71–80 of 215 posts
One of the features mentioned is a "remote starter" that lets you start the engine from outside the vehicle by pressing a button on the key. I'm not sure why anyone would call this a "basic feature", or indeed why anyone would want it.
It's useful if you live somewhere very cold
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> That's blackmail-powered greed. I really don't get people's revulsion to this model. As long as you know the deal up front, what is the ethical issue? How can it ever be 'greed' or 'blackmail' to offer a service or product (a luxury one at that)? Do your sums and then either the total cost is worth it to you or it isn't. Why does the payment model get people so riled up?
Because it relies on me not having full control over something I'm the owner of, and because the markup is infinity percent.
I can somewhat understand the logic of charging me a recurring fee for a service that costs the provider a recurring cost, gets regular improvements, and where data is maintained. TV/sat radio? Ok (not that I would buy that). Remote tracking / start? Why not. Internet access in the car? Sure. Satellite maps with updates? Maybe. I would hope that given how much you charge me for the product, these come included, but M…
> That's blackmail-powered greed. I really don't get people's revulsion to this model. As long as you know the deal up front, what is the ethical issue? How can it ever be 'greed' or 'blackmail' to offer a service or product (a luxury one at that)? Do your sums and then either the total cost is worth it to you or it isn't. Why does the payment model get people so riled up?
I wouldn’t object to a model where I was charged a lot of money for a subscription in exchange for lowering the up front cost of the car.
But nickel-and-diming me for features like heated seats forever after I have already paid a huge price for the car? It seems like a petty cash grab, especially for a supposedly upscale manufacturer like BMW. And why would I even want to have to keep track of that subscription? Yet another stupid tax on my time and attention — when I could just buy a Honda instead and pay entirely upfront and be done with it.
Should it be illegal? Probably not, as long as the manufacturers aren’t colluding and I can still just buy from a manufacturer that doesn’t do this.
I can somewhat understand the logic of charging me a recurring fee for a service that costs the provider a recurring cost, gets regular improvements, and where data is maintained. TV/sat radio? Ok (not that I would buy that). Remote tracking / start? Why not. Internet access in the car? Sure. Satellite maps with updates? Maybe. I would hope that given how much you charge me for the product, these come included, but M…
This is less to do with blackmail than to do with optimising manufacturing. It is cheaper for manufacurers to produce all the cars with the same heated seats, but not allow you to use them if you don't pay the recurring charge (as long as enough % of customers opt-in), than to manufacture two versions of the car, one with the seats and one without, just so that you can feel like you aren't being blackmailed. You shou…
It's not a digital asset that costs nothing to produce/host/sustain. These are raw materials, refined, that will someday end up in a landfill.
I can somewhat understand the logic of charging me a recurring fee for a service that costs the provider a recurring cost, gets regular improvements, and where data is maintained. TV/sat radio? Ok (not that I would buy that). Remote tracking / start? Why not. Internet access in the car? Sure. Satellite maps with updates? Maybe. I would hope that given how much you charge me for the product, these come included, but M…
Is the objection to the turning a one-time payment into a series of monthly payments? Or is the actual objection that the net present value of those monthly payments is too high? If you want to turn something that used to cost me $400 one-time into a subscription that costs me $1.49/mo, I'll be happy that you've offered me the subscription and will buy it in subscription form. Charge $9.99/mo for that same subscripti…
I can somewhat understand the logic of charging me a recurring fee for a service that costs the provider a recurring cost, gets regular improvements, and where data is maintained. TV/sat radio? Ok (not that I would buy that). Remote tracking / start? Why not. Internet access in the car? Sure. Satellite maps with updates? Maybe. I would hope that given how much you charge me for the product, these come included, but M…
This is less to do with blackmail than to do with optimising manufacturing. It is cheaper for manufacurers to produce all the cars with the same heated seats, but not allow you to use them if you don't pay the recurring charge (as long as enough % of customers opt-in), than to manufacture two versions of the car, one with the seats and one without, just so that you can feel like you aren't being blackmailed. You shou…
Many products use a consistent manufacturing process with binning... a qa step where their performance is measured and then sorted, so you pay more for the top 10 percentile. That makes sense to me... but things like this always seem wasteful regardless of the industry.
The smarter cars get, the worse they are for consumer rights and Privacy. Unfortunately its a general trend, everything that is getting "smartified" is becoming an anti consumer black box, and If you care about your privacy or owning the device you bought, you are out of luck. It happened with TVs, and now its coming for cars too, there might be options now but they won't last long, is there a dumb TV in your local s…
Perhaps there will spring a cottage industry around enabling these features without a subscription. I'm sure the lawsuits will flow — but bad look, no? Shades of McDonald's shake machine....
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is the objection to the turning a one-time payment into a series of monthly payments? Or is the actual objection that the net present value of those monthly payments is too high? If you want to turn something that used to cost me $400 one-time into a subscription that costs me $1.49/mo, I'll be happy that you've offered me the subscription and will buy it in subscription form. Charge $9.99/mo for that same subscripti…
The objection is, if I own a car, then the car manufacturer shouldn't be able to disable functionality. If I buy a car with heated seats, I should be able to use them as much as I want, and the manufacturer should have no control over that. The cost concern is secondary to losing control of devices that we ostensibly own.
If the car was instead sold/bought with the heated seats as a subscription, I don’t see any problem with them being, well, a subscription.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because it relies on me not having full control over something I'm the owner of, and because the markup is infinity percent.
… the profit margin is 100% no?