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I can somewhat understand the logic of charging me a recurring fee for a service that costs the provider a recurring cost, gets regular improvements, and where

I can somewhat understand the logic of charging me a recurring fee for a service that costs the provider a recurring cost, gets regular improvements, and where data is maintained. TV/sat radio? Ok (not that I would buy that). Remote tracking / start? Why not. Internet access in the car? Sure. Satellite maps with updates? Maybe. I would hope that given how much you charge me for the product, these come included, but MRR right? But the idea of charging a recurring fee for something that's already in the car? Heated seats? Remote start with a fob? That's blackmail-powered greed. As far as I see it, that's the manufacturer's version of protection racket. If you stop paying them, then they're remotely breaking your car. Just because they planted a mole in it. Just because they can. This is so f-ed up beyond grasp. The good thing is that they have the right lobbies, so that won't ever be changed by customer protection. I wasn't surprised that BMW, Tesla or Ford would do something like that. But for whatever stupid reason, Toyota is a disappointment, because I thought they would be part of a few manufacturers not playing that game

cma 4y ago
> I wasn't surprised that BMW, Tesla or Ford would do something like that. But for whatever stupid reason, Toyota is a disappointment, because I thought they would be part of a few manufacturers not playing that game I didn't think Sony would follow Microsoft in charging a subscription for online play, but they pretty much had to because buyers didn't weight the hidden costs of it appropriately and Microsoft was already doing it giving them a big margin advantage (which could bleed over into marketshare advantage by investing it in marketing and exclusive titles).
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
  But Sony is already charging others for everything. Just to appear on PS4 bar, you have to pay a premium. I sincerely doubt, they were bleeding money ( unlike MS at the beginning of Xbox ) providing free online play. In fact, it was their differentiator.
- everdrive 4y ago
  >I didn't think Sony would follow Microsoft in charging a subscription for online play, This is explicitly why I'd never buy a PS5, and really didn't touch PS4 except to play Bloodborne. All digital services seem to eventually become anti-consumer. You become reliant on the service, the service keeps changing for the worse or becoming more expensive, and it becomes harder and harder for the user to extricate themselves from it. Even in cases where it's easy to step away from a service, it almost always either degrades over time, or else morphs into something you don't have any interest in. It's like a ticking clock. You can't even enjoy this product because you know it's totally ephemeral. Eventually it will be worse than it was, exploit you in some way, or price you out of it. There are a few exceptions here, but they are rare, and I suspect they are still going to go extinct at some point as well, they will merely take longer.
chrisseaton 4y ago
> That's blackmail-powered greed. I really don't get people's revulsion to this model. As long as you know the deal up front, what is the ethical issue? How can it ever be 'greed' or 'blackmail' to offer a service or product (a luxury one at that)? Do your sums and then either the total cost is worth it to you or it isn't. Why does the payment model get people so riled up?
- neogodless 4y ago
  > As long as you know the deal up front I suspect this is... not always the case. > I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further There isn't much from stopping the manufacturers from changing the "up front" deal under this model. (Unless it becomes egregious enough to become illegal.) We'd like to get out in front of this and stop it from getting to that point.
  - chrisseaton 4y ago
    So is all the anger in this thread based on a hypothetical that they might break their contract? If it's an ongoing payment they're actually incentivised to not do that!
    - omniglottal 4y ago
      No, the contract is already broken when what is purchased is not owned.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - chrisseaton 4y ago
        That’s not what the article says - they aren’t going back on features you already purchased. It’s for new purchases only. They aren’t breaking any contracts.
        4y ago
sokoloff 4y ago
Is the objection to the turning a one-time payment into a series of monthly payments? Or is the actual objection that the net present value of those monthly payments is too high? If you want to turn something that used to cost me $400 one-time into a subscription that costs me $1.49/mo, I'll be happy that you've offered me the subscription and will buy it in subscription form. Charge $9.99/mo for that same subscription and I'll be incensed.
- ARandumGuy 4y ago
  The objection is, if I own a car, then the car manufacturer shouldn't be able to disable functionality. If I buy a car with heated seats, I should be able to use them as much as I want, and the manufacturer should have no control over that. The cost concern is secondary to losing control of devices that we ostensibly own.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    I agree, provided the purchase arrangement of the car included the perpetual (at least until it broke) heated seats functionality. If the car was instead sold/bought with the heated seats as a subscription, I don’t see any problem with them being, well, a subscription.
    - mattnewton 4y ago
