It is a common opinion in this thread that it is unethical to charge for enabling a feature that only needs the local communication between a key fob and a car.

It is a common opinion in this thread that it is unethical to charge for enabling a feature that only needs the local communication between a key fob and a car. And that it is fine if there is a cloud in-between, such as remote start from a smartphone, because it has maintenance costs. If majority of the car buyers agree with this distinction, it would simply create an incentive to route more communication through the cloud. Besides, this option makes tracking and control easier. I would argue that the maintaining a server does not have a substantial difference that singles it out from the other work that a car maker does to support the car owners: downloads of manuals, managing recalls, parts inventory, etc. Subscription business model has no place here.