211–220 of 555 posts
The first EV startup that emerges with a dumb EV (minimal software to actually operate) for around $30K will have a best-seller. Nobody actually wants the subscription-based car, it's gradually being forced on consumers via industry collusion.
In reality the CO2-adjusted eMPG of most EVs purchased today won’t outpace the Prius for the expected life of the car.
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Thank you for being a voice of righteousness in a sea of simps. It’s hard to tell on this site, are people really this devoted to corps or are they shills? Even with what you said there are still so many people defending this behavior. The world is full of weak and/or deceitful people.
So what are you doing to change it? Are you getting involved in helping this become a focus of regulation? Maybe you'll call your representatives up? I ask these questions because often times people work themselves into a frenzy, and then take zero action. Hopefully you aren't one of them.
We can't all afford to devote our lives to activism. But change starts with education and we can be educators when these topics come up. That's not useless.
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> You might not like it, but it's actually a better deal than before. So if Apple would ask you for a nice $10/m to use their famous iPhone camera features you would be okay with that, because otherwise you would be fine with 8MP photos or pay additional $10 * 12m * 3y = $360 upfront? Of course, no changes in hardware at all. And the price of iPhone is the same, not $360 cheaper.
Try looking at it from the other side: you're getting a product at a lower base price and can upgrade to a higher model at a later point in time. It's more like buying, and paying for, an iPhone 14 and then having the possibility to upgrade the camera to the iPhone 14 Pro version afterwards. There's ton of precedent for products that are artificially locked to a lower version. The difference between a NVidia GeForce…
With software, the entire model is buying functionality, and then you can use it on the hardware of your choice. And it has to work that way. It's worth keeping in mind but it's not directly comparable to a hardware purchase.
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If you don't like it, just don't buy cars whose performance is artificially limited. Let the market decide the issue.
It's curious that the market (almost?) always decides what is bad for the consumer and profitable for the companies. As a person who is a person not a company, I would rather we don't let the market decide so much about our lives. Examples: Smart (spying ad-showing) TVs, non-compete agreements, water heater rentals, not-really-unlimited "unlimited data" cell plans, surveillance economy, only-rentable-not-buyable soft…
For example, there is always going to be a huge barrier to entry for automakers. They need to invest an enormous amount of time and money in design, factories, raw materials, labor, etc before they can deliver an actual car. This barrier protects automakers from feeling the full repercussions of their anti-consumer practices because it is extremely difficult for a new pro-consumer competitor to enter the market.
When we remove that assumption of perfect competition, the whole free market theory starts to fall apart. A well functioning free market requires power to be balanced between all parties, otherwise whoever has the most power can end up corrupting it and using their power advantage to grab even more money and/or power.
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Thank you for being a voice of righteousness in a sea of simps. It’s hard to tell on this site, are people really this devoted to corps or are they shills? Even with what you said there are still so many people defending this behavior. The world is full of weak and/or deceitful people.
Simps is a strange choice of words for a post on hackernews.
I want to see this legislated out of existence. To be clear, because every time this comes up some dickfucks come in here and start making excuses about how it's better to rent in some cases and that this is just amortizing the whole payment, and there are some people who want this: No. This is a fucking terrible deal even just using mercedes numbers. It takes a whopping 30 months (2.5 years) for the monthly payment…
This depends on if they actually charge you for it upfront in the MSRP. Say the cost for a motor made of x material is $2000 more than a lower spec motor made of z. So here they could make two specs, say charge $5000 more for the better motor, and profit $3,000 when anyone with a kick for adrenaline chooses the better motor. However, there are hidden costs to inventorying multiple different variations of the main dri…
I want to see this legislated out of existence. To be clear, because every time this comes up some dickfucks come in here and start making excuses about how it's better to rent in some cases and that this is just amortizing the whole payment, and there are some people who want this: No. This is a fucking terrible deal even just using mercedes numbers. It takes a whopping 30 months (2.5 years) for the monthly payment…
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It's curious that the market (almost?) always decides what is bad for the consumer and profitable for the companies. As a person who is a person not a company, I would rather we don't let the market decide so much about our lives. Examples: Smart (spying ad-showing) TVs, non-compete agreements, water heater rentals, not-really-unlimited "unlimited data" cell plans, surveillance economy, only-rentable-not-buyable soft…
> It's curious that the market (almost?) always decides what is bad for the consumer and profitable for the companies. In some cases people choose things that are bad for them, for all kinds of reasons. Someone will always sell you a subscription to your own car, if you tell them you want one. The market is the mechanism, the responsibility lies with the consumer. I know that it feels like there's a conspiracy, but i…
Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.
Guess which phase we're in now.
It won’t be my interest in saving the planet that stops me from buying cars, it’ll be bullshit like this. I want to own my car. I don’t want it to be connected (beyond acting as a hotspot) to the internet or to some central service. Have we not learned anything?
> I don’t want [my car] to be connected [...] to the internet Really? No remote access, security notifications, navigation facilities? No watching TV while charging? No OTA updates that obviate the need to take it to the dealership for routine fixes? No open source location analytic API? I mean, I'm sure there's some bad stuff that happens too. But this is very much throwing out the baby with the bathwater. I won't t…
The baby is dead and should be disposed of.
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Thank you for being a voice of righteousness in a sea of simps. It’s hard to tell on this site, are people really this devoted to corps or are they shills? Even with what you said there are still so many people defending this behavior. The world is full of weak and/or deceitful people.
Take a look at the profit margin (and market valuation) of automotive companies and compare them to tech companies. Now also make a comparison of average developer/engineer salaries at both. Is it not OK for the automotive folks to get to the same level as their FAANG brethren? Disclaimer: I work for an automotive OEM.
And as a software developer whose income is propped up by adjacency to FAANG: we're paid an inordinate amount compared to our contribution to society. The vast majority of software development makes rich people richer at the expense of everyone else. I've managed to avoid the most egregiously harmful companies my entire career, but the idea that FAANG pay or any pay is meritocratic is just wrong. I'm paid well because my work pays my clients well, not because of anyone involved "deserves" our high salaries.