      The problem is that, since subscriptions are more profitable and look better to accounting, soon I may no long be able to get that deal of buying basic functionality of my car upfront. It’s the classic subsidized printer gouged ink model, except it’s entirely artificial here (no new ink is being shipped to me, the printer is just turning on or not) for increased profits and hiding the trust cost to the customer. Strong and broad consumer rejection is the only recourse for people not being ripped off by turning what was an owned asset into a rental through this method of cost hiding, which is why I think people are being worked up.
- philodelta 4y ago
  When my cars basic functions stop working I'd rather it be that they're actually broken, not that I've lapsed on payments. I agree that it's definitely a matter of degrees, there are a finite number of months in the useful lifetime of a vehicle so for the right price it might be preferable, I just usually drive a vehicle for as long as possible. All that being said, aren't we all tired of unnecessary monthly subscriptions? Not to mention the fact that there's the predatory implication they simply hope you forget you're paying.
vasco 4y ago
This is less to do with blackmail than to do with optimising manufacturing. It is cheaper for manufacurers to produce all the cars with the same heated seats, but not allow you to use them if you don't pay the recurring charge (as long as enough % of customers opt-in), than to manufacture two versions of the car, one with the seats and one without, just so that you can feel like you aren't being blackmailed. You should forget about what the car "has" and consider if the price makes sense for the features you get access to. This is for example how CPUs and GPUs are sold, and many other products. Consumers usually find it odd that they have the exact same specs (and smart consumers can enable those features for free), but it does provide for lower costs for manufacturing, which dictate how everything else works.
- jen20 4y ago
  > You should forget about what the car "has" and consider if the price makes sense for the features you get access to. Absolutely not: manufacturers should forget about having their cake and eating it too.
  - omniglottal 4y ago
    The price of $0 for powering up existing hardware in a car I purchased for $X makes sense. Anything over $0 does not. Seems pretty clear.
- MAGZine 4y ago
  maybe this is supposed to make me feel better, but installing features that will never be used (e.g. heating elements in the seats) just makes me mad re: waste. It's not a digital asset that costs nothing to produce/host/sustain. These are raw materials, refined, that will someday end up in a landfill.
  - kkirsche 4y ago
    This bothers me because those raw materials and byproducts of manufacturing still get either used or produced. So this seems like a net negative for the planet when there have been pushes to reform the impact this industry in particular has on the environment.
reaperducer 4y ago
Remote tracking / start? Why not. Remote start does not require a subscription or the internet. We've had remote start for at least half a century with just a keyfob. Satellite maps with updates? Maybe. Does not require a subscription or the internet. My car's satnav is updated via a USB. $200 from the dealer, but is completely optional. Maybe I do it once every five years. Maybe never. I don't need up-to-the-second maps of hiking trails 4,000 miles away from a place my car will never visit. Moreover, the last time I looked into updating via USB, there was a community online that had instructions for doing it for free with data, I think from Garmin. The MBAs want us to believe we are required to be tethered to recurring charges for the rest of our lives. With very few exceptions (electricity, water, etc.) we aren't.
- natch 4y ago
  Live traffic data has been useful for me.
hammock 4y ago
How is charging a recurring fee for these products any worse than a car lease, which also charges a recurring fee for use of a product? (Thought experiment, don’t downvote me just because)
- simonebrunozzi 4y ago
  No downvote needed, it's a genuine question, and I'll try to answer based on my view. Leasing is just a different form of buying the car, in a sense. Yes, the contract/agreement is not equivalent to a purchase, but in essence what you are doing is transforming a set of unknowns (will I have to repair my car twice in the first three years? How much will I spend? How many kilometers will I drive?) with more known quantities ($X/month, Y miles per year included, etc), and you don't have to pay the car upfront, but pay a monthly installment. (approximation, give me some rope here). Instead, paying a monthly fee to heat my car seats is an aberration of the economic model. It doesn't make any sense, from a customer perspective. Of course, we are all moving towards a subscription economy, and most customers will simply be royally f*cked up by that, and regulation/government will turn the other way in most cases. Good luck to us.
  - hammock 4y ago
    An alternative would be to simply sell a car with or without heated seats, at two different prices. This is how it was done. The subscription model gives the customer more flexibility, since if she changes her mind about wanting heated seats halfway through ownership, she can cancel and won't have to pay the full price of the heated seats option. Or vice versa - if she decides she wants heated seats, she can turn them on more easily with a subscription than going somewhere and getting them aftermarket installed.
lr1970 4y ago
> I wasn't surprised that BMW, Tesla or Ford would do something like that. Sorry to be pedantic, but it was GM not Ford mentioned in the article.
gamblor956 4y ago
Heated car seats actually makes sense to put on a subscription model for customers. It means that those of us in generally warm states like CA can opt-in to heated seats for the month or two we spend doing winter sports, and just pay for that usage, instead of paying a few thousand upfront for the heated seat package.
tencentshill 4y ago

