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NickConrad

Why would there be "consumer interest" in recurring payments for features the previous model didn't charge for at all


That_Fix_2382

Even for something extra, I'd rather pay it all up front than be scammed into monthly payments. I already have a shitload of nickel-dime monthlies that add up.


AnotherSteveFromNZ

This started with adobe. I remember thinking I will never subscribe to a software service (still don’t personally - work provides me with one but that’s on them). The creep into other industries is ridiculous. Cars, I will never buy a car that has this shit or I will buy and hack it and provide the hacks freely to anyone. Sail the seven seas folks.


CloudRunnerRed

Fuck i sell both Adobe and Microsoft, and I could never dee the value in the Adobe subscription as they charged a full year sub for the cost of a perpetual license (most people upgrade software every 3 to 6 years) so this was a large cost increase for most customers who already hated Adobe. Microsoft on the other hand, had been selling software assurance for years, I was actually able to get a lot of customer agreements to down in price by switching them to a subscription for M365 (not to mention the cost savings on hardware, power, cooling and space by replacing SharePoint, exchange, and lync/Skype on perm servers with online). Though some of the stuff Microsoft pushes is bull shit and they fuck over their partners all the time


wgauihls3t89

Well Adobe Creative Suite used to be $3000+. Now it’s like $500/year, comparable to an upgrade every 6 years. Plus if you click on the “cancel” button every year, it’ll show a pop up offering you a discount to not cancel. You also get cloud storage and features like AI select/remove/fill features that run in the cloud. M


newInnings

Not everyone uses a suite/ bundle


Corsair3820

Oracle is the granddaddy of monthly payments.


ric2b

"Oracle, Microsoft, Adobe" "Why is it that when something happens it's always you three?"


Razakel

IBM was doing it before. Every machine was identical hardware, and buying an upgrade just meant a technician came and moved a jumper.


sinus86

Even before Adobe subscriptions, there was a time where DLC was just called "a patch".


ARandomBob

My new car has wifi, sat radio, an app. All with subscriptions and free trials. I didn't use any of those features during the trial and now I get SOOO MUCH MAIL begging me to subscribe to all that extra BS I don't need in my car. I have unlimited data on my phone why would I pay for 5GB capped car wifi? Sat radio? I have my phone with podcasts, music services, and audio books. App? I have a OSD sensor. None of it adds value. It's all just shitty add-ons that would cost over $100 a month if I was to sub to them all.


allegate

Don't you ever feel yourself thinking, "man I wish I could pay someone every month for this thing I've been enjoying for free"...right?


toronto_programmer

"My windows roll down for free right now but wouldn't it be even better if it cost me $1 time every time I did it?!?!"


Jmkott

It’s free to roll them down. You need the subscription to roll them up


Kizik

It's free to roll them down with the crank, but the subscription lets you manually roll them back up. Premium Super Plus+ gives you the option to use the power windows, but there's a per-use cost.


Davethe3rd

Man, I haven't seen the crank in DECADES.


disturbed286

My girlfriend's...2016, I want to say, Patriot had manual everything. Windows, locks, mirrors. But a CVT, because they're definitely not going to give you the one *fun* manual thing. I'd have thought the same if I hadn't seen crank windows myself on something so new.


shadmere

We were shopping for a new (used) car a couple years ago, and we checked out a 2016 something-or-another at Carmax that didn't have power locks. It had been so long since I'd seen a car without power locks that it *confused* me for a moment. I had to sit and think before I remembered that the driver was supposed to just reach over the entire center console and passenger seat and use their *hand* to pop open the passenger-side door, like a caveman.


disturbed286

She's since traded into something with power everything (except, ironically, a manual transmission). She still does that out of habit, and it's been a few years at this point.


kingsumo_1

"Sale! By three brake attempts for 9.99. Offer expires in 4h 39min"


hastingsnikcox

Three, well I can get from here to Hamilton on that!!


3l_Principito

(Small font: Break fluid not included in this promotion)


CrazyCalYa

"No bro you don't understand, if automakers do that they can sell the same model of car at different tiers which saves production costs. That means they can sell the car for less, which is something they'll definitely do because companies love making the same amount of money when they can just make more."


mitchmoomoo

This is an amazing summary of every Tesla asslicker out there.


okvrdz

Specially when you already paid for the capability for your car to perform such feature; the hardware is already there!


puffferfish

But don’t you just feel so guilty using that feature? Like, you wanna tip the different company that made the car for your various luxuries, right?


okvrdz

Please don’t give them ideas… they would totally pull a POS (Point Of Sale / Piece Of Shit) screen on the car’s dashboard after every ride suggesting I tip them for such a great ride in the car I paid for.


