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I want to see this legislated out of existence. To be clear, because every time this comes up some dickfucks come in here and start making excuses about how it

I want to see this legislated out of existence. To be clear, because every time this comes up some dickfucks come in here and start making excuses about how it's better to rent in some cases and that this is just amortizing the whole payment, and there are some people who want this: No. This is a fucking terrible deal even just using mercedes numbers. It takes a whopping 30 months (2.5 years) for the monthly payment to exceed the upfront cost. The average length of new car ownership in the US is between 8 and 11 years (varies by source and accounting methods). You will be charged fucking $6000 dollars for a item that is already present in your car, you just don't have the damn key. RENT FUCKING SEEKING. Even on cars that cost 100k, Mercedes just gets to pocket an extra 5% of the sale price here at literally no cost or effort. Piss on these car manufacturers.

phonon 3y ago
[flagged]
moolcool 3y ago
Say it louder for the people in the back. As a consumer, never accept this. Not now, not ever.
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
These complaints remind me of complaints I've heard about "day one" DLC (DownLoadable Content) in video games. For those unfamiliar, it's content which is available in the game upon its release but you have to pay extra for it. Sometimes, players are given the option to buy the Ultra Digital Deluxe Collector's Edition which comes with the DLC and "exclusive" shit (and also costs extra). If it's not rent seeking, it's drip pricing, it's added-on sales tax, it's $0.99 instead of $1[0], it's the Ultra Digital Deluxe Collector's Edition. I would always advocate: don't give them your business. I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here. I know it's a lot easier said than done to avoid such ploys. Still, that is the strongest personal option. Avoid them like the plague and tell your friends and family why. If a business' current practices seem better than you remember, hold on to the memory; make them work to prove any marketed change of heart. (It may be hazardous to my health to hold my breath waiting for the $0.99 shit to stop.) [0] There was a card shop (games shop, comic book store, that sort of thing) I went to as a kid. They priced stuff like $5 and it was actually $5 when I went to pay. 12-year-old me "didn't even know that was legal".
- jrockway 3y ago
  Isn't this all the same thing as what airlines did after 9/11? You pay the fare and get a seat. Want it to not be a middle seat? That's $50. Want to carry on a bag? That's $50. Want to check a bag? That's $50. Want to check out the lounge before you depart? That's $50. Want some WiFi? That's $50. Want a snack? That's $50. Now your flight is $200 more than the quoted fare. (OK OK you can probably get WiFi and a snack for less than $50.) Everyone seems to love this, or at least, they didn't stop flying. So why would any rational company not try to use this business model? Your AAA game gets to be $59.99 + $0.99 download, and your competitor's game is $60.00. Sort by price ascending makes you the top result, but you actually get $0.99 more money with each copy sold. You are right that legislation is the only answer to curb this abuse. Consumers fall for it hook/line/sinker. Companies can't resist free money.
  - electriclove 3y ago
    People don’t love that about the airlines. People hate it.
    - gffrd 3y ago
      … but they like saving money more than they hate it.
  - lp0_on_fire 3y ago
    I don’t think that people -_love it_ or _fall for it_ per se. rather, people don’t have much of a choice but to accept it unless they can afford to fly private. You can’t really fly and not take luggage with you, for example.
  - crooked-v 3y ago
    > Now your flight is $200 more than the quoted fare. > Everyone seems to love this, or at least, they didn't stop flying. Nobody "loves" it. They just have to put up with it because even for people who know what they're doing with flight searches, the only way to dig into all that dark pattern shit is to have fifty browser tabs open comparing the fine details of different flights. If it was possible to, say, compare all those up-charges up front using flight search tools, I'm sure you'd see a lot more people choosing the slightly more expensive tickets.
entrox 3y ago
> You will be charged fucking $6000 dollars for a item that is already present in your car. How so? The one-time fee is $1950. Also, this is nothing new: top end Mercedes-AMG cars always had an optional "AMG Driver's Package" [0] for years now, which did nothing but electronically unlock Vmax from 250km/h to 290km/h. No changes in hardware at all. It used to retail for around $2500. Now you have the possibility to order a performance unlock after buying the car. You can even try it out for a few months to see whether you really need it or not. You might not like it, but it's actually a better deal than before. [0] https://www.mercedes-benz.co.uk/passengercars/mercedes-benz-cars/models/glc/coupe-c253/specifications/design-packages/amg-drivers-package.html https://www.mercedes-benz.co.uk/passengercars/mercedes-benz-...
- justsomehnguy 3y ago
  > You might not like it, but it's actually a better deal than before. So if Apple would ask you for a nice $10/m to use their famous iPhone camera features you would be okay with that, because otherwise you would be fine with 8MP photos or pay additional $10 * 12m * 3y = $360 upfront? Of course, no changes in hardware at all. And the price of iPhone is the same, not $360 cheaper.
  - entrox 3y ago
    Try looking at it from the other side: you're getting a product at a lower base price and can upgrade to a higher model at a later point in time. It's more like buying, and paying for, an iPhone 14 and then having the possibility to upgrade the camera to the iPhone 14 Pro version afterwards. There's ton of precedent for products that are artificially locked to a lower version. The difference between a NVidia GeForce and the much more expensive Quadro used to be just a bunch of ID resistors. Processor speeds are locked in a similar way. Same thing with software. There's many cases where you purchase a piece of software and can later buy a feature or "Pro" unlock. You already downloaded all the bits & bytes to you device. Are you not OK with that? I'm a bit surprised that the people on Hackernews of all places has such a reaction to this. Subscription models and SaaS have been practically invented here.
windowshopping 3y ago
It's interesting how it takes reading someone else's writing to realize how little profanity adds to the substance of a comment. You never realize it when it's your own comment.
