New Jersey legislators aim to ban most in-car subscriptions • Hacker News Board

Re: New Jersey legislators aim to ban most in-car subscriptions

#131

Post by mint2 » Fri, Oct 21, 2022, 1:37 AM UTC

kriops wrote: post #130

celestialcheese wrote: post #80

This is a great step. Subscriptions errode first sale protections by subscription-gating physical objects, allowing OEMs a work-around to first-sale doctrine. If you buy something, you should own it, and be able to fix it, scrap it, re-sell it, whatever you want. It's interesting NJ included self-driving in the subscription ban. These require significant overhead in compute, engineering resources and greatly impact s…

> If you buy something, you should own it, and be able to fix it, scrap it, re-sell it, whatever you want. Why? If I have a car, and I enter into an agreement with you about the sale of the car, then the terms of the agreement are completely arbitrary, for the two of us to decide, and something both parties must consent to. If you don't want a car with optional subscriptions, don't buy a car with optional subscriptio…

As if individual consumers have any ability to negotiate contracts. This is a main case for what government regulations are for. When the individual consumer doesn’t have ability to negotiate and companies are abusing something, then the individuals can only go to the their elected representatives to get it remedied. If the company doesn’t like the rules they can let some other company step in.

Re: New Jersey legislators aim to ban most in-car subscriptions

#132

Post by raverbashing » Fri, Oct 21, 2022, 1:48 AM UTC

nordsieck wrote: post #48

raverbashing wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> prevents you from paying for it via a monthly subscription And why in tarnation would I pay monthly for something that has a fixed cost to the manufacturer?

> And why in tarnation would I pay monthly for something that has a fixed cost to the manufacturer? There is a broad equivalence between capex and opex. I find subscriptions distasteful, but I can still acknowledge that, depending on the price, they may be reasonable compared to ownership.

This makes sense when the cost of the product is much higher than what you're able to afford. Like leasing a car

But paying a monthly fee for heated seats is just ridiculous.

Re: New Jersey legislators aim to ban most in-car subscriptions

#133

Post by paxys » Fri, Oct 21, 2022, 2:00 AM UTC

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #122

paxys wrote: post #103

People sure seem to love government overreach when they think it works in their favor. The economics behind one-time vs subscription pricing is very far removed from the responsibility of a New Jersey bureaucrat. Let Ford and BMW and Tesla figure it out for themselves. If people really do hate it as much as the article and the lawmakers seem to suggest, they will simply not buy it.

> If people really do hate it as much as the article and the lawmakers seem to suggest, they will simply not buy it. Just like the people that hated that Apple was removing the headphone jack, they'll just not buy it. Oh wait, they still did. And now Androids are losing the headphone jack, too. The viewpoint of just letting the market decide is naive and assumes consumers are rational, behave in their own best intere…

Apple did research and made a business decision that worked out in their favor. Are you saying that the government should have passed a law saying that iPhones must include the headphone jack?

Re: New Jersey legislators aim to ban most in-car subscriptions

#134

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd » Fri, Oct 21, 2022, 2:08 AM UTC

celestialcheese wrote: post #80

This is a great step. Subscriptions errode first sale protections by subscription-gating physical objects, allowing OEMs a work-around to first-sale doctrine. If you buy something, you should own it, and be able to fix it, scrap it, re-sell it, whatever you want. It's interesting NJ included self-driving in the subscription ban. These require significant overhead in compute, engineering resources and greatly impact s…

Super Cruise, which is arguably better than what Tesla has, costs $25/mo.

Tesla’s $200 monthly price is probably there to make the $15k upfront price look like a better value, for people who don’t compare to the competition. Tesla seems to have a lot of pricing power because people really want a Tesla in particular.

Re: New Jersey legislators aim to ban most in-car subscriptions

#135

Post by kyleee » Fri, Oct 21, 2022, 2:12 AM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #118

fintechjock wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the other hand, I think it's fair to offer autopilot/"full self driving" on a subscription, or at least the upgrades as a subscription. Agree with your overall point. However, this probably isn’t feasible considering most companies will follow Tesla’s FSD upgrade model. Autopilot / FSD upgrades are often more safety than feature related. Allowing people to opt out of upgrades but keep their older FSD just means…

Allowing people to opt out of upgrades but keep their older FSD just means a bunch of vehicles on the road with depreciated safety features. ...which is perfectly fine and has been the status quo since the beginning of the automotive era --- vehicles only need to meet the safety requirements when they were manufactured.