cma 4y ago

> I wasn't surprised that BMW, Tesla or Ford would do something like that. But for whatever stupid reason, Toyota is a disappointment, because I thought they would be part of a few manufacturers not playing that game I didn't think Sony would follow Microsoft in charging a subscription for online play, but they pretty much had to because buyers didn't weight the hidden costs of it appropriately and Microsoft was already doing it giving them a big margin advantage (which could bleed over into marketshare advantage by investing it in marketing and exclusive titles).

A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
But Sony is already charging others for everything. Just to appear on PS4 bar, you have to pay a premium. I sincerely doubt, they were bleeding money ( unlike MS at the beginning of Xbox ) providing free online play. In fact, it was their differentiator.
everdrive 4y ago
>I didn't think Sony would follow Microsoft in charging a subscription for online play, This is explicitly why I'd never buy a PS5, and really didn't touch PS4 except to play Bloodborne. All digital services seem to eventually become anti-consumer. You become reliant on the service, the service keeps changing for the worse or becoming more expensive, and it becomes harder and harder for the user to extricate themselves from it. Even in cases where it's easy to step away from a service, it almost always either degrades over time, or else morphs into something you don't have any interest in. It's like a ticking clock. You can't even enjoy this product because you know it's totally ephemeral. Eventually it will be worse than it was, exploit you in some way, or price you out of it. There are a few exceptions here, but they are rare, and I suspect they are still going to go extinct at some point as well, they will merely take longer.

chrisseaton 4y ago

> That's blackmail-powered greed. I really don't get people's revulsion to this model. As long as you know the deal up front, what is the ethical issue? How can it ever be 'greed' or 'blackmail' to offer a service or product (a luxury one at that)? Do your sums and then either the total cost is worth it to you or it isn't. Why does the payment model get people so riled up?

neogodless 4y ago
> As long as you know the deal up front I suspect this is... not always the case. > I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further There isn't much from stopping the manufacturers from changing the "up front" deal under this model. (Unless it becomes egregious enough to become illegal.) We'd like to get out in front of this and stop it from getting to that point.
- chrisseaton 4y ago
  So is all the anger in this thread based on a hypothetical that they might break their contract? If it's an ongoing payment they're actually incentivised to not do that!
  - omniglottal 4y ago
    No, the contract is already broken when what is purchased is not owned.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - chrisseaton 4y ago
      That’s not what the article says - they aren’t going back on features you already purchased. It’s for new purchases only. They aren’t breaking any contracts.
      - 4y ago

sokoloff 4y ago

Is the objection to the turning a one-time payment into a series of monthly payments? Or is the actual objection that the net present value of those monthly payments is too high? If you want to turn something that used to cost me $400 one-time into a subscription that costs me $1.49/mo, I'll be happy that you've offered me the subscription and will buy it in subscription form. Charge $9.99/mo for that same subscription and I'll be incensed.

ARandumGuy 4y ago
The objection is, if I own a car, then the car manufacturer shouldn't be able to disable functionality. If I buy a car with heated seats, I should be able to use them as much as I want, and the manufacturer should have no control over that. The cost concern is secondary to losing control of devices that we ostensibly own.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  I agree, provided the purchase arrangement of the car included the perpetual (at least until it broke) heated seats functionality. If the car was instead sold/bought with the heated seats as a subscription, I don’t see any problem with them being, well, a subscription.
  - mattnewton 4y ago
    The problem is that, since subscriptions are more profitable and look better to accounting, soon I may no long be able to get that deal of buying basic functionality of my car upfront. It’s the classic subsidized printer gouged ink model, except it’s entirely artificial here (no new ink is being shipped to me, the printer is just turning on or not) for increased profits and hiding the trust cost to the customer. Strong and broad consumer rejection is the only recourse for people not being ripped off by turning what was an owned asset into a rental through this method of cost hiding, which is why I think people are being worked up.
philodelta 4y ago
When my cars basic functions stop working I'd rather it be that they're actually broken, not that I've lapsed on payments. I agree that it's definitely a matter of degrees, there are a finite number of months in the useful lifetime of a vehicle so for the right price it might be preferable, I just usually drive a vehicle for as long as possible. All that being said, aren't we all tired of unnecessary monthly subscriptions? Not to mention the fact that there's the predatory implication they simply hope you forget you're paying.