- helf 3y ago
  [dead]
- yamtaddle 3y ago
  It adds the substance of communicating to me that the poster's about as fed up as I am with treating the "dickfucks" with respect. On this and several other market-regulation topics.
- kerkeslager 3y ago
  That says more about the reader and their unwillingness or inability to absorb the content, than it says about the writer and their writing.
- Marsymars 3y ago
  I’ve found profanity can add impact when I’m a regular reader of someone who normally doesn’t use profanity and I’m familiar with their normal lack of profanity.
- ShroudedNight 3y ago
  I disagree, the information it communicates is visceral in nature rather than 'rational', but it provides a much broader cross-section of a person to relate to (or feel alienated from).
gwbas1c 3y ago
I'd just like to point out that Tesla's performance upgrade, (which is software only) unlocks screens to tune how the drivetrain works. There is a non-trivial amount of engineering that goes into making those features. I suspect that the software that controls the drivetrain requires making non-trivial changes to operate at higher horsepower, too. Is it worth it? I haven't paid the price for it in my Teslas, but it's certainly worth it for someone to pay for it.
- giobox 3y ago
  > I'd just like to point out that Tesla's performance upgrade, (which is software only) unlocks screens to tune how the drivetrain works. No it doesn't unfortunately (I bought it). Elon tweeted years ago the in-app/in-car purchase for the performance increase would get the drivetrain tuning screen that the Performance models have, but it has never shipped. The feature, similar in concept to Mercedes here, $2000 (one time) "acceleration boost", adds/unlocks ~50hp and reduces 0-60 time to under 4 seconds on the dual motor non-performance model 3s etc, but you don't get any additional screens. > https://www.notateslaapp.com/tesla-reference/1040/tesla-acceleration-boost-a-complete-guide https://www.notateslaapp.com/tesla-reference/1040/tesla-acce... "Although vehicles with Acceleration Boost have better performance than their Long Range counterparts, they do not include Tesla's Track Mode feature." "track mode" is the extra screens.
ajross 3y ago
> RENT FUCKING SEEKING. That's not rent seeking. Rent seeking is when an entity has control of something that can't be traded in a liquid/efficient way (this part is important!) and tries to leverage this uncompetetive situation into revenue that isn't subject to market forces. Cars are pretty liquid. Subscription products are very liquid. If people don't want this they won't buy it. If they don't want cars with this subscription model they'll buy a Tesla[1] or VW. That's exactly the opposite of rent seeking. That's not saying it's good (or bad) for consumers. But it's not rent seeking. [1] Tesla also sells over-the-air performance upgrades, but it's a fixed price and goes with the vehicle after purchase. They do have subscription fees for data access features, and for FSD though.
- yamtaddle 3y ago
  They're charging extra for something that would cost them nothing, deny them the use of nothing, require none of their resources, if you could use it without paying them. I can see an angle for calling that rent-seeking.
  - entrox 3y ago
    Is charging for a feature unlock in a piece of software also rent-seeking? The feature has already been developed, I have already downloaded the software to my device. It would cost the developer nothing, deny them the use of nothing, require none of their resources for me to use the feature and yet they charge for it. How is that different?
    - yamtaddle 3y ago
      This would make more sense as a comparison if adding two or more modes of operation hadn't taken more work than just having one. I think the "it's rent-seeking" position would be weaker for toggling entire features on and off—the specific example of unlocking better acceleration was them adding a worse mode just so they could charge a subscription for the better one.
      - 3y ago
sillyinseattle 3y ago
"Manufacturers may intentionally damage a portion of their goods ... "[0] The intel chip example has already been mentioned in comments. The general idea of "Damaged Goods" (and how this can benefit consumers) appears here (at Preston McAfee's site). [0] https://mc4f.ee/Papers/PDF/DamagedGoods.pdf https://mc4f.ee/Papers/PDF/DamagedGoods.pdf
atlantic 3y ago
If you don't like it, just don't buy cars whose performance is artificially limited. Let the market decide the issue.
- ChuckNorris89 3y ago
  >If you don't like it, just don't buy cars whose performance is artificially limited. Let the market decide the issue. You are unfortunately one of the apologetic quote, "dickfucks", endquote the parent was referring too. When all players eventually do this, where will you got to buy? There is no more free market left in the auto industry after a century of consolidations. We're at the mercy of a few giant automakers who own the entire market and make the rules in their flavor. The current greed-flation is another nail in the coffin of the "free market competition benefits the consumer" trope. If we had left everything to the so called "free market" our food would have still contained lead, mercury and arsenic. That's why governments need to step in and regulate some things in flavor of the consumer because we can't expect the corporations to do it themselves through "free market" competition, as it's much easy and profitable for them to form rent-seeking cartels and work against us that compete for us. It seems all lessons from the past have been forgotten.
  - dh2022 3y ago
    You don't have to use bad words. But since you brought it up - here is a recent lesson. Consumers do not like touch screens and it seems car makers are listening: https://slate.com/business/2023/04/cars-buttons-touch-screens-vw-porsche-nissan-hyundai.html https://slate.com/business/2023/04/cars-buttons-touch-screen...
    - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
      Corporations do not make (significant) sums of money on a button vs screen choice, and there's important evidence about the safety and ergonomics that favors buttons. Paying extortion to get more speed? That's just a cash cow.
      - 3y ago
beerpls 3y ago
Thank you for being a voice of righteousness in a sea of simps. It’s hard to tell on this site, are people really this devoted to corps or are they shills? Even with what you said there are still so many people defending this behavior. The world is full of weak and/or deceitful people.
- ChuckNorris89 3y ago