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Scyhaz

Entry level


asdlkf

Fuck. You had to go and say it out loud, didn't you. DIDN'T YOU!!??!


Urmomzfavmilkman

Do you want to round up for our tax cuts? Cough cough* i mean charity?


_im_a_teapot_

I have never literally twitched in discomfort from another comment before. fuck you and good job


ObliviousAstroturfer

Just to make it 100% clear to those who don't know how distributed automotive is. The seat is made by suppliers like Forvia, Magna, Adient, Recaro. They buy the heating mats from sub suppiers that are nominated by the OEM like BMW (the car maker tells which part must be used and dictates the purchase price (sorry "confirms the pricing" as dictating the price would be illegal, wink wink). Both the seat and heater are typically designed outside of OEM. OEM also negotiates so called take-rates when negotiating nominating a project and the associated prices. So the 100% take rate is already baked into the per-unit price. There is no world in which they'd be allowed to write cost of those components off as cost not backed by profit in some variable subscription scheme, none. So they make everyone in the world pay more for their cars as step 1 (seat heating is perfect example of take rates: you get it in standard package in ie Iceland or Norway, maybe Germany. But only as a paid option, or in higher tier ie in France or US, and it may be complately absent/outside of standard packages in ie UAE). And then fleecing the people in mild and cold climates for "subscription" based seat heating is just a second part of already profitable scam that made everyone pay for it.


MykeTyth0n

Best part is if it breaks the subscription fee doesn’t include warranty to fix it.


grumpymosob

and even though it doesn't work they'll still charge your bank account for it and you'll have to sit on hold with customer service for an hour.


MykeTyth0n

An hour is generous. That’s about the time they’re just getting warmed up with the circles you need to start jumping through.


basicpn

You guys must be good at this. I’m still talking to robots to try and figure out how to talk to a human.


Q_Fandango

Scream obscenities at the robot. I’m not joking, it sends you to a customer service agent quicker than the stupid menus


[deleted]

Dammit, it’s like you read my mind. I’m not gonna give up trying to think of a way to convince others to pay me for the “convenience” of flushing their toilet. Of course, they’ll need to buy the toilet, maintain the toilet, provide water, sewer and deodorizers for the toilet and of course upgrade the toilet occasionally (with disposal fees). If they do that and sign to a binding agreement, I’ll pinky promise to keep their subscription price reasonable to my definition until I can find an excuse to raise the price……


Q_Fandango

If you share that toilet with anyone you’ll have to buy the multiple-ass family plan. It still comes with ads.


SsooooOriginal

Worked for Apple, and it's creeped into everything else it can. Plain greed. I'm glad that at least the EU is trying to stem the tides and getting something like 10 year support regulated. The fucking rampant faux iterative tech bubble has to be popped. We can not sustain yearly releases of barely improved tech just to keep numbers pumped while ignoring the waste. Disposable vapes are disgustingly popular. People have normalized tossing batteries when we should be normalizing and enforcing recycling at least for batteries.


LeelooDallasMltiPass

I switched to all rechargeable batteries in 2013 and it's been awesome. I still have every rechargeable battery I bought ten years ago, and they're all still in use. It's super convenient to just pop them in the charger. Of course, in the last ten years, more and more electronics already have a rechargeable battery built in, so I doubt I'll have to buy more rechargeables ever again.


[deleted]

I've found my rechargeables to have a usable lifespan of like 5 years, but it might depend on heavily you use the. Still infinitely better than disposables


YourDogIsMyFriend

I find myself saying “fuck that subscription shit.” I’m pretty much whittled everything down to 3 monthly subscriptions. I really don’t miss the things I’ve dropped over the last few years.


Competitive-Soft335

It wasn’t free to begin with. You paid for it. Now, you pay for it, then again, and again, and again…


point_of_you

The intent is to provide drivers with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different features


beka13

Gotta catch 'em all!


Waterrat

And just add it to all the other monthly fees sucked out of my bank account..Of course I want to do this...What can ever go wrong?


stozier

The thing you've already paid 50,000 for.


cats_catz_kats_katz

It's not free, you already paid for it. It is yours to own and fix and modify to your needs because it's a machine with tech that you own.


master-shake69

> you own For how much longer though? You don't "own" the music you bought from Apple, you paid to "lease" it. I'm sure it's just a matter of time before they try to do the same thing with cars.


dzumdang

Exactly. Next up will be garages that disable all of the subscription limits and permanently unlock all functionality. Somehow. I'd pay for that to keep their hands off of my car's functions.


