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BMW drops controversial heated seats subscription

forbes.com

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Re: BMW drops controversial heated seats subscription

#181

Post by taylodl »

friend_and_foe wrote: post #167
taylodl wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

How does it drive prices down? I can see how it drives profits up, so costs down when weighed against profits, but I don't see how it drives prices down. Consider that these things cannot be sold on the secondary market. You can't pick and pull the hardware.

There's two ways it helps drive prices down:

1. Lowers manufacturing costs. If there were a Law of Manufacturing it would be this: the less differentiation among the widgets, the more cheaply the widgets can be made. That thinking was behind Ford saying you could have any color you want, so long as it's black. Note this doesn't just affect assembly, it affects the supply chain as well. Your supplier only has to provide one kind of seat. The company making the heating units can crank more out and reduce the unit cost of each.

2. Increases supply - which reduces cost. As I said above, heated seats can be sold as an option. Any owner of the car can buy the option at any time. That increases the supply of cars in the used market. If I want a car with heated seats I can buy the model where that feature hasn't been enabled and enable it myself.

You mention you can't pick and pull the hardware. There's nothing in principle preventing that. All the hardware is the same. If for some reason your seat were to become damaged, you don't have to look for a heated seat. Any seat will do. If BMW is doing anything to prevent that then they're going to run afoul of Right to Repair laws.

Re: BMW drops controversial heated seats subscription

#182

Post by joshspankit »

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?

“What’s subsidized” is completely detached from the vehicle owner already. Cost to design, prototype, manufacture, pass standards, finish, sell in a dealership, and provide warranty for are all basically trade secrets.

There’s no way for a car owner to know whether their $120k car cost $300k to make or $20k, so how can we have a genuine discussion about the cost of anything else?

Re: BMW drops controversial heated seats subscription

#183

Post by rendall »

> "Going forward, BMW says it will continue to offer subscription-based services but only for software options, ... which is completely understandable."

Is it completely understandable though? Maybe I'm an old man shouting at clouds, but I remember when the concept of a software subscription was itself seen as an unseemly money-grab.

Re: BMW drops controversial heated seats subscription

#184

Post by flir »

glimshe wrote: post #160
akoboldfrying wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very popular take, but if it's laid out clearly in the contract that heated seats (or whatever feature) are not part of what you're buying up front, then technically they're in the right. The fact that buying big solid things like cars has typically, thus far, in our society, meant owning every physical piece of that thing, doesn't and shouldn't override what it says in the contract. Maybe an argument can be…

The argument "it was in the contract" doesn't connect with most people when the contract specifies something that is so strongly against common sense. The Libertarian desire of having almost arbitrary contract clauses, that is, anything goes as long as consenting adults are agreeing to it, resonates with me personally but I fully understand it's utopian. Most people simply don't think, and won't ever think, like that…

Dystopian, more like. It's fine when the parties to the contract are of similar size, but the vast majority of contracts are between relatively powerful entities who write the contract and relatively powerless entities who like it or lump it. That needs a thumb on the scales to stop the more powerful entity taking unreasonable advantage.

Re: BMW drops controversial heated seats subscription

#185

Post by aconsult1 »

akoboldfrying wrote: post #154
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 a very popular take, but if it's laid out clearly in the contract that heated seats (or whatever feature) are not part of what you're buying up front, then technically they're in the right. The fact that buying big solid things like cars has typically, thus far, in our society, meant owning every physical piece of that thing, doesn't and shouldn't override what it says in the contract. Maybe an argument can be…

Then suddenly you buy a car that has several kg of equipment that are not yours, but theirs, just so you could activate it with a subscription at a later point in time. Great! But now I'm the one paying gas/electricity to carry that extra load around that does not belong to me.

How is it possible that they can get away with it without any lawsuits? I'd want to be compensated for carrying other people's crap around town.

If a feature requires constant development (like self-driving) then it makes more sense. But even that has been subverted these days with SaaS companies that charge a subscription but only offer new features as upgrades so your version doesn't really improve that much unless you pony up.

How much more $ do these people really need?

Re: BMW drops controversial heated seats subscription

#187

Post by taylodl »

Etrnl_President wrote: post #174
taylodl wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The state already tracks users across cars. Not sure what data you think you're protecting.

Re: BMW drops controversial heated seats subscription

#188

Post by user3939382 »

user3939382 wrote: post #135
Gelob wrote: post #118

Give up on that stupid wheel knob please. No one likes that thing

Is that a thing? They used to be called suicide knobs because people’s clothes would get caught on them and crash the car, I thought they outlawed them in the 60s or 70s.

Oh I guess they are legal and their illegality is an urban myth.

Re: BMW drops controversial heated seats subscription

#189

Post by gabereiser »

beefield wrote: post #152
gabereiser wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I solved that by not owning a TV. Sadly, you are probably right. It happened at the gas station pump, smart TV’s, now your OS. Tomorrow your car.

I solved that by buying a tv that was on sale (sales guy warned that they have gotten lots of returns because the smart features were somehow not so good on the model) and promptly never connected it to internet. So far no ads outside tv channels' own ads.

You still have ads.

Re: BMW drops controversial heated seats subscription

#190

Post by akoboldfrying »

placesalt wrote: post #161
akoboldfrying wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very popular take, but if it's laid out clearly in the contract that heated seats (or whatever feature) are not part of what you're buying up front, then technically they're in the right. The fact that buying big solid things like cars has typically, thus far, in our society, meant owning every physical piece of that thing, doesn't and shouldn't override what it says in the contract. Maybe an argument can be…

I think there a link that can be drawn between the type of contract you describe, and feudal-era serfdom. Serfs at the time were effectively prevented from owning property - land. In this case, people are being prevented from owning property - cars. In both cases the exclusion was enabled by the laws at the time. In the case of feudalism, the land reform laws brought an end to the state of affairs. And, they were res…

Yes, absolutely, and that's a great observation about medieval serfdom. People seem reluctant to engage with the problem in its full generality, which is essentially: What kinds of restrictions (if any) should we as a society place on contracts between parties who would otherwise agree?

Laissez-faire capitalism's answer is "None at all", which is appealingly simple and works well whenever the parties involved have similar levels of bargaining power. But in practice a huge number of negotiations occur between parties with vastly different levels of bargaining power -- and in that case, having few or no restrictions can lead to emergent behaviour (especially positive feedback of wealth and poverty over time) that many feel to be unfair.

It's difficult because the alternative -- adding restrictions -- seems almost impossible to do without "playing favourites", which leads to claims of unfairness that are hard to argue against because they are so plain: They're right there in writing. It's harder for many people to see how the absence of restrictions is also a kind of "playing favourites".

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