  >are people really this devoted to corps or are they shills? I think a lot of people defend this because they themselves work for tech companies who's products or services are also profitable due to some for of rent-seeking which ensure great profits and wages that wouldn't be possible otherwise because let's face it, the most profitable SW companies where the HN audience most likely works at, don't sell you a lifetime license to their product on a CD for a flat fee anymore like it's the '90s but are most likely subscription-ware. It is indeed a bit hypocritical to criticize automakers for doing the same thing that beloved tech companies are doing which is what makes them so profitable and yet nobody bats an eye.
  - JediWing 3y ago
    Continually running a service with its own recurring costs with additional improvements (SaaS) justifies a subscription, because your product is constantly improving, and constantly incurring costs. A one-time car purchase costs the car company some capex upfront. They actually incur more cost running whatever DRM servers lock these motors down to prop up this extortionary business model.
    - ChuckNorris89 3y ago
      Are you saying there's no rent-seeking SW out there?
      - JediWing 3y ago
        There certainly are, I'm just pointing out that much of the software that is charging a subscription is doing so to more closely structure their revenue to their expenditures.
ddalex 3y ago
> at literally no cost or effort. But somebody designed, implemented and tested (presumably) the feature of remote enabling functionality for money, manages the subscription and payment systems, real time communications to the fleet of cars, etc.... that costs a lot of money and effort, doesn't come for free.
- jtbayly 3y ago
  It’s only purpose is literally to enable this rent-seeking, though.
- pc86 3y ago
  And imagine if instead of wasting their time on that they added more features to the vehicle, or made existing features better.
- alexb_ 3y ago
  "It's okay that they lock things behind subscriptions because how else would they pay for the mechanisms necessary to lock things behind subscriptions"
  - riversflow 3y ago
    “If I don’t charge you to pass how will my boss pay me?” said the highwayman to the traveler.
wnevets 3y ago
> The average length of new car ownership in the US is between 8 and 11 years I would wager thats not actually true for Mercedes, they don't last that long before becoming a money pit. If you really want a Mercedes just lease then bail.
- gambiting 3y ago
  BMW posted their numbers recently - something like 90% of buyers of new BMWs keep them 3 years or less. I imagine it's somewhat similar for Mercedes.
  - MandieD 3y ago
    At least in Germany, a very large portion of new BMWs, Mercedes, Audis and even boring things like Toyotas and Fords are corporate leases, often driven by individual employees who get them at their employer's negotiated rates and sometimes as part of their compensation. This results in a fantastic pool of 3-4 year old cars with low odometers and scrupulous maintenance records, keeping the rest of the used market in check. Due to the slow downs and supply chain issues of the past few years, I imagine the used market is not going to be as nice the next few years, and the usual off-lease classes will be a lot smaller than usual.
    - ryandrake 3y ago
      No matter how many times I read this, it just blows my mind. I can't believe how many people buy new cars--and then dump them right after the steepest part of the depreciation curve. I mean: Thank you, people, for making horrible financial decisions and eating all the depreciation, and then providing a nearly-new car to the market at a steep discount!
      - gambiting 3y ago
        It's just that unfortunately the financial system is geared toward making this the "best" option. I don't know about Germany specifically but here for instance if you run a company you can't buy a car and expense it(or get a loan and expense payments for the loan), but a lease is technically a rental so you can expense it, which means that "renting" a brand new car for 3 years is actually cheaper for your company than buying it and keeping it for longer. So yes, you have loads of companies essentially paying for that worst depreciation period in a vehicle's lifetime and then immediately these cars hit the market again.
judge2020 3y ago
This depends on if they actually charge you for it upfront in the MSRP. Say the cost for a motor made of x material is $2000 more than a lower spec motor made of z. So here they could make two specs, say charge $5000 more for the better motor, and profit $3,000 when anyone with a kick for adrenaline chooses the better motor. However, there are hidden costs to inventorying multiple different variations of the main drive train of your car. You are no longer sharing parts, so you now need two lines making that motor, you need to split the warehousing space, you need some sort of analytics / data scientists to tell you how many of each motor you need to order. In this scenario, the cost to this amount of inventorying something as critical as the main drive unit might be a thousand dollars per unit or so (of course decreasing with scale), but it means your margins aren't simply profit - BOM. Taking these small increments in profit (at the expense of making the logistics of your plant more complex) was all the rage for Ford and GM throughout the 1990s-now with 20 different trim levels for a model, but with EVs specifically the extra trim levels make you feel like you're missing out on the most fun or useful parts of a car, and the automaker really isn't making that much extra money when it's all said and done (and it results in the car feeling cheap after the honeymoon period). In this case, the $60/month is optional. This means that Mercedes can take the negligible hit on their bill of materials, but this will likely be offset by, and made profitable by, the people who do pay for it every month over the lifespan of the car - there is a lot of FOMO and getting to click a button that says "increase the dopamine I get by punching the throttle this month" might be what people want if they think they shouldn't splurged for a different ev x months ago.
- JediWing 3y ago
  or, crazy thought, pass the cost savings of not having to manage multiple trimlines onto the consumer instead of trying to make a quick buck by artificially borking the motor.
  - ShroudedNight 3y ago
    The all-fronts assault on consumer surplus is definitely depressing.
- pc86 3y ago
kazinator 3y ago
Priority should probably be in legislating 280 horsepower in passenger vehicles out of existence.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
konschubert 3y ago