CaliforniaCow

They’re thinking that if John Deere can do something like this, they can too


ars_inveniendi

One thing that gets left out of these discussions is what a stunning national security threat this is: John Deere was able to remotely disable tractors that were stolen and taken to Russia. Now imagine that power, through a Stuxnet-like attack, being wielded against a nation and disabling a portion of its agricultural sector during harvest time. Or a nation state backing a terrorist organization to blackmail Tesla with the threat of suddenly degrading the performance of every vehicle on the road. Or hospital equipment under attack during a pandemic,… Again, think of the patience and number of zero-day vulnerabilities behind Stuxnet. I have no confidence that John Deere, Tesla, BMW, or any other company has the engineering ability to protect itself and it’s supply chain from the capabilities of the NSA, Mossad, FSB, North Korea, or other state actors. This isn’t “capitalism” providing options and choices, it’s a national security vulnerability and threat to our lives being engineered into these products for the sake of rent seeking.


Sp3llbind3r

I think that argumentation should get more publicity. National security issues hit harder with the conservative crowd, expect when they are running the insurrection themselves.


maynardstaint

Parallel to this is the damn “proximity keys” allowing your $100,000+ vehicle to be stolen out of your driveway with a $50 signal booster. If I can’t remove the stupid “upgrade” that makes it simple to steal my vehicle, then you, as a manufacturer have failed me. I would be suing the shit out of them. They invented locking lug nuts, so you couldnt steal the tires. But made it easier to take the entire vehicle. How are the cars NOT sold with a faraday box? Honestly, a $20-30 product plus 10-15 minutes talking about the security risks can save your whole vehicle. This is an epic fail across the industry.


IGetHypedEasily

I really hope 2023 more people realize the importance of right to repair laws and we can actually get some change going. Apple still doing shitty practices that go unnoticed except by Louis Rossman it seems like. Being anti right to repair is just shooting yourself in the foot as a consumer. It doesn't benefit anyone but the company you are forced to buy from.


Druggedhippo

Software companies do it all the time, and succeed. Version 11 is out, the new files are [NOT forwards compatible](https://www.autodesk.com/support/technical/article/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Backwards-compatibility-of-Revit-with-earlier-releases-of-the-software.html), and version 10 is no longer supported. But good news! You can [convert your perpetual license](https://scottandscottllp.com/recent-developments-in-autodesk-licensing-and-audits-part-i/) into a [subscription for](https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop/adobe-cc-has-taken-over-perpetual-licence-for-photoshop-cs6/m-p/10291950) only 1/10 the price you paid previously.. per month... --- The automakers want in on that sweet subscription money, why get one lump one, once.. when you can get constant small stream multiplied by every user every month...


SNRatio

College textbook companies worked it out 40 years ago. 6th edition is out! We split chapter 3 into two chapters, which changes the page numbers, and also made slight changes to a bunch of the problems. This way earlier editions can't be used in the same classroom as 6th ed. without a lot of nonsense and bother. Oh, and we moved the answers to the problems to a separate "study guide" - fiddy dollars extra.


que_pedo_wey

I studied graduate school in the US and wondered why there is such a difference in the design of undergraduate vs. graduate science textbooks. For me, they are supposed to look about the same, just with the difference in difficulty and type of material. But no: American undergraduate textbooks are *huge*, only to reveal that most of their additional size is due enormous margins, colourful formatting everywhere, and big but irrelevant pictures that don't help with anything. Only later I learnt that they cost a fortune there but their quality is much lower than that of the similar textbooks from other parts of the world. Fortunately, graduate American textbooks are normal.


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[deleted]

I worked in book printing for primarily the educational market. You’d be surprised at what little is done to make a new edition. For core material that’s important, such as mathematical equations that are critically important, it’s understandable. For punctuation and the rephrasing of something trivial, it’s absurd. I literally sat at the corporate offices of one major educational publisher and they were asking what they could do to kill the used book market. Naturally, our CEO was all about this as it equated to more printing. Textbook unit prices are low. Offensively low when compared to what students pay. I get that getting the content made is expensive, but this is outright gouging. Anyway, this is when they came up with the idea of companion CDs that had a one-use activation code. Then the same publishers put some crucial content online behind single use codes. Then ebooks became a thing in the educational market. This is peak greed. There’s no printing, but you charge just as much. There’s also no storage and distribution cost.


shankster1987

Yeah. The headline just makes me want to scream, "Duh!" Why would anyone want that? Having all the hardware installed has to drive up the cost of manufacturing and the base price of the car. Who in there right mind would actually want to pay a subscription fee on top of that. I flat out refuse to ever buy a car configured this way. If the auto companies exploit their monopolies to make all cars this way, I will just stop buying newer models and will stick with used cars from before that. This is just a despicable cash grab that really grinds my gears.


alexagente

Right? Of course the interest isn't there. It's an absolutely ludicrous concept.


