5 ms·
It's not controversial, everyone thinks it's ridiculous
by seydor 3y ago
It's not controversial, everyone thinks it's ridiculous
- lambdasquirrel 3y agoOne wonders why the automaker's can't just charge a reasonable monthly fee for 1. tracking where you left your car parked, and 2. remote-locking your car. I would vastly prefer that to playing games with our data, or trying all these gimmicks like charging for extra acceleration.
- gnicholas 3y agoWhen my iPhone disconnects from my car (even one without CarPlay), it remembers the car's location.
- PlunderBunny 3y agoProvided you have paired the phone with the car's bluetooth (I think).
- adrr 3y agoI just leave an Airtag in my cars. Always know where they are.
- gnicholas 3y agoAlso useful for tracking your car in case it's stolen.
- wrs 3y agoIt’s not an either-or thing. If I understand our new Chrysler van correctly, they charge a monthly fee (which doesn’t even seem particularly reasonable) for (1) and (2) and they’re collecting a bunch of data to sell as well. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find an ad on the screen for some new subscription climate control feature or something.
- PeterStuer 3y agoThey already know where you parked your car. The fee would be for sharing that info with you. But then the sheeple would wake up to what BMW tracks, so it's a classic espionage dilemma.
- GordonS 3y agoHasn't BMW being doing exactly that for several years now? I'm sure their strangely named "Connected Services" offered this for £10/m or so, around 10 years back.
- gnicholas 3y agoIt was actually a little more nuanced — they offered a one-time purchase (at a normal-ish price), or the option to purchase via subscription. I have no problem with this arrangement, which literally offers consumers more choices. The concerns I would have are (1) that the one-time pricing would gradually creep up, so that in a few years it becomes untenable, or (2) that when you sell the car, the heated seats would be deactivated. We'll never know if (1) would have happened, and I wasn't ever able to figure out if (2) was the case. But you are right that the outrage-bait titles made people almost uniformly upset, since it wasn't clear that this was an additional option, and that people could still purchase heated seats outright.
- ketralnis 3y agoIn either of these cases the car you exchanged your money for physically had the seat heaters in it already. You were buying (or renting) the password to be allowed to use your own belongings. To me this isn't nuanced at all. It's my fucking car, get out of here with this rent-seeking DLC shit.
- bonestamp2 3y agoIt is nuanced. If they did not sell the car for a penny more than last years model without heated seats, in other words they put up the money for the heated seat hardware in hopes of recouping that cost (and making their usual profit on it) later, then I don't see why people have a problem with getting the same features for the same price as last year. In fact, as someone who likes to buy lightly used cars, I love this idea even more... even though the original buyer didn't want heated seats, I can still have them for the original option price? SOLD! (I would not do the subscription option of course)
- ketralnis 3y agoNone of that is my problem. My belongings belong to me. I don't care if a bean counter somewhere was slightly happier about it before it got to me. The moment the car is my car, it's no longer their car to start charging me access to.