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If there are enough customers like you these offerings will exist. If not, you‘re just trying to force your world view on others…

MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
What if the majority of customers have my view but manufacturers realize they can extract more money from us by not giving us a choice?
- EarthLaunch 4y ago
  That incentivizes customers to shift to a significantly different alternative. For instance, a less car-centric life. In a way, forcing cars to be bearable helps reinforce their influence. (Quality road repair, extra consumer protection, no liability for deaths, etc.)
  - ehnto 4y ago
    People will just lease cars even if it doesn't align with their world view, because many of us live in car-centric cities where that would not be a sensible hill to die on. Just like many of us pay an amount of rent that no longer feels fair, because taking a morale high ground and not doing so would leave us homeless.
  - CatWChainsaw 4y ago
    That will be a hard sell in the US outside of urban areas.
  - msrenee 4y ago
    So let car companies run roughshod over consumers because you don't like cars? I'm glad you're in a situation where you have another option besides driving a personal vehicle. I'm not. I didn't build this stretched out chunk of suburb with no safe way to get anywhere on foot, so don't punish me for it.
  - Test0129 4y ago
    Supposing this was even possible, that enough people banded together and said "enough with cars" and decided to change the way of life, it would take several decades, maybe even a century, to turn a town that is primarily driven to a town that is primarily walked. It's not practical and everyone knows this. The utility of cars is too much to be simply tossed away. Imagine how hard visiting the mountains would be without one. Perhaps a more metropolitan person could live with just seeing pictures but I am an outdoorsman and this idea actually causes significant existential concern. The solution is to make obviously anti-consumer behavior illegal in the same way we make monopolies illegal. Companies should build usable, fixable things. Planned obsolescence, subscription car services, etc are all a way they exploit this position they have. The free market would ideally fix this but given that it's very well known every car manufacturer is in bed with each other once one adopts this exploitative behavior the rest will surely follow. MRR is extremely desirable. Since it's not tenable for at the very least our generation to experience a less car-free life why not try to fix the thing causing the problem and THEN solve the greater problem?
davemp 4y ago
There is historical precedent for those with power forcing leases on the general population (lords and peasants).
msrenee 4y ago
These offerings exist now, but have you tried to buy a vehicle outright in the last 10 years? At least half the salespeople I spoke to when I was looking for my truck would not even tell me the sales price of the the used vehicles on their lot. They wanted to know how much I could pay per month. Seriously. They used every sales tactic they could drum up to hide the price of the truck they were selling. Is that not a bit terrifying to you? How is wanting to know the actual cost of a big purchase and being able to purchase it outright "forcing your world view on others"? If you want to constantly be paying on a lease, that's your own problem. Don't act like expecting to actually own the thing I'm paying thousands of dollars for is unreasonable and somehow inhibits others from from using subscription models for everything under the sun.
Test0129 4y ago
I think that this is a form of exploitation by car manufacturers to be honest. Consider that ownership can be expensive and so charging subscriptions with walled gardens and lock-ins makes sense for lower income consumers. You might think this is a good pro-consumer thing to have. I don't believe so. There is no reason for example a manufacturer should be able to cajole another $40/mo. out of me for heating or cooling. Or $20 for their "radio station package", or any other thing they can imagine. Sure, you could argue Tesla's performance upgrade model might not be anti-consumer in the sense that they save money building one engine/one car and the consumer gets in at a level they can afford. But what is stopping them from pushing this further? Engine mileage fees? The point is that often times the average consumer is not considering the choices they make 5, 10, 15 years down the road. That doesn't mean it's okay for this position to be exploited, it means we need to educate people on their rights including the right to ownership and repair and do what we can to stop the exploitation of the cattle class. I have no idea why I can't have an unlocked phone with most carriers, or a gaming system that I can install what I want on, etc. I have no idea why most computers built today use soldered on components so I have to go to the them for repair. At the end of the day I don't like not owning things. When my entire life is determined by a list of dozens or even hundreds of subscriptions I am simply a meat machine that converts calories into corporate profits. Rent for an apartment because all of the houses are bought up is yet another way they keep you on the treadmill. If you own nothing you have no control. If you have no control your position is easily exploited. We need to fight tooth and nail to maintain control and ownership of everything we have.
npteljes 4y ago
No, demand will not translate to supply. The first priority of producers is not to satisfy demand, but to retain and gain power. On the demand side, what people really need doesn't translate perfectly to market demand. The imperfections of these sides won't create a system that satisfies the participants. What I'm trying to get at is the phenomenon of market failure. From the supply side, history saw countless examples when this happened; think of any cartel and monopoly.

