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What should happen if the car owner modifies their firmware to enable heated seats and a longer vehicle range? After all, it’s their property to do with as they

What should happen if the car owner modifies their firmware to enable heated seats and a longer vehicle range? After all, it’s their property to do with as they like - otherwise they’re just renting. Then what should happen if they tell others how to perform the same modification? What then, if everyone starts buying the cheaper SKU because they knew they can do a soft-unlock soon after they accept delivery? It just seems scummy to sell the same hardware to people at different price-points and enable/disable functionality purely in software - because the hardware is yours - you paid for it - the only reason you can’t use it to it’s fullest extent is a bunch of bits in a flash chip inside your car. The fact it was willingly sold to you at a lower means it’s very likely anything else paid on-top is just pure-profit. It’s difficult to morally justify withholding heated seats to a buyer (esp. one in a cold climate) simply because they didn’t give you more profit even though you willingly sold them the hardware capable of doing that. It’s just about disrespecting the customer, plain and simple.

AlexandrB 7y ago
> It’s difficult to morally justify withholding heated seats to a buyer (esp. one in a cold climate) simply because they didn’t give you more profit even though you willingly sold them the hardware capable of doing that. This is exactly right. To flip the “you got what you paid for” argument on its head, the manufacturer willingly sold me this hardware at the agreed-upon price and shouldn’t complain if I enable “extra” functionality using non-manufacturer-approves means. Unfortunately, companies that engage in this business practice want it both ways.
- kjksf 7y ago
  To my knowledge, this hasn't happened with Tesla cars and therefore Tesla didn't complain and therefore you can't claim that Tesla "wants it both ways".
  - FireBeyond 7y ago
    Tesla absolutely HAS complained and retaliated against similar customers. A car owner discovered the "existence" of the 3 by poking around in the firmware. Tesla's response was to 1) downgrade his firmware to a version that had no reference to the 3, 2) disable future firmware updates for that vehicle, and 3) for a final fuck-you, disabled his vehicle's Ethernet port, too.
    - cheerlessbog 7y ago
      And this company has loyal fans?

AlexandrB 7y ago

> It’s difficult to morally justify withholding heated seats to a buyer (esp. one in a cold climate) simply because they didn’t give you more profit even though you willingly sold them the hardware capable of doing that. This is exactly right. To flip the “you got what you paid for” argument on its head, the manufacturer willingly sold me this hardware at the agreed-upon price and shouldn’t complain if I enable “extra” functionality using non-manufacturer-approves means. Unfortunately, companies that engage in this business practice want it both ways.

kjksf 7y ago
To my knowledge, this hasn't happened with Tesla cars and therefore Tesla didn't complain and therefore you can't claim that Tesla "wants it both ways".
- FireBeyond 7y ago
  Tesla absolutely HAS complained and retaliated against similar customers. A car owner discovered the "existence" of the 3 by poking around in the firmware. Tesla's response was to 1) downgrade his firmware to a version that had no reference to the 3, 2) disable future firmware updates for that vehicle, and 3) for a final fuck-you, disabled his vehicle's Ethernet port, too.
  - cheerlessbog 7y ago
    And this company has loyal fans?