I will get downvoted to oblivion for this and apparently this makes me a simp. But if I buy the car and don’t care for the acceleration, then I can NOT book this feature. And in a competitive market, which the auto market is, this will mean that the MRSP for the car is lower for me than it would otherwise have been. Unbundling is part of what made air travel affordable. In a competitive market, unbundling lowers base prices and creates consumer choice.
- alistairSH 3y ago
  Sure, but that doesn't mean a subscription is the consumer-friendly way to manage those costs. If a buyer wants 500hp instead of 300hp, there should be a 1-time fee assessed at the time that feature is unlocked (traditionally at purchase because it required a whole different engine; now via app/cloud/magic because it's all software). The only reason a subscription model should be foisted on the consumer is when the vendor has actual recurring costs to provide a service. In this case, they do not - it's a one time software update.
  - ukd1 3y ago
    In some ways, they do have costs - the on-going extra wear / load on everything in the vehicle, which presumably is covered by the warranty if you pay for this. That's not free, nor zero.
    - alistairSH 3y ago
      Sure, but that should be baked into the one-time fee. The warranty period is known. The rate of failure is know. Etc. And by your argument, once the warranty is done, the go-fast software should be free (or nearly so).
      - mulmen 3y ago
        Wouldn’t the additional wear and tear accumulate over time? The effect of added acceleration doesn’t apply all at once. Mercedes probably does know the rate, and the fee may well cover that.
somethoughts 3y ago
What would be interesting is if we have continued high interest rates whether the push for monthly subscriptions will subside. Recurring revenue brought back for a DCF at an interest rate of 5-6% is very different from when an interest rate of 0-1% is used. Also if the credit crunch gets worse with continued high interest rates, access to the upfront capital from the customer to fund expansion/R&D becomes a lot more interesting compared to when banks are throwing money at you.
caconym_ 3y ago
It's stupid, but so is anybody buying a luxury car in the first place unless they have millions and millions of dollars to burn on stupid shit to satisfy their own vanity and other frivolous tendencies. I have much stronger feelings about general right-to-repair (which crap like this tends to obstruct, so I'm definitely against it in that sense) and speculative worlds down the slippery slope where actual safety is compromised if you don't pay an additional subscription (just $60/mo to enable your side curtain airbags!). But you won't see me crying over conspicuous wealth-signalers wasting their money on crap—they're going to do that anyway, with or without Mercedes' help. And faster cars are more deadly cars, so locking this functionality behind a paywall may actually save lives (though the real, sane solution would be to regulate excessively fast/massive/etc. personal vehicles off public roadways).
mikeryan 3y ago
Im ready for the after market EV control systems too…
asix66 3y ago
I'm not defending this, nor promoting. TBH, this is similar to what BMW is doing with heated seats...the hardware is in the car, but you have to pay to option it in. /smh. Regardless... based the info in the article, you can bypass this particular monthly cost, and pay upfront. Nothing unusual about charging for options... other than this is an option already built into the car, that you pay extra to enable. From the article: Buyers can bypass the monthly subscription completely however, and opt for an annual subscription payment or simply pay a one-time flat fee. For instance, a buyer could take an all-wheel-drive Mercedes-Benz EQE 350 sedan from its standard 288 horsepower to 348 permanently for $1,950." This type of option add is similar to Tesla, who charges $2k (no monthly option) for "performance boost" on their model 3 and Y, and $15k for their FSD (don't get me started on this feature), which has a $200/mo option.
phantom784 3y ago
Even worse - if you pay for the subscription and then later sell the car, you don't get anything back and the next owner doesn't get the feature unless they pay as well. If you pay to have it permanently, you can probably recoup some of the cost when you sell. (Unless Mercedes does something so that the feature is gone once you sell, which I wouldn't put past them)
- mysterydip 3y ago
  This is the same thing people found out trying to sell their used game consoles with a bunch of downloaded games. No extra value to the buyer, because as soon as the seller disconnects their account, all those games disappear. And in the case of the WiiU and 3DS, are now unavailable for purchase.
Drblessing 3y ago
It’s a free market they can do what they want.
ActorNightly 3y ago
I feel like people miss the point of cars like Mercedes/BMW/Audis All of those cars are essentially badge cars - i.e you pay more for the badge that shows that you have money and are able to pay more for the cars. Nobody buys those cars because they are better at commuting than other cars. So subscription services is natural for this type of market.
- m463 3y ago
  I think that's how it looks from the outside, but people I know who have bought these cars look at it different. They like the attention to detail of mercedes and the quietness. They like the attention to detail of bmw and the performance. (not sure about audi, don't know anyone well who has one) But this move sort of pulls back the curtain between the marketers in charge at these companies and their view of the customers. "they are price insensitive and will pay more without worrying". But really - you don't want to piss off a first-class customer. it's easy to get under their skin if you treat them with disrespect and they remember.
bryanrasmussen 3y ago
ok well there probably is somewhere here but I just scrolled through 20 comments and everybody was talking about how Mercedes sucks and this was a dick move, and also that the people who thought that it was a cool move were losers and I'm starting to wonder if these people with opinions that to me seem super unlikely actually exist in any sizable numbers.
smileysteve 3y ago
It could be justified with a warranty opt out; ie higher discharge from the batteries increases battery warranty claims. But you should then also be able to opt out of the battery warranty.
2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
I agree but why does the software world get away with the same behavior? Why are we only outraged when it comes to physical goods?
- OJFord 3y ago
  Hosting? Updates? Physical goods like cars 'get away with it' for things like fuel; hosting is in some sense similarly 'consumable'.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
    Not hosting or updates. Paying money to unlock content or in game BS currency

