcsible wrote: post #2

> BMW currently requires car owners in some countries to pay roughly $12 per month to access a safety feature called “High Beam Assistant,” which automatically turns off a car’s high beam lights when it senses another car to avoid blinding other drivers at night. > “Safety should come standard,” Wallace said of adaptive headlights. “Some automakers might think that those are simply a convenience feature, but there’s…

I don't think it is a safety feature, it is a convenience feature. Any driver can still turn down the brights and any reasonable one will.

It is a safety feature for the people in other cars being subjected to high beams.

As an aside, one option I like to use to get people behind me to turn down their high beams is to orient the side view mirror so the high beam goes back to them.

Re: Auto giants like BMW, GM and Toyota make drivers ‘subscribe’ for basic features

#93

Post by omniglottal »

chrisseaton wrote: post #62
neogodless wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As long as you know the deal up front I suspect this is... not always the case. > I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further There isn't much from stopping the manufacturers from changing the "up front" deal under this model. (Unless it becomes egregious enough to become illegal.) We'd like to get out in front of this and stop it from getting to that point.

So is all the anger in this thread based on a hypothetical that they might break their contract? If it's an ongoing payment they're actually incentivised to not do that!

No, the contract is already broken when what is purchased is not owned.

Re: Auto giants like BMW, GM and Toyota make drivers ‘subscribe’ for basic features

#94

Post by hugh-avherald »

octoberfranklin wrote: post #28
toomuchtodo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government regulation is still required. Relying on corporate goodwill is a fool’s errand, historically speaking.

Yes but who regulates the regulators? Google "regulatory capture". Democracies have a poor track record of controlling regulators who make subjective decisions. There is a solution though: regulate size . It's objectively measurable. The Mazda example that GP gives is legit, but it's on the knife's edge of disappearing -- one more wave of consolidation and it will be gone. But of course regulating bigness is a very p…

Regulatory capture is the bathwater to the baby of regulation.

Re: Auto giants like BMW, GM and Toyota make drivers ‘subscribe’ for basic features

#95

Post by kgermino »

vasco wrote: post #65
charles_f wrote: post #32

I can somewhat understand the logic of charging me a recurring fee for a service that costs the provider a recurring cost, gets regular improvements, and where data is maintained. TV/sat radio? Ok (not that I would buy that). Remote tracking / start? Why not. Internet access in the car? Sure. Satellite maps with updates? Maybe. I would hope that given how much you charge me for the product, these come included, but M…

This is less to do with blackmail than to do with optimising manufacturing. It is cheaper for manufacurers to produce all the cars with the same heated seats, but not allow you to use them if you don't pay the recurring charge (as long as enough % of customers opt-in), than to manufacture two versions of the car, one with the seats and one without, just so that you can feel like you aren't being blackmailed. You shou…

> This is less to do with blackmail than to do with optimising manufacturing. It is cheaper for manufacurers to produce all the cars with the same heated seats, but not allow you to use them if you don't pay the recurring charge (as long as enough % of customers opt-in), than to manufacture two versions of the car, one with the seats and one without, just so that you can feel like you aren't being blackmailed.

But there's no connection between adding it to every car and charging a subscription to use it. You could just as easily add the heater to every car and only allow people to use them if they pay a one-time charge, similar to the model today where you pay a one time fee to add the option at build-time.

Re: Auto giants like BMW, GM and Toyota make drivers ‘subscribe’ for basic features

#96

Post by the_other »

vasco wrote: post #65
charles_f wrote: post #32

I can somewhat understand the logic of charging me a recurring fee for a service that costs the provider a recurring cost, gets regular improvements, and where data is maintained. TV/sat radio? Ok (not that I would buy that). Remote tracking / start? Why not. Internet access in the car? Sure. Satellite maps with updates? Maybe. I would hope that given how much you charge me for the product, these come included, but M…

This is less to do with blackmail than to do with optimising manufacturing. It is cheaper for manufacurers to produce all the cars with the same heated seats, but not allow you to use them if you don't pay the recurring charge (as long as enough % of customers opt-in), than to manufacture two versions of the car, one with the seats and one without, just so that you can feel like you aren't being blackmailed. You shou…

This is dumb and a sign that the system we have created to operate in is broken. Another sign. Programmers talk about code smells. This is a code smell about our resource extraction and sharing, and money systems.