Not perfectly fine in the context of “move fast and break things” software dev cycle used for safety critical things like auto pilot. Out of date auto pilot versions are going to have vulnerabilities and bugs (known and unknown) that will likely cause death, destruction, etc. on public roads

Re: New Jersey legislators aim to ban most in-car subscriptions

#136

Post by prvit » Fri, Oct 21, 2022, 2:16 AM UTC

dahdum wrote: post #97

leetcrew wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The heated seats example is a great one. There is no reason for this not be a one-time charge. if you're referring to BMW, the heated seats are still available as a one time charge. they're just also available as a subscription if you didn't option then upfront. heated seats seem like a weird fit for the subscription model, but as long as the upfront purchase option is reasonably priced, I don't really see the issu…

The issue is you already paid for the heating element in the seats when you bought the car, and you are driving it around as dead weight (however small). You own the heater outright, they are gatekeeping your ability to use it.

That's been happening for ... decades? It's not unusual that the "heated seats" option just gets you a button, the heating elements are often installed regardless.

Re: New Jersey legislators aim to ban most in-car subscriptions

#137

Post by teruakohatu » Fri, Oct 21, 2022, 2:28 AM UTC

alistairSH wrote: post #111

celestialcheese wrote: post #80

This is a great step. Subscriptions errode first sale protections by subscription-gating physical objects, allowing OEMs a work-around to first-sale doctrine. If you buy something, you should own it, and be able to fix it, scrap it, re-sell it, whatever you want. It's interesting NJ included self-driving in the subscription ban. These require significant overhead in compute, engineering resources and greatly impact s…

Assistance systems like Honda, Subaru, Toyota and others offer have no ongoing costs. The systems are static - the only updates would be TSBs or recalls. An actual self-drove system should eventually get to that point. We only see frequent software updates today because the systems are barely more then public betas.

> The systems are static ... We only see frequent software updates today because the systems are barely more then public betas.

No absolutely not. FSD models are going to need continuous updates. All real-world models exhibit "model drift". Over time most models perform less well. Real world models are monitored and retrained when needed.

Example would be when a city, state or country changes a road sign or introduces a new road sign, so a strange looking vehicle like a CyberTruck starts making an appearance on the road.

Re: New Jersey legislators aim to ban most in-car subscriptions

#138

Post by _carbyau_ » Fri, Oct 21, 2022, 3:06 AM UTC

paxys wrote: post #98

dahdum wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is you already paid for the heating element in the seats when you bought the car, and you are driving it around as dead weight (however small). You own the heater outright, they are gatekeeping your ability to use it.

That has nothing to do with subscriptions. The manufacturer could still sell you the car with the heater disabled, make you drive around with the dead weight, and charge you a one-time fee to unlock it. That would be perfectly acceptable under this law.

Under this law that's fine sure. But how far do they go with this plan? Do they cost up each part of the car and allow you to use only that bit. And when you have bought enough of a car it can then serve as your transport?

The desired rule is hard to pin down though isn't it? But subscriptions, DLC, DRM etc all grate on consumers as not quite right somehow.

Re: New Jersey legislators aim to ban most in-car subscriptions

#139

Post by supernova87a » Fri, Oct 21, 2022, 3:12 AM UTC

yupper32 wrote: post #106

supernova87a wrote: post #104

So what's the fundamental principle here, and why does it only apply to car companies? Just because you can make a law that way, it follows a principle you respect? I'm not concluding my opinion on either side of this right now. I just am lately skeptical of the number of laws and movements we have that are justified "because I agree with this particular outcome" but aren't sustainable principles to run a society off…

Cars are often one of the most, if not the most, expensive purchases people will make in their lives. It's not unreasonable to me to have extra protections for those purchases.

Not charging extra for heated seats is an important basic customer protection?

Re: New Jersey legislators aim to ban most in-car subscriptions

#140

Post by frumper » Fri, Oct 21, 2022, 4:28 AM UTC

fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #134

celestialcheese wrote: post #80

This is a great step. Subscriptions errode first sale protections by subscription-gating physical objects, allowing OEMs a work-around to first-sale doctrine. If you buy something, you should own it, and be able to fix it, scrap it, re-sell it, whatever you want. It's interesting NJ included self-driving in the subscription ban. These require significant overhead in compute, engineering resources and greatly impact s…

Super Cruise, which is arguably better than what Tesla has, costs $25/mo. Tesla’s $200 monthly price is probably there to make the $15k upfront price look like a better value, for people who don’t compare to the competition. Tesla seems to have a lot of pricing power because people really want a Tesla in particular.

Super cruise requires a very high end trim to even purchase the super cruise package. You can get FSD on the lowest model 3 specs. FSD is ridiculously priced though, it’s just not a reasonable comparison on the monthly fee.