MonkeyMalarky 4y ago

What if the majority of customers have my view but manufacturers realize they can extract more money from us by not giving us a choice?

EarthLaunch 4y ago
That incentivizes customers to shift to a significantly different alternative. For instance, a less car-centric life. In a way, forcing cars to be bearable helps reinforce their influence. (Quality road repair, extra consumer protection, no liability for deaths, etc.)
- ehnto 4y ago
  People will just lease cars even if it doesn't align with their world view, because many of us live in car-centric cities where that would not be a sensible hill to die on. Just like many of us pay an amount of rent that no longer feels fair, because taking a morale high ground and not doing so would leave us homeless.
- CatWChainsaw 4y ago
  That will be a hard sell in the US outside of urban areas.
- msrenee 4y ago
  So let car companies run roughshod over consumers because you don't like cars? I'm glad you're in a situation where you have another option besides driving a personal vehicle. I'm not. I didn't build this stretched out chunk of suburb with no safe way to get anywhere on foot, so don't punish me for it.
- Test0129 4y ago
  Supposing this was even possible, that enough people banded together and said "enough with cars" and decided to change the way of life, it would take several decades, maybe even a century, to turn a town that is primarily driven to a town that is primarily walked. It's not practical and everyone knows this. The utility of cars is too much to be simply tossed away. Imagine how hard visiting the mountains would be without one. Perhaps a more metropolitan person could live with just seeing pictures but I am an outdoorsman and this idea actually causes significant existential concern. The solution is to make obviously anti-consumer behavior illegal in the same way we make monopolies illegal. Companies should build usable, fixable things. Planned obsolescence, subscription car services, etc are all a way they exploit this position they have. The free market would ideally fix this but given that it's very well known every car manufacturer is in bed with each other once one adopts this exploitative behavior the rest will surely follow. MRR is extremely desirable. Since it's not tenable for at the very least our generation to experience a less car-free life why not try to fix the thing causing the problem and THEN solve the greater problem?

davemp 4y ago

There is historical precedent for those with power forcing leases on the general population (lords and peasants).

msrenee 4y ago

These offerings exist now, but have you tried to buy a vehicle outright in the last 10 years? At least half the salespeople I spoke to when I was looking for my truck would not even tell me the sales price of the the used vehicles on their lot. They wanted to know how much I could pay per month. Seriously. They used every sales tactic they could drum up to hide the price of the truck they were selling. Is that not a bit terrifying to you? How is wanting to know the actual cost of a big purchase and being able to purchase it outright "forcing your world view on others"? If you want to constantly be paying on a lease, that's your own problem. Don't act like expecting to actually own the thing I'm paying thousands of dollars for is unreasonable and somehow inhibits others from from using subscription models for everything under the sun.

Test0129 4y ago

I think that this is a form of exploitation by car manufacturers to be honest. Consider that ownership can be expensive and so charging subscriptions with walled gardens and lock-ins makes sense for lower income consumers. You might think this is a good pro-consumer thing to have. I don't believe so. There is no reason for example a manufacturer should be able to cajole another $40/mo. out of me for heating or cooling. Or $20 for their "radio station package", or any other thing they can imagine. Sure, you could argue Tesla's performance upgrade model might not be anti-consumer in the sense that they save money building one engine/one car and the consumer gets in at a level they can afford. But what is stopping them from pushing this further? Engine mileage fees? The point is that often times the average consumer is not considering the choices they make 5, 10, 15 years down the road. That doesn't mean it's okay for this position to be exploited, it means we need to educate people on their rights including the right to ownership and repair and do what we can to stop the exploitation of the cattle class. I have no idea why I can't have an unlocked phone with most carriers, or a gaming system that I can install what I want on, etc. I have no idea why most computers built today use soldered on components so I have to go to the them for repair. At the end of the day I don't like not owning things. When my entire life is determined by a list of dozens or even hundreds of subscriptions I am simply a meat machine that converts calories into corporate profits. Rent for an apartment because all of the houses are bought up is yet another way they keep you on the treadmill. If you own nothing you have no control. If you have no control your position is easily exploited. We need to fight tooth and nail to maintain control and ownership of everything we have.

npteljes 4y ago

No, demand will not translate to supply. The first priority of producers is not to satisfy demand, but to retain and gain power. On the demand side, what people really need doesn't translate perfectly to market demand. The imperfections of these sides won't create a system that satisfies the participants. What I'm trying to get at is the phenomenon of market failure. From the supply side, history saw countless examples when this happened; think of any cartel and monopoly.