vasco 4y ago

This is less to do with blackmail than to do with optimising manufacturing. It is cheaper for manufacurers to produce all the cars with the same heated seats, but not allow you to use them if you don't pay the recurring charge (as long as enough % of customers opt-in), than to manufacture two versions of the car, one with the seats and one without, just so that you can feel like you aren't being blackmailed. You should forget about what the car "has" and consider if the price makes sense for the features you get access to. This is for example how CPUs and GPUs are sold, and many other products. Consumers usually find it odd that they have the exact same specs (and smart consumers can enable those features for free), but it does provide for lower costs for manufacturing, which dictate how everything else works.

jen20 4y ago
> You should forget about what the car "has" and consider if the price makes sense for the features you get access to. Absolutely not: manufacturers should forget about having their cake and eating it too.
- omniglottal 4y ago
  The price of $0 for powering up existing hardware in a car I purchased for $X makes sense. Anything over $0 does not. Seems pretty clear.
MAGZine 4y ago
maybe this is supposed to make me feel better, but installing features that will never be used (e.g. heating elements in the seats) just makes me mad re: waste. It's not a digital asset that costs nothing to produce/host/sustain. These are raw materials, refined, that will someday end up in a landfill.
- kkirsche 4y ago
  This bothers me because those raw materials and byproducts of manufacturing still get either used or produced. So this seems like a net negative for the planet when there have been pushes to reform the impact this industry in particular has on the environment.

reaperducer 4y ago

Remote tracking / start? Why not. Remote start does not require a subscription or the internet. We've had remote start for at least half a century with just a keyfob. Satellite maps with updates? Maybe. Does not require a subscription or the internet. My car's satnav is updated via a USB. $200 from the dealer, but is completely optional. Maybe I do it once every five years. Maybe never. I don't need up-to-the-second maps of hiking trails 4,000 miles away from a place my car will never visit. Moreover, the last time I looked into updating via USB, there was a community online that had instructions for doing it for free with data, I think from Garmin. The MBAs want us to believe we are required to be tethered to recurring charges for the rest of our lives. With very few exceptions (electricity, water, etc.) we aren't.

natch 4y ago
Live traffic data has been useful for me.

hammock 4y ago

How is charging a recurring fee for these products any worse than a car lease, which also charges a recurring fee for use of a product? (Thought experiment, don’t downvote me just because)

simonebrunozzi 4y ago
No downvote needed, it's a genuine question, and I'll try to answer based on my view. Leasing is just a different form of buying the car, in a sense. Yes, the contract/agreement is not equivalent to a purchase, but in essence what you are doing is transforming a set of unknowns (will I have to repair my car twice in the first three years? How much will I spend? How many kilometers will I drive?) with more known quantities ($X/month, Y miles per year included, etc), and you don't have to pay the car upfront, but pay a monthly installment. (approximation, give me some rope here). Instead, paying a monthly fee to heat my car seats is an aberration of the economic model. It doesn't make any sense, from a customer perspective. Of course, we are all moving towards a subscription economy, and most customers will simply be royally f*cked up by that, and regulation/government will turn the other way in most cases. Good luck to us.
- hammock 4y ago
  An alternative would be to simply sell a car with or without heated seats, at two different prices. This is how it was done. The subscription model gives the customer more flexibility, since if she changes her mind about wanting heated seats halfway through ownership, she can cancel and won't have to pay the full price of the heated seats option. Or vice versa - if she decides she wants heated seats, she can turn them on more easily with a subscription than going somewhere and getting them aftermarket installed.

lr1970 4y ago

> I wasn't surprised that BMW, Tesla or Ford would do something like that. Sorry to be pedantic, but it was GM not Ford mentioned in the article.

gamblor956 4y ago

Heated car seats actually makes sense to put on a subscription model for customers. It means that those of us in generally warm states like CA can opt-in to heated seats for the month or two we spend doing winter sports, and just pay for that usage, instead of paying a few thousand upfront for the heated seat package.

tencentshill 4y ago