Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Cars are about to be a software platform, subscriptions and all

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 220 posts

Re: Cars are about to be a software platform, subscriptions and all

#151

Post by Broken_Hippo »

kqr wrote: post #140
excuses_ wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing that constantly improves and is really worth considering is safety. I am not even saying about active safety features but the passive ones. They are also in constant development.

But these are sometimes making it safer for the occupants at the expense of the rest of the environment (think smaller windows and fatter A pillars making children harder to see, or strengthened soundproofing making children harder to hear.)

But are children harder to see than from older cars? It isn't like the windows were huge nor the beams small.

Are children really harder to hear? Old cars were louder. How much sound did they cover up just with noise? How much more could you hear in an old car compared to a modern electric car?

Re: Cars are about to be a software platform, subscriptions and all

#152

Post by kovac »

Hammershaft wrote: post #45
obviouslynotme wrote: post #2

I don't want my car to be a software platform. I want it to be like my microwave. It might have software, but software is only incidental to its operation. I do not want to tweet from my microwave. I do not want ads in traffic. This is non-negotiable for safety reasons alone. I don't care what I have to do to attain that. If that means replacing the radio. I will do it. If you brick my car if I don't have a Manufactu…

Its interesting that we have created a world where the people who build software are often the most skeptical of and aviodant of the software industry.

I was thinking the same too. Even for myself, I just own a laptop and a smart phone. If I could get rid of the phone I would.

No smart watches, home automation devices, wearable fitness devices, none. I've used some of them at one point or another and in hindsight, while they did bring some benefit (mostly convenience), I found their privacy, financial, environmental costs to be just too high to justify the marginal benefits.

Give me a minimal Linux machine and the vibrant Linux community where we fix each others' issues and I'm a happy engineer and a human being :)

Re: Cars are about to be a software platform, subscriptions and all

#153

Post by michaelmrose »

radioooooo wrote: post #37
obviouslynotme wrote: post #2

I don't want my car to be a software platform. I want it to be like my microwave. It might have software, but software is only incidental to its operation. I do not want to tweet from my microwave. I do not want ads in traffic. This is non-negotiable for safety reasons alone. I don't care what I have to do to attain that. If that means replacing the radio. I will do it. If you brick my car if I don't have a Manufactu…

> I do not want ads in traffic. This is non-negotiable for safety reasons alone. LMAO! OK, who's gonna tell him about the ads on the radio?

There are options that don't have ads including satellite radio, and communication via stereo cable or Bluetooth with your phone which can play music via local storage or streamed.

Re: Cars are about to be a software platform, subscriptions and all

#154

Post by michaelmrose »

toast0 wrote: post #105
coldtea wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LMAO fail. Radio is optional as you can switch it off at any time, change the volume, is not imposed by the manufacturer, and you had the option to listen to your own cassetes and later CDs and digital for 50+ years.

You must not have exprienced modern vehicles. My 2013 Chysler Pacifica's factory headunit occasionally stops kicking the watchdog timer and gets rebooted. When that happens, the radio is still playing and can't be switched off or volume adjusted until the thing is done booting. So no, you can't switch it off at any time.

This would be an example of where more complicated isn't better. Our car is from 2004 but neither it nor any car I've ever owned has ever had this problem.

Re: Cars are about to be a software platform, subscriptions and all

#155

Post by jakeva »

jacquesm wrote: post #150
obviouslynotme wrote: post #2

I don't want my car to be a software platform. I want it to be like my microwave. It might have software, but software is only incidental to its operation. I do not want to tweet from my microwave. I do not want ads in traffic. This is non-negotiable for safety reasons alone. I don't care what I have to do to attain that. If that means replacing the radio. I will do it. If you brick my car if I don't have a Manufactu…

Your microwave will end up as a subscription platform. Services grafted on to various appliances and consumer articles are going to be the norm unless we push back. Hard.

My microwave will not end up as a subscription platform. Maybe if I have to buy a microwave some day, but I don't know why I would have to do that. My microwave works fine.

Re: Cars are about to be a software platform, subscriptions and all

#157

Post by apatheticonion »

xuki wrote: post #119
apatheticonion wrote: post #112

Living in a city and having street-parked "rent-a-car" vehicles for infrequent trips while using trains to get to work is an incredible lifestyle. I went camping recently, so I rented a 4x4 for a few days. I needed to pick up family from the airport, I'll just rent a car for a few hours. Want to go for a hike up north, rent a car for a day. All I have to do is Lime-style, book one on the app, tap my car on the windsh…

For this to work you need a pretty good public transportation system. In the US for example, I don't know of any city other than NYC that have that kind of infrastructure.

I've heard the US has poor public infrastructure but haven't seen it so I can't comment. I live in Sydney, Australia and it's quite capable.

Re: Cars are about to be a software platform, subscriptions and all

#158

Post by mk89 »

Imagine the fun when you give gas and the display shows that your subscription can only reach 100km/h, if you want to go faster, please subscribe to the PRO subscription :)

This is/was inevitable. I really think that we will be able to buy a car whose basic features can be locked/unlocked on subscription, and I am not talking about fancy features, but basic ones like speed, types of brakes, etc. It might not be a bad idea to reduce the price of a car considering you produce only one type and customize it at "runtime". And BTW, it's somehow already the case. I bought a Ford with 100 HP and the seller told me that with "some external help" I can get up to 125HP because the engine is the same as the one for the 125HP model. I was like "what the hell?". Of course the downside is that if you get into a bad accident and the insurance finds out, you're on your own. But that's another story.

A pay as you go model would also be fun. The more you press the pedals the more you pay:)

Re: Cars are about to be a software platform, subscriptions and all

#159

Post by mk89 »

Hammershaft wrote: post #45
obviouslynotme wrote: post #2

I don't want my car to be a software platform. I want it to be like my microwave. It might have software, but software is only incidental to its operation. I do not want to tweet from my microwave. I do not want ads in traffic. This is non-negotiable for safety reasons alone. I don't care what I have to do to attain that. If that means replacing the radio. I will do it. If you brick my car if I don't have a Manufactu…

Its interesting that we have created a world where the people who build software are often the most skeptical of and aviodant of the software industry.

Because we know how something can be abused until there is another way to abuse it. It's an endless way to abuse it, where a PM with an even more cynical goal will introduce an even more disgusting way to monetize a product. Finally, it's to save money on production costs and make even more money. All this thanks to software scalability, pluggability, etc etc. All you need is finally the idea, and if you have a crazy idea backed up by a graph that shows you can make 20% of profit more, that's it, done.

Eventually people get used to it. That's the main selling point, always. We are commoditizing literally everything, it's happening under our nose and we just let it happen. Until finally alternatives come and we need to pay double to have something we used to have 20 years ago (conceptually speaking, not technically) for a normal/cheaper price.

Can we boycot this? Yes, by buying products whose pricing model is old and outdated. And that's typically not the shiny one...

Re: Cars are about to be a software platform, subscriptions and all

#160

Post by jacquesm »

jakeva wrote: post #155
jacquesm wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your microwave will end up as a subscription platform. Services grafted on to various appliances and consumer articles are going to be the norm unless we push back. Hard.

My microwave will not end up as a subscription platform. Maybe if I have to buy a microwave some day, but I don't know why I would have to do that. My microwave works fine.

Microwaves don't live forever (especially newer ones). At some point the choices will be:

[ ] a connected microwave

and

[ ] no microwave

Just like almost all newer cars now have some kind of wlan connection to the factory built in.

Post reply on HN