I own both Mercedes and Skoda (owned by VW) and I feel like both companies are headed in an extremely bad direction. The other day I saw that now Mercedes wants to charge me 200-300 USD/year for navigation and the ability to remotely lock your door. The fact is they let you pay $100k for a car and then they behave like Facebook and other consumer platforms where you pay with your data and can buy add-ons. You can't c…
I think what will happen with that is "performance shops" will start jailbreaking cars. You can already unlock additional power in your ECU by going stage I, II or III with custom and reputable ECU modders and the car feels completely different. It's a matter of time before ECU devs add going around subscription limitations, I think.
I can see a future where auto manufacturers lobby to make “unlocking” features highly illegal due to the DMCA or some other.