phonon 3y ago

[flagged]

moolcool 3y ago

Say it louder for the people in the back. As a consumer, never accept this. Not now, not ever.

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago

These complaints remind me of complaints I've heard about "day one" DLC (DownLoadable Content) in video games. For those unfamiliar, it's content which is available in the game upon its release but you have to pay extra for it. Sometimes, players are given the option to buy the Ultra Digital Deluxe Collector's Edition which comes with the DLC and "exclusive" shit (and also costs extra). If it's not rent seeking, it's drip pricing, it's added-on sales tax, it's $0.99 instead of $1[0], it's the Ultra Digital Deluxe Collector's Edition. I would always advocate: don't give them your business. I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here. I know it's a lot easier said than done to avoid such ploys. Still, that is the strongest personal option. Avoid them like the plague and tell your friends and family why. If a business' current practices seem better than you remember, hold on to the memory; make them work to prove any marketed change of heart. (It may be hazardous to my health to hold my breath waiting for the $0.99 shit to stop.) [0] There was a card shop (games shop, comic book store, that sort of thing) I went to as a kid. They priced stuff like $5 and it was actually $5 when I went to pay. 12-year-old me "didn't even know that was legal".

jrockway 3y ago
Isn't this all the same thing as what airlines did after 9/11? You pay the fare and get a seat. Want it to not be a middle seat? That's $50. Want to carry on a bag? That's $50. Want to check a bag? That's $50. Want to check out the lounge before you depart? That's $50. Want some WiFi? That's $50. Want a snack? That's $50. Now your flight is $200 more than the quoted fare. (OK OK you can probably get WiFi and a snack for less than $50.) Everyone seems to love this, or at least, they didn't stop flying. So why would any rational company not try to use this business model? Your AAA game gets to be $59.99 + $0.99 download, and your competitor's game is $60.00. Sort by price ascending makes you the top result, but you actually get $0.99 more money with each copy sold. You are right that legislation is the only answer to curb this abuse. Consumers fall for it hook/line/sinker. Companies can't resist free money.
- electriclove 3y ago
  People don’t love that about the airlines. People hate it.
  - gffrd 3y ago
    … but they like saving money more than they hate it.
- lp0_on_fire 3y ago
  I don’t think that people -_love it_ or _fall for it_ per se. rather, people don’t have much of a choice but to accept it unless they can afford to fly private. You can’t really fly and not take luggage with you, for example.
- crooked-v 3y ago
  > Now your flight is $200 more than the quoted fare. > Everyone seems to love this, or at least, they didn't stop flying. Nobody "loves" it. They just have to put up with it because even for people who know what they're doing with flight searches, the only way to dig into all that dark pattern shit is to have fifty browser tabs open comparing the fine details of different flights. If it was possible to, say, compare all those up-charges up front using flight search tools, I'm sure you'd see a lot more people choosing the slightly more expensive tickets.

entrox 3y ago

> You will be charged fucking $6000 dollars for a item that is already present in your car. How so? The one-time fee is $1950. Also, this is nothing new: top end Mercedes-AMG cars always had an optional "AMG Driver's Package" [0] for years now, which did nothing but electronically unlock Vmax from 250km/h to 290km/h. No changes in hardware at all. It used to retail for around $2500. Now you have the possibility to order a performance unlock after buying the car. You can even try it out for a few months to see whether you really need it or not. You might not like it, but it's actually a better deal than before. [0] https://www.mercedes-benz.co.uk/passengercars/mercedes-benz-cars/models/glc/coupe-c253/specifications/design-packages/amg-drivers-package.html https://www.mercedes-benz.co.uk/passengercars/mercedes-benz-...

justsomehnguy 3y ago
> You might not like it, but it's actually a better deal than before. So if Apple would ask you for a nice $10/m to use their famous iPhone camera features you would be okay with that, because otherwise you would be fine with 8MP photos or pay additional $10 * 12m * 3y = $360 upfront? Of course, no changes in hardware at all. And the price of iPhone is the same, not $360 cheaper.
- entrox 3y ago
  Try looking at it from the other side: you're getting a product at a lower base price and can upgrade to a higher model at a later point in time. It's more like buying, and paying for, an iPhone 14 and then having the possibility to upgrade the camera to the iPhone 14 Pro version afterwards. There's ton of precedent for products that are artificially locked to a lower version. The difference between a NVidia GeForce and the much more expensive Quadro used to be just a bunch of ID resistors. Processor speeds are locked in a similar way. Same thing with software. There's many cases where you purchase a piece of software and can later buy a feature or "Pro" unlock. You already downloaded all the bits & bytes to you device. Are you not OK with that? I'm a bit surprised that the people on Hackernews of all places has such a reaction to this. Subscription models and SaaS have been practically invented here.

windowshopping 3y ago

It's interesting how it takes reading someone else's writing to realize how little profanity adds to the substance of a comment. You never realize it when it's your own comment.

