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Literally everything I buy on the internet has features unlocked by higher payment plans (Netflix, hosting, ahrefs etc). I don't get the big deal about it. For

by chimen 3y ago

Literally everything I buy on the internet has features unlocked by higher payment plans (Netflix, hosting, ahrefs etc). I don't get the big deal about it. For one, I am happy I can upgrade my car without any mechanical interventions. You get what you pay for when you buy your car. It's their business if it's limited down to meet your package or not. Did they deliver anything else from what you paid for? If the answer is yes then we have a problem. If the answer is No then I don't see the issue. A more powerful car is usually more expensive, always has been.

Retric 3y ago
Cars need to physically move equipment so the option to have software unlocks comes with a significant fuel etc costs over the lifetime of a vehicle. It’s not even just a bad deal for the owner, such deadweight has real environmental and safety consequences for everyone.
- bluGill 3y ago
  A more powerful car is also more likely to break, and will wear out sooner.
anon291 3y ago
> You get what you pay for when you buy your car. Apparently, the irony is totally lost on you.
tclancy 3y ago
>Literally everything I buy on the internet has features unlocked by higher payment plans Because they told us eliminating the middleman would lead to lower prices. Then they eliminated all the middlemen and started charging more. The fact you're inured to it doesn't make it good.
- clintonb 3y ago
  No middleman was eliminated (at least in the US). Also, the discount would come on the base price, not for an add-on.
alistairSH 3y ago
My problem is they're charging a subscription for a one-time bit flip in software. That just feels "icky" to me. With Netflix, they arguably have higher costs associated with supporting super-HD feeds or more devices or whatever else. My use of "fast mode" in a car has no such recurring cost. I have no objection to paying for fast mode once, as I would for a V8 model over a V6 model or whatever other upgrade I might want.
tenacious_tuna 3y ago
Typically higher prices are associated with higher Cost-Of-Goods-Sold, plus some margin. For internet-based services like Netflix (or Spotify or Youtube or whomever), more stuff (streams, bitrate, resolution, etc) has higher costs for them: bandwidth, storage, licensing. They don't provide a physical good necessarily, but that doesn't mean there's zero cost to providing a higher-grade experience to their customers. (LTT has a whole video about the cost of serving 4k and 60fps video from their independent video platform that's a pretty good primer on this space, IMhO.) In the car scenario, the cost is already sunk: the hardware is in the car, the capability to go-fast is already there and it costs nothing further to the manufacturer to allow the customer to use it. Putting a cost on it is the literal definition of rent-seeking: they're not creating anything new, which might justify the cost, they're just charging you to access a thing that already exists. Especially since it's an ongoing cost for a thing you already own. Imagine if this extended to every other product: You buy an ipad with 1tb of storage in hardware, but you have to pay Apple $15/month to use it all. You buy a 4k monitor, but you have to pay Dell $5/month to use it at resolutions above 1080p. This doesn't make sense, and it's plain corporate greed. Mapping physical goods into the "As a service" world is absolutely nuts to me.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  Does anyone remember the Intel 486SX?

by chimen 3y ago

Retric 3y ago

Cars need to physically move equipment so the option to have software unlocks comes with a significant fuel etc costs over the lifetime of a vehicle. It’s not even just a bad deal for the owner, such deadweight has real environmental and safety consequences for everyone.

bluGill 3y ago
A more powerful car is also more likely to break, and will wear out sooner.

anon291 3y ago

> You get what you pay for when you buy your car. Apparently, the irony is totally lost on you.

tclancy 3y ago

>Literally everything I buy on the internet has features unlocked by higher payment plans Because they told us eliminating the middleman would lead to lower prices. Then they eliminated all the middlemen and started charging more. The fact you're inured to it doesn't make it good.

clintonb 3y ago
No middleman was eliminated (at least in the US). Also, the discount would come on the base price, not for an add-on.

alistairSH 3y ago

My problem is they're charging a subscription for a one-time bit flip in software. That just feels "icky" to me. With Netflix, they arguably have higher costs associated with supporting super-HD feeds or more devices or whatever else. My use of "fast mode" in a car has no such recurring cost. I have no objection to paying for fast mode once, as I would for a V8 model over a V6 model or whatever other upgrade I might want.

tenacious_tuna 3y ago

Typically higher prices are associated with higher Cost-Of-Goods-Sold, plus some margin. For internet-based services like Netflix (or Spotify or Youtube or whomever), more stuff (streams, bitrate, resolution, etc) has higher costs for them: bandwidth, storage, licensing. They don't provide a physical good necessarily, but that doesn't mean there's zero cost to providing a higher-grade experience to their customers. (LTT has a whole video about the cost of serving 4k and 60fps video from their independent video platform that's a pretty good primer on this space, IMhO.) In the car scenario, the cost is already sunk: the hardware is in the car, the capability to go-fast is already there and it costs nothing further to the manufacturer to allow the customer to use it. Putting a cost on it is the literal definition of rent-seeking: they're not creating anything new, which might justify the cost, they're just charging you to access a thing that already exists. Especially since it's an ongoing cost for a thing you already own. Imagine if this extended to every other product: You buy an ipad with 1tb of storage in hardware, but you have to pay Apple $15/month to use it all. You buy a 4k monitor, but you have to pay Dell $5/month to use it at resolutions above 1080p. This doesn't make sense, and it's plain corporate greed. Mapping physical goods into the "As a service" world is absolutely nuts to me.

seanmcdirmid 3y ago
Does anyone remember the Intel 486SX?