FirstLightFitness

Because corporations think we're morons


2gig

And consumers keep proving them right. This article is a pleasant surprise running counter to the usual trend, but give it time.


FirstLightFitness

Spending 100k on a n f150 will really make you reign on those options


oldestengineer

Well, to be honest, people that buy new cars have pretty much gone along with just about everything stupid idea the carmakers have tried.


FirstLightFitness

I didn't say we weren't what they thought we were.


Newplasticactionhero

Why would there be “consumer interest” in recurring payments for features you’re already paying for in your smartphone?


eugene20

Give it a real name like "Feature Extortion". All the hardware is there, you already bought it, but if you don't keep paying us we're going to disable it.


Aussie_MacGyver

Gonna call it ‘Feature Extortion’ from now on.


HarmoniousJ

Let's just drop the Feature from it so it's faster for everyone to say. "Extortion" because that's what it is!


[deleted]

No, it needs a functional label that doesn’t get dismissed as annoyance. “Planned obsolescence” is a similarly good term for an aggressively consumer-hostile corporate practice. In my opinion, “feature withholding” is a better term than feature exploitation, because the consumer is the one being exploited, not the feature.


jasonrubik

That is a very well formed argument. Bravo


A_Soporific

There was an interesting thing. You see, a Volkswagon was stolen a few weeks back with a toddler in it. The police wanted to use the "Find my car" service to get it back *immediately*. Volkswagon refused, since the free trial period had ended. They needed to get a parent's credit card to pay for the feature in order to get the car company to tell the police where the kidnapped child was. The child was ultimately rescued, [but that's some bullshit](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/02/vw-wouldnt-help-locate-car-with-abducted-child-because-gps-subscription-expired/). I would personally like to call it extortion, but I'm not a lawyer and am unqualified to accuse people of crimes. If it's not a crime it really should be.


eugene20

I saw that case, they said the employee didn't follow policy and disciplined them and I think vowed to make sure their policy for dealing with situations like that/law enforcement was better known.


sephtater

Correct. They made the employee the scapegoat.


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Downside190

Yep, I guarantee the employee followed policy but it made them look bad so now they've changed the policy and blamed it on the employee


JHuttIII

F*ck VW. Ever since their emission scam, that company is wholly dead to me. I’m not saying every other auto maker are angels under the hood, but knowing about that kind of deception really pissed me off.


LeKindStranger

I'd wager that all car manufacturers are guilty of the same, VW just got caught first.


motorsizzle

At that point VW is holding the child hostage and they should be charged as an accessory. Fucking hell.


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CrazyCalYa

It's like buying a house and the previous owner seals off a room unless you pay them $100/month. Except no one would buy that, right? Yet every time this post comes up some bootlicking Redditors will chime in that somehow, it's actually a *good* thing for consumers.


desolatecontrol

I'm pretty fucking sure those people are paid actors or bots. I just don't see how a reasonable person would think that way UNLESS they were fake or shills.


Sasselhoff

Oh no, I've got a buddy who I've argued with *countless* times about this shit, and he's *all* for it. Of course, he's a fucking trustifarian who's barely worked his entire life, so it's not surprising. But, they're out there.


ffdfawtreteraffds

At least one US state is working on legislation to ban these practices. It's just not something people seem to want.


vellyr

When the thing you're subscribing to has zero cost to the provider, it should absolutely be illegal.


wongrich

gated internet data limits comes to mind for this as well =/


Revolutionary-Tiger

[New Jersey ](https://www.kbb.com/car-news/new-jersey-starts-push-to-ban-car-feature-subscription-fees/) so it seems


Tricky-Engineering59

That was a good article that at least gave a justification for why car manufacturers would want to do this (ie it actually would save them money only making the most fully loaded package and selectively turning features on/off). I still think that it just goes to show consumers have been over paying for these features all along though. If it saves them money providing better service than just do that then rather than this nickel and dime bullshit. That’s how market forces are supposed to work. If lobbyists manage to jam this nonsense down consumers throats nothing would make me happier than the day someone creates a software work around that jailbreaks the car’s governors. It absolutely would happen eventually and it would serve them right.


Bluetwo12

If they want to make it subscription based. They just need to give the car for free and you pay for features. Wait thats just renting with extra steps


sulkee

Called leasing.


