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Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

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Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#141

Post by dkonofalski »

ceejayoz wrote: post #115
joenathanone wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other than purposely slowing down your devices with updates to try and coerce you into buying the new model year? https://www.npr.org/2020/11/18/936268845/apple-agrees-to-pay...

The alternative in cold, old batteries was an unexpected shutoff of the device. https://9to5mac.com/2017/12/20/apple-statement-iphone-perfor... > Lithium-ion batteries become less capable of supplying peak current demands when in cold conditions, have a low battery charge or as they age over time, which can result in the device unexpectedly shutting down to protect its electronic components. They fucked up not notify…

They did notify people. It was just in the patch notes that most people don't read.

Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#142

Post by dlsa »

wedowhatwedo wrote: post #51
xyst wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the Apple Car actually materializes, I fear this will become the new standard. All cars come with all bells and whistles, but you have to pay monthly fees in order for them to function. - Want heated seats? $1/month - Want remote lock/unlock? $2/month - Want to remove rate limiting? $5/month - Want GPS in your car? $10/month - Want to use your "frunk"? $10/month - Want Apple CarPlay? $15/month - Want to activate h…

I don't understand why non-apple customers feel that apple is this way. I have a Mac and an iphone and haven't paid Apple a penny since the purchase of the devices.

It could be argued that the icloud etc costs were included as part of the purchase price. In which case the cost was estimated over the useful life of the product and then factored into the up-front price. That or the icloud service cost is covered another way as a form of marketing. Customer retention etc.

Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#143

Post by wlesieutre »

wedowhatwedo wrote: post #51
xyst wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the Apple Car actually materializes, I fear this will become the new standard. All cars come with all bells and whistles, but you have to pay monthly fees in order for them to function. - Want heated seats? $1/month - Want remote lock/unlock? $2/month - Want to remove rate limiting? $5/month - Want GPS in your car? $10/month - Want to use your "frunk"? $10/month - Want Apple CarPlay? $15/month - Want to activate h…

I don't understand why non-apple customers feel that apple is this way. I have a Mac and an iphone and haven't paid Apple a penny since the purchase of the devices.

iCloud's free storage tier still being stuck at 5 GB as the base phone storage has grown to 128 GB is the main thing I'd criticize. You realistically can't use iCloud for photo storage or backups with that plan. I bet most people can blow through that just with Messages history if they have anyone sending them videos.

I think the upgrade prices are reasonable, $1/month for 50GB and $3/month for 200GB, but I can see characterizing that as nickel and diming. They should have bumped up the 5 GB base plan years ago.

Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#145

Post by doctor_eval »

zeroflow wrote: post #43
pradn wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right to point out that these problems arise across entire industries. You can't vote with your money if all otherwise good TVs have crap built into them. And it's not easy for a new entrant to gain a foothold in such a high-tech market. And even if they do, there's plenty of temptation to go down the same route of milking customers who already bought your product. Sooner or later, we won't even remember how i…

The topic with the TVs is going to be a problem for me in a few years. My current TV is from 2013 - it may have some years to go, but at some point, it will fail. I've had a short look at the market, and all the "good" brands (Samsung, LG, Sony) show horrific ads. It looks like the cheap brands simply sell your data. Then there are some local brands, which sell non-TV TV's (no tuner, there's a tax on that). They don'…

Dell sells a 55” conference room monitor at a decent price. That - or something like it - will be my next “TV”

Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#146

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

caymanjim wrote: post #26
Karsteski wrote: post #2

Sigh... While I look forward to having an electric car someday, the trend in new cars does not look promising. Far too many instances of car companies having too much control, because of the advent of internet-connected vehicles. Is there a solution to this? I don't know. Especially because I can see legislation cementing these sorts of practices in very much convoluted ways. One can only hope competing car brands em…

I'd like to get a Tesla, but I won't, because you can't own a Tesla. You can only pay licensing fees to be the user, and Tesla can modify or disable the car at their whim, while also tracking and recording your every motion. We need lawmakers who actually care about privacy and ownership rights.

When I worked in mortgages in a previous career, we had a presenter talk to us about Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI). Back in the day, banks by default would just tack it on as an extra insurance for them in case you were to default. You're basically paying insurance against yourself to cover the banks losses. Once it was added, it was basically permanent for the life of the loan.

Then one day, a senator I think from Utah was asking about his his costs after signing. The bank explained to him that it was PMI and he couldn't remove it.

Thanks to that situation, PMI cannot be enforced if the loan to value ratio is below a specified threshold and the banks cannot force it on you if you meet that threshold prior to closing or after you reach it.

In a nutshell, this is what needs to happen before a lawmaker bothers.

Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#147

Post by quitit »

zeroflow wrote: post #6

That is just bullshit. A $8/mo charge for a app based remote start? I could live with that. Servers need power, the app needs updates etc. A $8/mo charge for something which does not incur costs for Toyota? Hell no. It seems like bit by bit - every single industry is going down a fucked up route. TVs with built in ads? Cars with pay-by-month features? DRM locked coffee machines? I really hope, there is some sort of e…

Subscription pricing for things which aren’t subscriptions is bullshit.

Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#148

Post by brewdad »

black_puppydog wrote: post #28
klipklop wrote: post #9

The solution is to vote with your wallet. These days consumers are pretty weak willed though and are willing to put up with almost any level of abuse for their shiny new toy. Look at what consumers are willing to (overpay) for during the pandemic as an example of that. $500 NVIDIA graphics cards going for $2000... Eventually people fed up with it will "jailbreak" their cars like the farmers did with John Deere tracto…

Actually it isn't. There are tons of examples of whole industries just switching to user-/customer-hostile practices/products, meaning there's simply no more way to vote with your wallet. Happened like that with even trivial things like the milk market in Germany. Within a year or two, fresh milk had suddenly all but vanished from the shelves. Once pay-for-fob becomes the norm, good luck trying to enter that market w…

My local news used to offer an ad-free experience for about $10/mo. I happily paid it. One day they updated their site and starting nagging me to turn off my ad blocker. Wouldn't let me read anything. I canceled that day and told them why.

Now they get $0 a month from me. They keep begging me back with $5/mo offers. Nope. That bridge has been burned.

Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#149

Post by marcosdumay »

p0wn wrote: post #22
zeroflow wrote: post #6

That is just bullshit. A $8/mo charge for a app based remote start? I could live with that. Servers need power, the app needs updates etc. A $8/mo charge for something which does not incur costs for Toyota? Hell no. It seems like bit by bit - every single industry is going down a fucked up route. TVs with built in ads? Cars with pay-by-month features? DRM locked coffee machines? I really hope, there is some sort of e…

[flagged]

> It's capitalism.

Good thing they renamed "fraud". The old name got a bit of a bad reputation.

Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#150

Post by ceejayoz »

dkonofalski wrote: post #141
ceejayoz wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative in cold, old batteries was an unexpected shutoff of the device. https://9to5mac.com/2017/12/20/apple-statement-iphone-perfor... > Lithium-ion batteries become less capable of supplying peak current demands when in cold conditions, have a low battery charge or as they age over time, which can result in the device unexpectedly shutting down to protect its electronic components. They fucked up not notify…

They did notify people. It was just in the patch notes that most people don't read.

That's not "when it's happening"; I think the new approach they've taken of a dialog popping up is far more transparent and user-friendly. I've gotten used to patch notes saying stuff like "Every week we fix bugs and add improvements!"
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