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

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

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 744 posts

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

#151

Post by dijit »

NotPractical wrote: post #113
Y_Y wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can do better than a link to a Reddit thread with a screenshot of some text. I found this on GameFAQs slightly modified from the original and posted the day after, on 2013-06-16. -2018 -wake up feeling sick after a late night of playing vidya -excited to play some halo 2k19 -"xbox on" -... -"XBOX ON" -"Please verify that you are "annon332" by saying "Doritos™ Dew™ it right!" -"Doritos™ Dew™ it right" -"ERROR! Plea…

Does this content really have a place on here?

Honestly. This is quite pointed satire at the current state of things.

If you showed someone from the 70s how things are today, they would view these two things as not as dissimilar as we do.

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

#152

Post by Fezzik »

winternett wrote: post #103
lkozma wrote: post #8

was posted here sometime ago: The door refused to open. It said, "Five cents, please." He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. "I'll pay you tomorrow," he told the door. Again he tried the knob. Again it remained locked tight. "What I pay you," he informed it, "is in the nature of a gratuity; I don't have to pay you." "I think otherwise," the door said. "Look in the purchase contract you signed when you boug…

Many other car makers do this too. My Volvo has a remote start feature installed (that I paid for in buying the car) that is not accessible without enrollment in a (pretty much useless otherwise) monthly subscription service. It's flat out criminal considering that I could have just bought the device with a remote at Auto Zone for 1/4 of the price (that also doesn't allow the auto maker to track/log each time I use i…

Subaru has the same thing on their new cars - subscribe annually to Starlink or no remote start for you! I live in a winter wonderland where remote start would be a dream but no way I am paying a cent for this feature. I’ll have to look in to the after market options.

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

#153

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#154

Post by biztos »

ceejayoz wrote: post #49
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…

What monthly fees of this nature are required to use other Apple products? OS updates are free. The basic version of iCloud is free. "Find My iPhone" is free. Apple Maps is free. The App Store is free. Hell, CarPlay is free on the Apple end of things; it's some car manufacturers who've been charging for it. "Public will buy into it because the cost of the car is significantly less than their competition." Are we talk…

Is Apple Maps really free, or do they monetize your attention and collect fees from the (suspiciously few, outside major US metros) businesses?

Serious question, I don’t know, I only use Apple Maps for satellite since it doesn’t do transit where I live. But the quality level definitely feels like an “eat what you kill” product without much food, as opposed to a loss leader for the Apple brand.

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

#156

Post by donmcronald »

selfhoster11 wrote: post #61
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…

> Sooner or later, we won't even remember how it was before. Who even remembers the internet before advertising morphed it into something completely different? How long was that period? 5 years? That's what worries me. After a long stint of playing entirely only smartphone games, going back to play some older titles on PC was... really weird. None of the usual pay to play friction or engagement traps that are so ubiq…

Most kids don't even know what it's like to play a game that's not riddled with ads and designed around microtransactions.

There are a lot of things that require a generation (of people) to change. For example, the latency of game streaming services is awful if you're used to a local experience, but if you ask a 12 year old that's never experienced low latency, local gaming, they don't even realize it could be different. They'll happily play high latency streamed games.

So when you see things like the investment that's going into things like game streaming and it seems stupid, you have to consider there may not be any expectation of capturing the current market. They're after the market that's in elementary school right now.

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

#157

Post by Phenomenit »

winternett wrote: post #103
lkozma wrote: post #8

was posted here sometime ago: The door refused to open. It said, "Five cents, please." He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. "I'll pay you tomorrow," he told the door. Again he tried the knob. Again it remained locked tight. "What I pay you," he informed it, "is in the nature of a gratuity; I don't have to pay you." "I think otherwise," the door said. "Look in the purchase contract you signed when you boug…

Many other car makers do this too. My Volvo has a remote start feature installed (that I paid for in buying the car) that is not accessible without enrollment in a (pretty much useless otherwise) monthly subscription service. It's flat out criminal considering that I could have just bought the device with a remote at Auto Zone for 1/4 of the price (that also doesn't allow the auto maker to track/log each time I use i…

I think some of the reasoning behind the fee is that there's a simcard in the car that needs to be payed for and if you opt out then they don't have to pay for it. I have the same service and I can't live without the remotly started heating so for me it's worth every krona.

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

#158

Post by MandieD »

Schiendelman wrote: post #130
andi999 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean fresh milk has vanished?

It’s now all hyper-pasteurized and shelf stable. Not even refrigerated.

The two glass liter bottles of fresh milk min my fridge beg to differ - though they are proudly branded “Frankenmilch”… which just means that it’s produced in Franken (Franconia), the region I live in.

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

#159

Post by darknavi »

luma wrote: post #65
shiftpgdn wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have both a new electric Audi and new Tesla. In either car I can just remove the sim and it'll completely disable all of the internet based features. A lot of the FUD around new cars is spread by grumpy old automotive journalists.

Does this impact your access to Tesla services or charging infrastructure? Can you still supercharge?

Should be able to supercharge. It communicates with the charger over the charging cable to tell it what account to charge.

You might lose access once you're on old enough software though.

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

#160

Post by zapataband1 »

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…

consumers aren't 'weak-willed' there are simply not the vast amount of choices that capitalism promised, instead we have huge conglomerates that care more about continuous leeching off your wallet.
Post reply on HN