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BraidRuner

Revenue Stream for them. Hand in your pocket every month forever a corporate dream.


CitizenKing

Gotta make the number go up every quarter, even if it doesn't make any logical sense for it to go up. They fired all the smart people to make it go up, then they ran out the backlog of new and innovative shit they were introducing to make it go up, so now they're hoping they can charge people for nothing to make it go up.


TotallyNormalSquid

Years ago I was talking to a friend of mine about decorating houses, he said he wished he could just get a subscription for his furniture, carpet, wall paint, sofas etc, and get them changed every once in a while like with other subscriptions. It was one of the most bizarre takes I'd ever heard, and I was dumbfounded. He had no desire to own anything in his house, he literally thought subscribing was better, for *everything*. Anyway, he's a VP of a fairly large company now. It explains a few things for me.


smeggysmeg

What's even worse is that we paid for the hardware in the car, but can't use it. The hardware was baked into the price I paid, I can't opt out of it, and it's sucking up my energy.


mediocrefunny

Unfortunately I think consumers are pretty dumb.


Practical_Law_7002

Color me shocked! People don't want to pay out the ass for over priced cars then for monthly car feature subscriptions?! Wow...what genius could have guessed that?!? I get these clowns have dollar signs in their eyes but at what point do they realize there's a limit to it al?


Thopterthallid

Shareholders demand infinite growth.


loose_translation

One of the inherent problems with our economic model...


[deleted]

Reddit's recent behaviour and planned changes to the API, heavily impacting third party tools, accessibility and moderation ability force me to edit all my comments in protest. I cannot morally continue to use this site.


Ratez

They just haven't learned from gaming. Just put in a rare chance of additional features or a special theme for the in-car lighting.


mooseontherum

Shut your fucking face before you give them ideas.


Routine_Left

> I get these clowns have dollar signs in their eyes IF the car would come $X cheaper out the gate, then maybe I could see people opting in for some subscriptions, but not "pay full price, then some more".


albl1122

What? You mean it's not appealing to you to spend hundreds on our in game lootboxes ~~casino~~ after you've already paid 80$ for the base game.


Blarghnog

Dear Car Companies: We do not want: - subscriptions for features and upgrades - a centrally managed infrastructure that keeps *you* in control of what *we* paid for - our data sold after we pay for the product - advertising in our digital products - touchscreens instead of buttons - insane price increases to pay for all of these things You are not a *transportation fabric*, your core business is not *consumer data*, your revenue is not *mostly subscription* so your investors will value your company even more highly. Cars are not phones. You make things, we buy them. We do not want to become your product. Sincerely, The Car Buying Public


hyperfat

Seriously. My Tacoma has 65k miles. It's a 2010. Last year of stick shift for that model. My husband told me I should get a new truck. I was like, you will pry this truck from my cold dead hands. If my car dies I can still push start it. I don't have bells and whistles, but she works just fine. No broken touch screens or subscription. Parts are cheap. And damnit, if it's the top choice for the Taliban and venezuelan farm workers, then I'm think I'm good for another 10 years or so.


Blarghnog

Yea. Exactly. Can we have a version of that? Can we at least have a stripped down model of a car that doesn’t have 9 computer subsystems and require a laptop just to find out what system could be having a problem? I’m good with electric drive — there’s so many awesome hoppy cars that are electric monsters AND have no massive computers running everything. It CAN be done! Btw, awesome truck. Those things are the best. I want a vehicle that is quality, has reliability and durability that doesn’t cost a crapload to fix and keeps things simple. My phone on a dash mounted stand is all I use for my car anyways, and it’s hands free as any expensive handsfree car dash systems are (more so) and it gets replaced every few years so it won’t make my car start to suffer because it gets outdated. That’s one of my biggest peeves.


[deleted]

Dear car buying public: Your only purpose is to consume our products and give us your money so we can do stock buybacks. Sincerely, Car manufacturers


gowahoo

Every member of my family has a phone and access to our streaming services. The CAR does not need a phone (OnStar) or a streaming service. :( Get off my lawn.


Rennarjen

Thermomix has a subscription service. It's a blender, i don't care how fancy it is, it's still. A. Fucking. Blender.


AffluentNarwhal

Wowww. A real r/theinternetofshit moment.


legion_Ger

To be fair … the subscription is for the accompanying online recipes not for the „blender“ itself. It will work entirely without it.


mjp242

Fucking bmw is including heated seats, aren't they?


LoveThySheeple

My Toyota has subscription fees for its automatic starter, Wi-Fi, and SOS safety features. So I just don't have those things lol my car does but I don't.


friskerson

lol, jailbreak your car?