helf 3y ago
[dead]
yamtaddle 3y ago
It adds the substance of communicating to me that the poster's about as fed up as I am with treating the "dickfucks" with respect. On this and several other market-regulation topics.
kerkeslager 3y ago
That says more about the reader and their unwillingness or inability to absorb the content, than it says about the writer and their writing.
Marsymars 3y ago
I’ve found profanity can add impact when I’m a regular reader of someone who normally doesn’t use profanity and I’m familiar with their normal lack of profanity.
ShroudedNight 3y ago
I disagree, the information it communicates is visceral in nature rather than 'rational', but it provides a much broader cross-section of a person to relate to (or feel alienated from).

gwbas1c 3y ago

I'd just like to point out that Tesla's performance upgrade, (which is software only) unlocks screens to tune how the drivetrain works. There is a non-trivial amount of engineering that goes into making those features. I suspect that the software that controls the drivetrain requires making non-trivial changes to operate at higher horsepower, too. Is it worth it? I haven't paid the price for it in my Teslas, but it's certainly worth it for someone to pay for it.

giobox 3y ago
> I'd just like to point out that Tesla's performance upgrade, (which is software only) unlocks screens to tune how the drivetrain works. No it doesn't unfortunately (I bought it). Elon tweeted years ago the in-app/in-car purchase for the performance increase would get the drivetrain tuning screen that the Performance models have, but it has never shipped. The feature, similar in concept to Mercedes here, $2000 (one time) "acceleration boost", adds/unlocks ~50hp and reduces 0-60 time to under 4 seconds on the dual motor non-performance model 3s etc, but you don't get any additional screens. > https://www.notateslaapp.com/tesla-reference/1040/tesla-acceleration-boost-a-complete-guide https://www.notateslaapp.com/tesla-reference/1040/tesla-acce... "Although vehicles with Acceleration Boost have better performance than their Long Range counterparts, they do not include Tesla's Track Mode feature." "track mode" is the extra screens.

ajross 3y ago

> RENT FUCKING SEEKING. That's not rent seeking. Rent seeking is when an entity has control of something that can't be traded in a liquid/efficient way (this part is important!) and tries to leverage this uncompetetive situation into revenue that isn't subject to market forces. Cars are pretty liquid. Subscription products are very liquid. If people don't want this they won't buy it. If they don't want cars with this subscription model they'll buy a Tesla[1] or VW. That's exactly the opposite of rent seeking. That's not saying it's good (or bad) for consumers. But it's not rent seeking. [1] Tesla also sells over-the-air performance upgrades, but it's a fixed price and goes with the vehicle after purchase. They do have subscription fees for data access features, and for FSD though.

yamtaddle 3y ago
They're charging extra for something that would cost them nothing, deny them the use of nothing, require none of their resources, if you could use it without paying them. I can see an angle for calling that rent-seeking.
- entrox 3y ago
  Is charging for a feature unlock in a piece of software also rent-seeking? The feature has already been developed, I have already downloaded the software to my device. It would cost the developer nothing, deny them the use of nothing, require none of their resources for me to use the feature and yet they charge for it. How is that different?
  - yamtaddle 3y ago
    This would make more sense as a comparison if adding two or more modes of operation hadn't taken more work than just having one. I think the "it's rent-seeking" position would be weaker for toggling entire features on and off—the specific example of unlocking better acceleration was them adding a worse mode just so they could charge a subscription for the better one.
    - 3y ago

sillyinseattle 3y ago

"Manufacturers may intentionally damage a portion of their goods ... "[0] The intel chip example has already been mentioned in comments. The general idea of "Damaged Goods" (and how this can benefit consumers) appears here (at Preston McAfee's site). [0] https://mc4f.ee/Papers/PDF/DamagedGoods.pdf https://mc4f.ee/Papers/PDF/DamagedGoods.pdf

atlantic 3y ago

If you don't like it, just don't buy cars whose performance is artificially limited. Let the market decide the issue.

ChuckNorris89 3y ago
>If you don't like it, just don't buy cars whose performance is artificially limited. Let the market decide the issue. You are unfortunately one of the apologetic quote, "dickfucks", endquote the parent was referring too. When all players eventually do this, where will you got to buy? There is no more free market left in the auto industry after a century of consolidations. We're at the mercy of a few giant automakers who own the entire market and make the rules in their flavor. The current greed-flation is another nail in the coffin of the "free market competition benefits the consumer" trope. If we had left everything to the so called "free market" our food would have still contained lead, mercury and arsenic. That's why governments need to step in and regulate some things in flavor of the consumer because we can't expect the corporations to do it themselves through "free market" competition, as it's much easy and profitable for them to form rent-seeking cartels and work against us that compete for us. It seems all lessons from the past have been forgotten.
- dh2022 3y ago
  You don't have to use bad words. But since you brought it up - here is a recent lesson. Consumers do not like touch screens and it seems car makers are listening: https://slate.com/business/2023/04/cars-buttons-touch-screens-vw-porsche-nissan-hyundai.html https://slate.com/business/2023/04/cars-buttons-touch-screen...
  - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
    Corporations do not make (significant) sums of money on a button vs screen choice, and there's important evidence about the safety and ergonomics that favors buttons. Paying extortion to get more speed? That's just a cash cow.
    - 3y ago

beerpls 3y ago

Thank you for being a voice of righteousness in a sea of simps. It’s hard to tell on this site, are people really this devoted to corps or are they shills? Even with what you said there are still so many people defending this behavior. The world is full of weak and/or deceitful people.

