Halfway through he describes this as malicious compliance with the “right to repair” law. Apple and others are making a mockery of the law.
Halfway through he describes this as malicious compliance with the “right to repair” law. Apple and others are making a mockery of the law.
I don’t understand the consumer outrage about that though. It is like paying to unlock satellite TV reception (even though we are receiving the signals the whole time).
It’s reasonable to charge for this because the value is in copyrighted content and a service that costs the provider money to operate. The same would apply for satellite radio in a car or an internet-based streaming service. It is not reasonable to charge for access to the adaptive suspension or seat warmers that are already in a car a customer bought. That breaks the traditional model of ownership.
An interesting middle ground might be to allow the owner to install arbitrary software on the car, and charge for the OEM adaptive suspension app. I think I would like a world where things work like that; OEMs would whine about security to no end.
I think it should be legal to attempt to decrypt satellite signals without paying; if the satellite service is designed well, it won’t be possible. All the anticircumvention laws should be repealed.
I’d argue that I bought the car, if they are maintaining a cellular connection to the vehicle to collect telemetry data, I should be allowed to access it as well (I own the car), alternatively they could let me pay for the data connection and not collect stuff.
Because, it’s already built into my car, i already paid for the car, the whole transaction is concluded. Paying in hindsight for a part of it, that is already there, is not really justified at all. If they built the car without one, and would have to add it later, then it would make sense. So if it would be more expensive to have my car explicitly built without this feature, why does it suddenly cost money when i decide i want it later?
The signal-broadcast all around everywhere and just YOU paying is simply for the fact they they can’t route them specifically to just YOUR house. It might sound equally unfair but it’s a clear distinction based on technical impossibility.
The right to first sale should mean that the owner owns and controls all services installed in the product. And any DRM in the way of that, or that obstructs the right of repair, should be illegal, and the manufacturer held liable for including it in a product.
Absolutely. But, as usual, we all let it happen, it will happen more, and in the end it’s the total default for everything. Capitalism always wins over ignorance or apathy.
And your vehicle’s features weren’t lock behind a paywall in the pass because of enshitification. You know consumer rights and so on. If Rich people like you like paying then drive your rolls royce and Bentley, there are more poor people like us. Soon I’ll have to pay to masterbate my fucking cock somehow for the cooperate overlords.
Why the attack? I’m against this. I might benefit from capitalism but i must not like it. And I do not. It’s a shitty pyramid-scheme resulting in exactly shit like this. Many brands (that i know of…) do not put physically already existing hardware behind a paywall. Yet. But in the end, they all will do, because people don’t care, or worse: don’t see the implications it does and just accept.
As said, i now drive a pre-enshittification-car with no such shit. Might they still exist somehow in the future.
The best (worst) example I’ve seen in recent memory has been seat warmers. BMW and other manufacturers tried forcing a subscription on people just to use the seat warmers that are (1) already present in the car, (2) already wired up with buttons in place, and (3) cause no additional outlay of effort on the part of the manufacturer once they’re installed. There’s no valid reason to charge a subscription for something like that beyond straight greed.
It is like having a grandstand at a football stadium which costs extra to use. Do you resent that?
Do you resent the satellite TV example I gave earlier?
You don’t own the stadium, and you don’t own the satellite. So they’re really not the same as a car, which you do (nominally) own.
Satellite TV is a service that requires constant upkeep by the companies which costs money.
And your football stadium is a bad analogy.
I resent that the cost to the car company to install seat warmers is the actual installation of the seat warmers. Running them costs ME money in electricity generated by gasoline I bought. It costs them nothing to run them but i have to pay a subscription to use them on top of paying to power them?
The football grandstand continues to cost the owners in maintenance and space that they own. You pay for the privilege of using something that is not yours. I bought my car, I shouldn’t have to continue to pay for the privilege of using something I already own since the equipment is already there and doesn’t require any interaction with a remote service that would make sense to charge for (navigation, satellite radio, etc…)
OK I accept the analogies are not good equivalents.
It is not necessarily true that everyone has already paid for the seat warmer hardware. The car may cost the same as if it didn’t have the hardware installed. Certainly the owners were happy enough with the car price to buy it without seat warming option.
The manufacturer may find it cheaper to just install it for everyone and wear the cost in the hope that enough people will pay for the warmer to be enabled.
Of course it is possible that everyone pays for the hardware anyhow but it is not necessarily the case.
This is such a weird hill to die on for someone who claims to be pro-consumer
You make it sound like football team loyalty.
I am pro-fairness, not pro-consumer. I don’t think the consumers are justified in their entitlement in this case.
Ah my bad, despite having been coerced into a transportation economy that forces us to purchase multi-thousand dollar machines, I forgot to consider if we’re asking too much of automotive manufacturers when we request to not pay a premium for comfort that literally costs them nothing since they already sold it to us.
You wouldn’t have a warm seat anyhow if they only installed the seat for prepaid customers but it is possible that those customers would pay more because it would cost more to make two sets of cars. Or four sets if optional fancy suspension is done that way, or eight sets if you include digital radio, or sixteen if…
Much of the cost is R&D, not just the physical item.
Do you think all music should be free because it is already online and you downloading an album doesn’t cost the artist even one cent?
It is necessarily the case. No company incurs the cost of making something, delivers it and then just hopes that someone pays for it. You literally can’t do business that way.
Of course you can do business that way. If the heating costs $x, and half the customers pay for it but $5x is charged then that is a profit.
The alternative would be to make two sets of cars (with and without heating). Or four sets of cars if another similar optional feature is shipped like this. Or 8 permutations if there are three features etc
It can certainly be cheaper to install them by default even if not all customers pay to enable them. ie it is mathematically possible that their system is cheapest for both the manufacturer and the consumer. The alternative would be no different for us cold-bummed drivers but possibly more expensive for the toasted-tush drivers.
Two sets of seats you mean. The car is the same. These days they don’t even have to blank out the buttons because it’s a touch screen anyway.
I already had heated + ventilated seats with the optional multi-contour (air based) cushions, but without the memory package, so they weren’t fully electric. Then there were the different materials available. Each of these things was an option, and there were more that I didn’t have that I probably didn’t know. Somehow they made a profit off the car. I also had the four zone climate control as opposed to the two zone, which was also an option over the manual air conditioning. There were a ton more options present and many missing (seriously, who tf optioned the sunroof, but not adaptive cruise???)
This was a 2003 car. No subscription, you just paid for the options you wanted. In fact the sunroof necessitated different body shells according to the parts catalog. How is THAT still an option? That makes for a lot more complexity than any other item being an option.
In 2025 I would expect heated seats to be standard in any car more expensive than the very base model Dacia. Super simple tech, very easy to make, and pretty much a necessity in some areas of the world, particularly where I live.
Two sets of cars, not seats. The seats would be pre installed. Dealers do not be assemble to taste (except for maybe small items like radio).
If you buy an object, you pay for all the components that come with that object. If they didn’t charge for all the components that’s on them. As others have said, heating elements don’t require any continued support from the manufacturer. It’s a button and some wires and a control module. Should they be charging for window defrosters too? There is literally 0 explanation for this that isn’t corporate greed.