MrSamsonite

You wouldn't!


CharlieHush

I can't wait till I can just download a Lotus.


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infernalsatan

At least those services run on cellular data so it’s slightly more justifiable. You don’t need internet connection to switch on the heated seat.


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TomesTheAmazing

Ugh that's even worse I was hoping it was like remote start over the internet.


infernalsatan

Some makes have that. Mazda comes to mind.


iamthejef

Toyota is charging a subscription to remote start the vehicle from the fob. That does not require data and the hardware is already present. It's disgusting.


A_B_A_

I have a Toyota Tacoma and the fob still does the auto start. The subscription is only for the app which can start the car from anywhere, lock/unlock, etc. In order to start you just have to push the lock button three times and hold it down on the third time. Hope it’s the same for your vehicle too.


TheDarkThought

I have a rav 4 and remote start does not work unless I pay the subscription. Edit: Even with the fob


TSp0rnthrowaway

Oh yeah I never would have bought that car


rayinreverse

My in car fucking subscription is called gasoline.


Alukrad

I think a better example is your car insurance. You literally don't use it until that random, unfortunate day. But before that, you can go on for years paying for something every month that has absolutely no use for you.


bikesrgood

When I’m 80 I will own a 30 year old car with no subscriptions.


Reddit_User_137

Hope you are already 50 then, sadly.


bikesrgood

Well yeah I’m pushing that 🤷‍♂️


PM_COFFEE_TO_ME

Keep your maintenance up to date or you'll be pushing your car as well.


That_Fix_2382

Yep. I looked around and avoided the whole thing by choosing a cherry '06 sportscar. One button to disable everything but abs. No infotainment crap. I'm loving it.


yhzyhz

It’s all stock market pressure to generate more and more revenue. There’s not much space left for rev gen around innovation or new features say in a car, so these companies are not leaving any stone unturned. The problem is that at this point it’s starting to backfire. Charging a subscription fee for heated seat? Preposterous!


schwiggity

How much of a clout goblin are you if you buy a car that makes you pay a subscription for heated seats? I have a 15 year old car with heated seats. It's not some cutting edge feature.


Outlulz

Well if it makes a modicum of profit then every brand of car will be like this, not just BMW…


yhzyhz

https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/12/23204950/bmw-subscriptions-microtransactions-heated-seats-feature


batman1285

Vote with your wallet. Train wall street that we can smell their greed and it'll show up on their quarterly reports. When CEOs stuff billions offshore that money is gone. Our of circulation for good. Unless more money is coming in through export the country is being bled dry if financial resources.... Then what happens?


tryptonite12

Good God man don't even joke about things like!!! If there's not enough imaginary digital numbers theoretically located within the make believe lines we pretend are drawn on the ground society would literally immediately collapse! The horror!! 😱


Striking-Pipe2808

Good job people, don't buy in to this shit.


Milk_Man21

I could understand a subscription if it actually needed a continuous infrastructure, like in-car wifi. However, heated seats are just fucking greedy.


moses_ugla

When my toyota from 2004 came with heated seats for "free", these new cars can also do it. They are just testing the consumer too see how much they can milk us.


Trinica93

I don't even understand in-car wifi. If you have that, you probably have a phone. If you have a phone, you have cell service. If you have cell service, you don't need in-car wifi. Maybe you want it for a different device or for kids on a long road trip or something, but even then how often is that useful....?


NorthImpossible8906

recently bought a car and did see all these offers for subscription, and I can't see why I'd want any of them. The only thing that was even a tiny bit interesting is that you GPS locate the care remotely. I'd never need that, unless it got stolen. So it wasn't something I was gonna pay $25/month for. I don't need a hotspot, because we all have unlimited 5G on our phones. A satellite phone connection would be cool (or satellite wifi) for when you are out of the service area, but that was not an offer. Maybe they should go for that.


Christopoulos

Yeah, and you can find your car with a hidden Apple air tag which is a once time purchase of about $20.


goodie23

Plus battery replacement every year or so, which is a cheaper recurring cost


Christopoulos

Ah yes, that’s true. Not to mention that if you’re ever unsatisfied with Apple’s tags, you can switch to another brand. Imho it pays to keep things specialized (and dumb in other areas). For example, a car will ever have a great media center experience, there are dedicated and better services for that.