It's like how it's "cheaper" to farm some foods and ship them half way around the world via plain and ship, than it is to farm the same food and ship it 100km across land. The "cost" doesn't reflect _in any way_ the resource/energy usage, or pollution emission of the system: only the human "cost", which is biased and lobbied strongly towards maintaining existing power centres.

Our systems stink.

Re: Auto giants like BMW, GM and Toyota make drivers ‘subscribe’ for basic features

#97

Post by cerol »

vasco wrote: post #65
charles_f wrote: post #32

I can somewhat understand the logic of charging me a recurring fee for a service that costs the provider a recurring cost, gets regular improvements, and where data is maintained. TV/sat radio? Ok (not that I would buy that). Remote tracking / start? Why not. Internet access in the car? Sure. Satellite maps with updates? Maybe. I would hope that given how much you charge me for the product, these come included, but M…

This is less to do with blackmail than to do with optimising manufacturing. It is cheaper for manufacurers to produce all the cars with the same heated seats, but not allow you to use them if you don't pay the recurring charge (as long as enough % of customers opt-in), than to manufacture two versions of the car, one with the seats and one without, just so that you can feel like you aren't being blackmailed. You shou…

It's interesting how plausible conclusions are always so boring. No wonder consensus usually converges to cynical/doomsday conclusions. It's where the emotions are.

Re: Auto giants like BMW, GM and Toyota make drivers ‘subscribe’ for basic features

#98

Post by doodlesdev »

tunap wrote: post #52
arielweisberg wrote: post #12

As long as competition remains real I think there will always be a manufacturer or model that gives you close to what you want. Mazda for example has stuck with physical controls and hasn't been making any noises about pushing a bunch of things behind a subscription. There is a subscription for remote start and some useless notifications, but at the moment it's nothing to worry about. I don't think they can afford to…

>As long as competition remains real I think there will always be a manufacturer or model that gives you close to what you want. Like a 3.5mm heaphone jack, expandable storage, replaceable batteries & a physical keyboard on my smart(sic) phone?

Yes. https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_int/nokia-8110-4g

Serious and not serious at the same time. My point is that demand is what drives change in a free market, people chose phones without a headphone jack, expandable storage and replaceable batteries so companies chose to sell what consumers wanted, if the demand for these things were so large then more companies would be producing devices with those. Also remember sometimes what people say is not really what they believe or how they act. I know being a techie it's kind of hard to have perspective on it, but as far as I see most people don't give a flying ** about these things, even though I do heavily agree that they should :)

Re: Auto giants like BMW, GM and Toyota make drivers ‘subscribe’ for basic features

#99

Post by pbuzbee »

vasco wrote: post #65
charles_f wrote: post #32

I can somewhat understand the logic of charging me a recurring fee for a service that costs the provider a recurring cost, gets regular improvements, and where data is maintained. TV/sat radio? Ok (not that I would buy that). Remote tracking / start? Why not. Internet access in the car? Sure. Satellite maps with updates? Maybe. I would hope that given how much you charge me for the product, these come included, but M…

This is less to do with blackmail than to do with optimising manufacturing. It is cheaper for manufacurers to produce all the cars with the same heated seats, but not allow you to use them if you don't pay the recurring charge (as long as enough % of customers opt-in), than to manufacture two versions of the car, one with the seats and one without, just so that you can feel like you aren't being blackmailed. You shou…

Okay, then why gate it behind a recurring fee instead of a one-time unlock cost?

Re: Auto giants like BMW, GM and Toyota make drivers ‘subscribe’ for basic features

#100

Post by [deleted] »

omniglottal wrote: post #93
chrisseaton wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So is all the anger in this thread based on a hypothetical that they might break their contract? If it's an ongoing payment they're actually incentivised to not do that!

No, the contract is already broken when what is purchased is not owned.

[deleted]
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