ChuckNorris89 3y ago
>are people really this devoted to corps or are they shills? I think a lot of people defend this because they themselves work for tech companies who's products or services are also profitable due to some for of rent-seeking which ensure great profits and wages that wouldn't be possible otherwise because let's face it, the most profitable SW companies where the HN audience most likely works at, don't sell you a lifetime license to their product on a CD for a flat fee anymore like it's the '90s but are most likely subscription-ware. It is indeed a bit hypocritical to criticize automakers for doing the same thing that beloved tech companies are doing which is what makes them so profitable and yet nobody bats an eye.
- JediWing 3y ago
  Continually running a service with its own recurring costs with additional improvements (SaaS) justifies a subscription, because your product is constantly improving, and constantly incurring costs. A one-time car purchase costs the car company some capex upfront. They actually incur more cost running whatever DRM servers lock these motors down to prop up this extortionary business model.
  - ChuckNorris89 3y ago
    Are you saying there's no rent-seeking SW out there?
    - JediWing 3y ago
      There certainly are, I'm just pointing out that much of the software that is charging a subscription is doing so to more closely structure their revenue to their expenditures.

ddalex 3y ago

> at literally no cost or effort. But somebody designed, implemented and tested (presumably) the feature of remote enabling functionality for money, manages the subscription and payment systems, real time communications to the fleet of cars, etc.... that costs a lot of money and effort, doesn't come for free.

jtbayly 3y ago
It’s only purpose is literally to enable this rent-seeking, though.
pc86 3y ago
And imagine if instead of wasting their time on that they added more features to the vehicle, or made existing features better.
alexb_ 3y ago
"It's okay that they lock things behind subscriptions because how else would they pay for the mechanisms necessary to lock things behind subscriptions"
- riversflow 3y ago
  “If I don’t charge you to pass how will my boss pay me?” said the highwayman to the traveler.

wnevets 3y ago

> The average length of new car ownership in the US is between 8 and 11 years I would wager thats not actually true for Mercedes, they don't last that long before becoming a money pit. If you really want a Mercedes just lease then bail.

gambiting 3y ago
BMW posted their numbers recently - something like 90% of buyers of new BMWs keep them 3 years or less. I imagine it's somewhat similar for Mercedes.
- MandieD 3y ago
  At least in Germany, a very large portion of new BMWs, Mercedes, Audis and even boring things like Toyotas and Fords are corporate leases, often driven by individual employees who get them at their employer's negotiated rates and sometimes as part of their compensation. This results in a fantastic pool of 3-4 year old cars with low odometers and scrupulous maintenance records, keeping the rest of the used market in check. Due to the slow downs and supply chain issues of the past few years, I imagine the used market is not going to be as nice the next few years, and the usual off-lease classes will be a lot smaller than usual.
  - ryandrake 3y ago
    No matter how many times I read this, it just blows my mind. I can't believe how many people buy new cars--and then dump them right after the steepest part of the depreciation curve. I mean: Thank you, people, for making horrible financial decisions and eating all the depreciation, and then providing a nearly-new car to the market at a steep discount!
    - gambiting 3y ago
      It's just that unfortunately the financial system is geared toward making this the "best" option. I don't know about Germany specifically but here for instance if you run a company you can't buy a car and expense it(or get a loan and expense payments for the loan), but a lease is technically a rental so you can expense it, which means that "renting" a brand new car for 3 years is actually cheaper for your company than buying it and keeping it for longer. So yes, you have loads of companies essentially paying for that worst depreciation period in a vehicle's lifetime and then immediately these cars hit the market again.

judge2020 3y ago

This depends on if they actually charge you for it upfront in the MSRP. Say the cost for a motor made of x material is $2000 more than a lower spec motor made of z. So here they could make two specs, say charge $5000 more for the better motor, and profit $3,000 when anyone with a kick for adrenaline chooses the better motor. However, there are hidden costs to inventorying multiple different variations of the main drive train of your car. You are no longer sharing parts, so you now need two lines making that motor, you need to split the warehousing space, you need some sort of analytics / data scientists to tell you how many of each motor you need to order. In this scenario, the cost to this amount of inventorying something as critical as the main drive unit might be a thousand dollars per unit or so (of course decreasing with scale), but it means your margins aren't simply profit - BOM. Taking these small increments in profit (at the expense of making the logistics of your plant more complex) was all the rage for Ford and GM throughout the 1990s-now with 20 different trim levels for a model, but with EVs specifically the extra trim levels make you feel like you're missing out on the most fun or useful parts of a car, and the automaker really isn't making that much extra money when it's all said and done (and it results in the car feeling cheap after the honeymoon period). In this case, the $60/month is optional. This means that Mercedes can take the negligible hit on their bill of materials, but this will likely be offset by, and made profitable by, the people who do pay for it every month over the lifespan of the car - there is a lot of FOMO and getting to click a button that says "increase the dopamine I get by punching the throttle this month" might be what people want if they think they shouldn't splurged for a different ev x months ago.