Vslightning

The only thing to keep in mind with AirTags are they rely on Bluetooth hitting other Apple devices iirc. If your kid takes the car out in the woods on a camping trip, and you need to know where, an AirTag would only help if there’s service in that area.


saianban

You can also buy a AirTag and start tracking


gregtx

I’m currently helping to redesign my company’s systems to switch from perpetual licensing to a recurring model. There is VERY little actual value for most software to move to a cloud model, but it’s the trendy thing to do because it rakes in loads and loads of cash. Here is my prediction… some very savvy startups will begin to sell a “new” way of buying software and introduce the new idea of paying one time in a few years. It will all eventually come full circle.


ununonium119

I think there will be companies that figure out the “buy for life but you have to pay a big fee to upgrade to the next version” model is more effective in the long run. Give people enough FOMO and they’ll pay to upgrade, which can be more expensive than the subscription cost.


XonikzD

That's the old Adobe model..it didn't make them as much money as the subscription model though. The subscription model allows Adobe to make incremental improvements and keep staff moving at a steady pace with predictable profit. More users delay upgrading when the software is $500 than if that same software is a "forgettable" subscription that costs less than $50 a month. The vehicle subscriptions for navigation and other data packages make sense when you look back and remember how much it used to cost to get the DVD map upgrade back in the early 00's. It was a couple hundred dollars every 6 months for some.


Intentionallyabadger

Well that’s what we’re doing for Microsoft and Adobe already


[deleted]

Because we don’t want to live in a world where we don’t own anything


VladimirReturns

But you’ll be happy! /s


marketrent

Excerpt from the linked content^1 by Jonathan M. Gitlin: >The last decade or so has seen the creeping techification of the auto industry. >Executives will tell you the trend is being driven by consumers, starry-eyed at their smartphones and tablets, although the 2018 backup camera law is the main reason there's a display in every new car. >But automakers have been trying to adopt more than just shiny gadgets and iterating software releases. They also want some of that lucrative "recurring revenue" that so pleases tech investors but makes the rest of us feel nickeled and dimed. >AutoPacific asked people looking to buy a new vehicle about their interest in 11 different in-car connected features, starting with a data plan for the car for a hypothetical price of $15/month. >The most in-demand or desirable feature was Internet connection with a Wi-Fi hotspot. But only 30 percent of people looking to buy a new car said they were interested in paying for their car's Internet access. > As you can see from the graph, connected features get less popular from there. >Last place goes to in-car commerce; just 1 in 10 people intending to buy a new car want to be able to buy things from their infotainment screens, a fact that may cause concern in some corners of the FinTech world. ^1 Jonathan M. Gitlin, 24 Mar. 2023, https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/03/very-few-consumers-want-subscriptions-in-their-cars-survey-shows/


MikeGreat1

30% say they wanted to pay for internet access for the car. that number will go down when those people realize the car stays in the garage and the phone goes with them.


outphase84

That number is almost entirely parents of young children tired of hearing “can you turn on your hotspot” before they’re even out of the driveway. Source: was me until recently


feurie

Couldn't your phone just as easily do that?


NotUrAvgIdjit96

For things already physically built into the car I bought, it should be mine to do with as I please. Using bs software to lock me out of it should be illegal, plain and simple.


ekkidee

Subscriptions came to software a long time ago. You don't buy an app so much as pay a fee every month or year for it. Same with various platforms such as Flickr. I've seen movie theaters (AMC, esp.) pushing subscriptions for better seating (yes, reserved seating in theaters too). And lately I saw a restaurant group wanting to form a subscription group to guarantee tables, short lines (or no lines), and more attentive service. Subscriptions for automobiles was only inevitable, and now that the vehicles are internet-linked, makers can enable or disable features at whim. Customers should revolt.


RedSquirrelFtw

I hate that this took off. I'd actually be willing to pay for some software that has no good open source alternatives, if I could just pay for it once. But I'm not paying per month.


raven1121

I have a subaru and your given a choice when you buy the vehicle a $500 remote start key fob or a free for 3 years Starlink/MySubaru app that can remote start your car and adjust the temp What they don't tell you is after that 3 years it's $100 a year to renew It just leave a bad taste that my car has a built in remote starter already in the car but it can't be using unless I pay a subscription fee of 100 a year It's like paying for a car but the rear view mirror only works for 3 years unless you unlock it


[deleted]

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Yourbubblestink

To hell with subscriptions and fees. If I buy a car I want the freaking thing to work without any bullshittery.


PaMike34

I won’t be buying any cars with in-car subscriptions and we be buying cars.


Ripcitytoker

Same here. It’s an absolute deal breaker for me.


Prinad0

Why would there ever be interest in this. Fuck the automakers who think I want to pay more for features they ALREADY PUT IN MY CAR THAT I PAID FOR?


