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BMW drops controversial heated seats subscription

forbes.com

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Re: BMW drops controversial heated seats subscription

#171

Post by gambiting »

entrox wrote: post #169
gambiting wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep bringing up this example - it's like buying a house with a room that's walled off and you need to pay the developer extra money to have it opened up for use. The houses are made from prefabs so it's easier to just make every house the same but just wall off rooms you didn't pay for. The contract could stipulate this clearly - you are not paying for the room that's walled off. Obviously, that's completely insan…

Add one variable to your example: imagine that having variations increases cost such as increased development cost (you need to develop each component, test and certify possible combinations, incur increased logistical complexity, etc..) This additional cost however is less than just adding the higher trim to every configuration, e.g. the additional room, so it doesn't make economic sense to do so. But let's assume y…

I understand all of that. If it isn't economical for BMW to produce cars with and without heated seats as two separate models then I guess all of their cars should have heated seats as standard. Having them but locking them behind a software unlock is profiteering, even if technically making a model without the seats would have been more expensive.

Re: BMW drops controversial heated seats subscription

#172

Post by Etrnl_President »

sangnoir wrote: post #151
angarg12 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>People feel that they paid double, which was actually not true That's some serious gaslighting.

> That's some serious gaslighting Devil's advocate: how would you know if BMW subsidized what would have been an add-on package?

The user subsidizes that package with every day of fuel spent per pound of that package.

Re: BMW drops controversial heated seats subscription

#173

Post by Etrnl_President »

ineptech wrote: post #133
imperialdrive wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're living in interesting times. Grandparents often would not believe the headline, and that's understandable. However, they would also sneer at such a sneaky idea as what BMW brought to the table. They're at peak marketing if they actually believed whatever professional advice led to charging for heated seats in a supposedly "luxury" brand vehicle. Wow

I don't think that sweet, sweet heated seat revenue is the endgame here, I assume this is the POC for an in-car app store. (I say "is" rather than "was" because everybody bitched when they forced ads onto smart TVs and swore they'd never buy one, and yet it's nearly impossible to find a name brand TV without them. Won't be long before there's a monthly fee to mute the voice telling you what's on sale at every burger…

Puncture loudspeakers, and use external audio.

Re: BMW drops controversial heated seats subscription

#174

Post by Etrnl_President »

taylodl wrote: post #88
gnicholas wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was actually a little more nuanced — they offered a one-time purchase (at a normal-ish price), or the option to purchase via subscription. I have no problem with this arrangement, which literally offers consumers more choices. The concerns I would have are (1) that the one-time pricing would gradually creep up, so that in a few years it becomes untenable, or (2) that when you sell the car, the heated seats would b…

If I bought the heated seats via a one-time purchase then that feature should transfer to the new owner. It may require that transfer of ownership be registered with BMW. If I rented the heated seats, or hadn't bought or rented the heated seats, then the new buyer should have the option to rent the heated seats or make a one-time purchase to just buy them. This seems pro-consumer to me. I don't want heated seats (no,…

It means track users across cars, enabling or disabling features based on who owns or drives it. Might even simplify things by tying it to a social credit score. Screw that.

Re: BMW drops controversial heated seats subscription

#175

Post by Etrnl_President »

ryandrake wrote: post #38
gruez wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Charging a subscription for hardware and software already built into the car, and not dependent on any external servers or anything is just plain anti-consumer. What's the principle here? That because it already exists, consumers don't have to pay for it? How far can we stretch this? Suppose there's a streaming service (eg. netflix or spotify) that supports downloads, does that it's "anti-consumer" to deny them acce…

Here's the extreme example I always reach for: Imagine BMW decides that it's cheaper for them to just make all 4 seat sedans instead of having some 2 seat models and some 4 seat models. They instead tell customers: "You're buying a 2-seater. You need to pay a $X/month 'sedan fee' to be allowed to sit in the rear seats." Would this be acceptable to many people? Of course not, and for the same reason that subscriptions…

Rear seatbelts won't work unless you subscribe, so this is a road safety issue, with government fining you for passengers…

Re: BMW drops controversial heated seats subscription

#178

Post by gruez »

josephcsible wrote: post #132
gruez wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Would this be acceptable to many people? Of course not I disagree. This literally happens for CPUs, and people don't seem to get angry at it. There might be different models of CPUs sold that use the same die and come off the same manufacturing line. The only difference is that cores are disabled/fuesd off and/or clock speeds are lowered.

In CPUs, there's at least a legitimate reason: reducing wastage by, e.g., selling what was intended to be a quad-core but had two defective cores as a dual-core instead of throwing it away.

That's only partially true though. Back in the day you could "unlock" cores in some AMD CPUs, which indicated that they were perfectly functional. Nowadays they disable the cores in a more robust way, but I doubt every disabled core is non-functional.

Re: BMW drops controversial heated seats subscription

#179

Post by gruez »

thfuran wrote: post #100
gruez wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you equally upset about the fact that you can get a "subscription" to a car (ie. renting or leasing it) in addition to buying it outright?

That's not really the same thing, but regardless, the fact that a car can be purchased wouldn't make an expensive lease more attractive.

>That's not really the same thing

How so?

>the fact that a car can be purchased wouldn't make an expensive lease more attractive.

Yet plenty of people lease their cars.

Re: BMW drops controversial heated seats subscription

#180

Post by joot82 »

ssharp wrote: post #63
WalterBright wrote: post #29

> People feel that they paid double – which was actually not true, but perception is reality It was true. The heating wires in the seats were already installed and the consumer paid for them and owned them. I remember in the olden days some compiler vendors added a fee to "unlock" floating point code support. That was never popular (I never did such with my compilers.)

I'm sure BMW could make a case where between 1) not needing to manufacture non-heated seats anymore improves manufacturing efficiencies and costs and 2) the people paying for the subscription brings in enough revenue that BMW can sell the car for the same price as it was without the heated seat hardware. However, no consumer is actually going to believe that and they're just going to assume they'd paid for something…

I just wonder why they're so obsessed to make heated seats an optional feature to charge for... it comes standard these days on so many other cars in lowest trim, including Volkswagen (which is considered less premium in Munich). If they see scaling benefits by equipping every car with heated seats just do it and price it in the base offer. The backlash from this probably cost them more than they can ever raise through a seat subscription.
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