161–170 of 744 posts
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…
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It's either micro-transactions, or mandatory ads: https://old.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/rcka8s/new_c...
Or do without.
But how long until BASIC functions become subscription service? Like electronically locking doors, or some other such nonsense?
Once money finds a path, my belief is that the path gets widened.
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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…
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My car's running on a 12 year old set of navigation data... And I can't say I've ever felt the need to drop $199 on updating it. We just don't build new roads in North America.
You obviously don't live in a rapidly growing suburb. Half of my town's roads either didn't exist 12 years ago or have been reconfigured to handle the additional traffic flows.
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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.
EDIT: Snark removal.
I don't know how could anyone think it is a good move inside toyota. $8 falls in the range that it is irritating for consumers yet the lifetime revenue per car is probably 1% of the average car value(5 year lifetime with 2 years free means $250 lifetime revenue). Is it worth it for 1% increase in revenue.
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 does this as well. You can get app enabled remote start from your phone, if you buy their subscription service.
I love Subaru, but that is a trash system.
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…
I do recall the non-fresh milk in Germany. Shelf stable ultra pasteurized milk tastes terrible. In the US you can still get even raw milk.