41–50 of 197 posts
> 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.)
BMW in particular, and german carmakers as a whole are in for a rough decade. Declining quality and increasing competition will pose the kind of risks not even eu protectionism can shield them from. One such risk is china. German carmakers desperately need new markets and china is one of them. But germany and the eu cant bully china and they will want access to european markets in return. And what i am reading and he…
There’s “declining quality,” and then there’s “the roof melts.” I wouldn’t consider buying a bmw for a long, long time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One wonders why the automaker's can't just charge a reasonable monthly fee for 1. tracking where you left your car parked, and 2. remote-locking your car. I would vastly prefer that to playing games with our data, or trying all these gimmicks like charging for extra acceleration.
When my iPhone disconnects from my car (even one without CarPlay), it remembers the car's location.
Oh that's too bad, as a consumer, I would have loved to have been obligated to pay for that feature in perpetuity.
Paywalled features really cheapen a brand. Nothing about a monthly subscription to activate existing services really screams "premium" to me.
> 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.)
Are you him? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Bright
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But it's not a payment plan, it's a subscription. If you drive the car for 25 years, you're still on the hook every year if you want the seats to heat.
BMW maintained the one-time purchase option. The subscription was added for people who only wanted to pay intermittently (or who were buying a BMW new, but somehow didn't have the $500 to pay for heated seats upfront).
Awesome! Now do Chamberlain MyQ who want you to charge you to open your own garage door!