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Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

arstechnica.com

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Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#581

Post by nessguy »

tqi wrote: post #347
matthewdgreen wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$8/mo is genuinely a lot of money for this kind of infrastructure, even if there are developers and servers to be paid for. Assume that there are only 100,000 users. This would imply $9.6M per year in revenue to cover infrastructure and dev salaries for a system that handles ~2 queries/day/customer! And 100,000 is a very small number. Presumably Toyota has millions of customers. If you think that's reasonable, consid…

$8 is a lot but to be fair, Disney+ is almost certainly losing money per subscriber. $8 in this case also has to cover the cost of the 4G connection, which likely is in the $1 to $2 range.

Where does 4G connection come into play here?

"Key fob remote start has nothing to do with an app, nor does the car or the fob communicate with any servers managed by Toyota."

It sounds like this $8/month charge is for the allowing you to use remote start locally presumably over RF.

Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#582

Post by detaro »

sjwalter wrote: post #572
bckygldstn wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't find a good reference for the German market specifically, but in some countries/regions most milk is ultra-pasteurised and unrefridgerated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-temperature_process...

Wild. Here I am thankful that Montana recently reduced regulations and made it so small dairies can supply raw milk directly to customers without any inspection from a state or federal agency, so now my family drinks local, fresh, raw milk for the same price as organic UHT crap. Germans can't get anything but this UHT stuff?

Non-UHT is widely available.

What has become a lot more common (and is often not clearly labeled) are stronger pasteurization levels that make unopened milk stable for a few weeks refrigerated (it's also sometimes micro-filtrated).

Before, softer pasteurization was the more common variant, which then has unopened ~1 week of refrigerated stability. Less offered now, although a good supermarket has it.

(These two categories are not fixed standards, so within them there's also variations in how processing is done exactly)

Raw milk (i.e. never heated >40°C, unfiltered) is also available, but with stronger requirements on how it's handled before sale and thus often hard to get, especially if you're not local to a farm producing it - obviously transport has to be quick.

Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#583

Post by betwixthewires »

can16358p wrote: post #578
betwixthewires wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just auto manufacturers. It seems literally everything is being designed with a philosophy of "fuck the user" in mind. I cannot think of a single thing more complicated than a concrete block that functions better now than previous versions did 10 years ago, and I'm sure there are some things that work at least as good, but I can't think of any off the top of my head.

I think it's more like as things get more complex, there are many more edge cases to check and most are very unlikely to happen statistically/practically so manufacturers don't put enough thinkin/design effort in those "details". Until, of course, it does.

I don't buy it.

They're literally engineering shit people don't need now. In virtually every product. And doing UI redesigns on things that change the user friendly UX, often breaking it.

I remember looking forward to browser updates, OS updates, the next generation hardware whatever. Things used to actually get better. I actually got a new phone the other day with a newer android version, never mind that there's a fucking hole in the screen, when I changed my screen brightness there was a deliberate animated delay to the brightness changing with the slider. Seriously, who the fuck is making decisions like this?

90% of things don't need to get more complex. A touch screen on a fridge, speakers in your car that get louder as you accelerate, Bluetooth speakers that need software updates, these are not improvements to the products in any real way whatsoever.

Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#584

Post by detaro »

xwdv wrote: post #305
Schiendelman wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s now all hyper-pasteurized and shelf stable. Not even refrigerated.

Good lord, this is true dystopia. I drink fresh milk every damn day.

It's also not true at all. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29548136 for what the original complaint is probably about.

Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#585

Post by kybernetyk »

ses1984 wrote: post #563
edmundsauto wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re not interested in paying for something that provides you with very clear value? So instead you wil go pay money for a different system to bolt on? I don’t mean to criticize, but I have to admit that I cannot empathize.

If I put a gun to your head and then sell you a service of not shooting, that's a clear value too right?

Said service is called “taxation”

Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#586

Post by throwawaygh »

jbay808 wrote: post #363

I wonder if this, too, is a symptom of near-zero interest rates. With an interest rate of zero, future cash flows are valued equal to present cash flows. That increases the net present value of recurring payments (approaching infinity, actually). So it becomes increasingly attractive for companies to discount the initial sale price in exchange for a recurring payment. In a higher interest rate environment, that would…

Heh. No. You really don't need macroeconomics to explain Toyota's decision making here... not everything is a nail, and that's one hell of a hammer you're holding.

Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#587

Post by Schiendelman »

MandieD wrote: post #158
Schiendelman wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s now all hyper-pasteurized and shelf stable. Not even refrigerated.

The two glass liter bottles of fresh milk min my fridge beg to differ - though they are proudly branded “Frankenmilch”… which just means that it’s produced in Franken (Franconia), the region I live in.

Sure, but try finding that in Berlin. I think the point here is that availability has dropped for many/most people.

Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#588

Post by Schiendelman »

detaro wrote: post #584
xwdv wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good lord, this is true dystopia. I drink fresh milk every damn day.

It's also not true at all. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29548136 for what the original complaint is probably about.

It is true. It’s very hard to find now, and it was not hard to find in the past.

Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#589

Post by detaro »

Schiendelman wrote: post #588
detaro wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also not true at all. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29548136 for what the original complaint is probably about.

It is true. It’s very hard to find now, and it was not hard to find in the past.

> Not even refrigerated.

That was the point where you lost me. Even ALDI doesn't just have non-refrigerated milk.

I find the shift annoying too, but it's not as bad as that.

Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#590

Post by cmurf »

winternett wrote: post #304
Phenomenit wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok so your device is not supplied by volvo?

No, not the issue at all. The problem is that I refuse to pay a fee and use a tracking app just so I can use remote start features already installed on my car that don't need to be part of any paid monthly service. My car should not require a cell phone with the maker's app installed on it, or even an Internet connection to fully operate... It's insane to think it should from a reliability standpoint.

If only it were insanity. It might be curible.
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