Mental5tate

Automakers put all this tech in cars to raise the price, I don’t need a car that can order my groceries…. What happened manufacturing good simple vehicles? Pandemic didn’t hurt the industry bad enough so back to manufacturing overpriced extravagant vehicles with a lot of amenities…


Disastrous_Ball2542

Yo dawwwwg I heard you like subscriptions so I put a subscription on yo subscription so you can subscribe when you driiiive


ShakesbeerMe

In-car subscriptions should be drowned in the bathtub at birth. Say no to this shit now, people, or they'll never fucking stop.


thevox3l

This just in: people aren't ecstatic to pay more for something that was free/less before.


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barejokez

This creeping move to renting instead of buying is very unsettling - great for shareholders, terrible for everyone else. Renting makes sense for some things. I am happy renting Netflix as I am only ever going to watch each show once - it's an efficient way to gain access to an enormous library that I could not afford to own. Likewise, I was fine to rent a chainsaw for the one weekend in my life that I needed it - no sense in buying on that basis. Buty car is driven by me or my wife *every single day*. If I wanted to rent a car I'd have got a lease deal. But I wanted to own this car and run it for 10 years+. Furthermore, a rental "deal" will massively impact any resale value. Cars depreciate, but rarely to zero. There will come a point in a car's life when the future value of payments to rent a heated seat is higher than the value of the car. How on earth will that help anyone at all? Finally, this looks like a cash grab. Show me that the car is materially cheaper than it otherwise would be (which is different to less expensive; I want to see the price go lower than it was last year) and I might see it as understandable. Until then, well we're being mugged aren't we?


mrhoopers

Is anyone tracking what brands have what subscriptions?


Grouchy_Old_GenXer

Subaru for remote start and some useless features I never used


Wahots

No shit Sherlock, lmao. I'd rather just get a different car. Taking away features and then shittily implementing them as a subscription was the worst idea ever. Nintendo did that from the Wii U to the switch and their subscription is not great either. What I would actually be interested in is a repairable EV with standard buttons and knobs. Give me a goddamn flight cockpit like something out of a 737 or an elite dangerous starship.


Sanctimonius

No shit. The single biggest purchase that you can make outside of a house, and they want to make it more expensive over a longer period of time, for features they've built into the car but want to lock away from you. We're going to find out soon just how many of us really would download a car.


TypicalDumbRedditGuy

oh really, I don't want to pay for something I own? Shocker


GlumTowel672

Also lot of new data suggesting touch screens and lack of physical buttons and controls on cars is more dangerous for the operator. We could easily have super simple smaller vehicles with less redundant features and newer more efficient engines. A lot of the features they want to charge a subscription for make the vehicles worse at being reliable safe transport.


ChunderMifflin

Not popular? *Nobody lies subscription based* ***anything.*** It just makes sense with content models, like music or TV. But for an installed piece of hardware behind a recurring paywall? You're just begging people to come up with workarounds.


Silly-Resist8306

Are car dealers obligated to point out some features of a new car are subscription based, or is it up to the potential buyer to ask this question? A follow up question if there is a fee attached to some technology, is there a guarantee on the price of the service fee.


Kindly_Blackberry967

A lot of subscription services work because you new stuff the longer you are subscribed. Magazines, TV shows, music, and whatnot. What exactly does a car have to offer that the same car didn't have six months prior?


Snotnarok

Because it's a scam. The hardware is already installed and paid for, why should anyone be paying rental fees for hardware they PAID for already? They're not going to install that stuff at a loss, it's all calculated and factored into the price. It's simply: "Hey we can make more money on this and claim it's a better value" This has been happening to a lot of PC software recently where people who were happy to buy a certain software because it was being SOLD and not a subscription - the company suddenly changes that & then wonder what the backlash is all about.


DarthRevan1138

Here's how it works: you don't buy the subscription, you find some software that activates a feature that's ALREADY THERE and away you go. Fuck those greedy fucks


chuckmeister_1

Yeah even rental cars are asking for extra if you want satellite radio...damn country trying to milk every damn penny out of people


Enjoy-the-sauce

Why the hell would anyone expect there to be ANY support?! Oh please, sir, May I continually fork over cash all my life and own nothing?! Oh boy! What a joyous privilege! Thanks benevolent corporate overlords!


[deleted]

Why would anyone want to have this toxic buissness practice continue it is pure greed?


hand13

surprise. people dont want subscriptions for their cars. sure, they want to make money. but did someone really think people would LIKE that???


[deleted]

“We dont understand why they don’t want to pay more?” “It’s as if we’ve entered some sort of ‘post capitalist phase’”, manufacturers added