JediWing 3y ago
or, crazy thought, pass the cost savings of not having to manage multiple trimlines onto the consumer instead of trying to make a quick buck by artificially borking the motor.
- ShroudedNight 3y ago
  The all-fronts assault on consumer surplus is definitely depressing.
pc86 3y ago

kazinator 3y ago

Priority should probably be in legislating 280 horsepower in passenger vehicles out of existence.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

konschubert 3y ago

I will get downvoted to oblivion for this and apparently this makes me a simp. But if I buy the car and don’t care for the acceleration, then I can NOT book this feature. And in a competitive market, which the auto market is, this will mean that the MRSP for the car is lower for me than it would otherwise have been. Unbundling is part of what made air travel affordable. In a competitive market, unbundling lowers base prices and creates consumer choice.

alistairSH 3y ago
Sure, but that doesn't mean a subscription is the consumer-friendly way to manage those costs. If a buyer wants 500hp instead of 300hp, there should be a 1-time fee assessed at the time that feature is unlocked (traditionally at purchase because it required a whole different engine; now via app/cloud/magic because it's all software). The only reason a subscription model should be foisted on the consumer is when the vendor has actual recurring costs to provide a service. In this case, they do not - it's a one time software update.
- ukd1 3y ago
  In some ways, they do have costs - the on-going extra wear / load on everything in the vehicle, which presumably is covered by the warranty if you pay for this. That's not free, nor zero.
  - alistairSH 3y ago
    Sure, but that should be baked into the one-time fee. The warranty period is known. The rate of failure is know. Etc. And by your argument, once the warranty is done, the go-fast software should be free (or nearly so).
    - mulmen 3y ago
      Wouldn’t the additional wear and tear accumulate over time? The effect of added acceleration doesn’t apply all at once. Mercedes probably does know the rate, and the fee may well cover that.

somethoughts 3y ago

What would be interesting is if we have continued high interest rates whether the push for monthly subscriptions will subside. Recurring revenue brought back for a DCF at an interest rate of 5-6% is very different from when an interest rate of 0-1% is used. Also if the credit crunch gets worse with continued high interest rates, access to the upfront capital from the customer to fund expansion/R&D becomes a lot more interesting compared to when banks are throwing money at you.

caconym_ 3y ago

It's stupid, but so is anybody buying a luxury car in the first place unless they have millions and millions of dollars to burn on stupid shit to satisfy their own vanity and other frivolous tendencies. I have much stronger feelings about general right-to-repair (which crap like this tends to obstruct, so I'm definitely against it in that sense) and speculative worlds down the slippery slope where actual safety is compromised if you don't pay an additional subscription (just $60/mo to enable your side curtain airbags!). But you won't see me crying over conspicuous wealth-signalers wasting their money on crap—they're going to do that anyway, with or without Mercedes' help. And faster cars are more deadly cars, so locking this functionality behind a paywall may actually save lives (though the real, sane solution would be to regulate excessively fast/massive/etc. personal vehicles off public roadways).

mikeryan 3y ago

Im ready for the after market EV control systems too…

asix66 3y ago

I'm not defending this, nor promoting. TBH, this is similar to what BMW is doing with heated seats...the hardware is in the car, but you have to pay to option it in. /smh. Regardless... based the info in the article, you can bypass this particular monthly cost, and pay upfront. Nothing unusual about charging for options... other than this is an option already built into the car, that you pay extra to enable. From the article: Buyers can bypass the monthly subscription completely however, and opt for an annual subscription payment or simply pay a one-time flat fee. For instance, a buyer could take an all-wheel-drive Mercedes-Benz EQE 350 sedan from its standard 288 horsepower to 348 permanently for $1,950." This type of option add is similar to Tesla, who charges $2k (no monthly option) for "performance boost" on their model 3 and Y, and $15k for their FSD (don't get me started on this feature), which has a $200/mo option.

phantom784 3y ago

Even worse - if you pay for the subscription and then later sell the car, you don't get anything back and the next owner doesn't get the feature unless they pay as well. If you pay to have it permanently, you can probably recoup some of the cost when you sell. (Unless Mercedes does something so that the feature is gone once you sell, which I wouldn't put past them)

mysterydip 3y ago
This is the same thing people found out trying to sell their used game consoles with a bunch of downloaded games. No extra value to the buyer, because as soon as the seller disconnects their account, all those games disappear. And in the case of the WiiU and 3DS, are now unavailable for purchase.

Drblessing 3y ago

It’s a free market they can do what they want.

ActorNightly 3y ago

I feel like people miss the point of cars like Mercedes/BMW/Audis All of those cars are essentially badge cars - i.e you pay more for the badge that shows that you have money and are able to pay more for the cars. Nobody buys those cars because they are better at commuting than other cars. So subscription services is natural for this type of market.

m463 3y ago
I think that's how it looks from the outside, but people I know who have bought these cars look at it different. They like the attention to detail of mercedes and the quietness. They like the attention to detail of bmw and the performance. (not sure about audi, don't know anyone well who has one) But this move sort of pulls back the curtain between the marketers in charge at these companies and their view of the customers. "they are price insensitive and will pay more without worrying". But really - you don't want to piss off a first-class customer. it's easy to get under their skin if you treat them with disrespect and they remember.

bryanrasmussen 3y ago

ok well there probably is somewhere here but I just scrolled through 20 comments and everybody was talking about how Mercedes sucks and this was a dick move, and also that the people who thought that it was a cool move were losers and I'm starting to wonder if these people with opinions that to me seem super unlikely actually exist in any sizable numbers.

smileysteve 3y ago

It could be justified with a warranty opt out; ie higher discharge from the batteries increases battery warranty claims. But you should then also be able to opt out of the battery warranty.

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago

I agree but why does the software world get away with the same behavior? Why are we only outraged when it comes to physical goods?

OJFord 3y ago
Hosting? Updates? Physical goods like cars 'get away with it' for things like fuel; hosting is in some sense similarly 'consumable'.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
  Not hosting or updates. Paying money to unlock content or in game BS currency