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> With all this emphasis they're putting on upselling these $150 map updates, it doesn't take a genius to understand why GM is no longer making vehicles with Ca

> With all this emphasis they're putting on upselling these $150 map updates, it doesn't take a genius to understand why GM is no longer making vehicles with CarPlay or Android Auto. Because cars are a low margin, high capital business with ruthless competition. Because a trillion dollar duopoly gets to spend a billion dollars on mapping software and give it away completely for free as part of an ecosystem / platform play, which they then use to strong arm automotive manufacturers. If you had to bear the true cost, it would be $150. More car companies should ban Apple and Google. Fuck Apple and Google. They are not the heroes in this story. They're not Robin Hood here, even if that's what they're masquerading as. They're the child-enslaving "Land of Toys" from Pinocchio - they're using you and lured you in with a promise of freedom, but they have an ulterior motive. All of that "freedom" just gets added to the purchase price of your car, and you don't even realize it. You also get Google ads for McDonalds and shit.

ralph84 1y ago
The EU mindset in a nutshell. It doesn’t matter how shitty and expensive the solution is, as long as they get to say they owned big tech.
- echelon 1y ago
  Okay, so you're a hyper capitalist. Good, I dig that. Me too. Big tech is literally a machine putting a ceiling on your ability to build. They tax and control everything, lock down distribution, prevent you from operating without rules. If you get big enough, they self-fund an internal team to compete with you. Or they offer to buy you for less than you're worth. If you don't accept, they buy your competitor. Capitalism should be brutal. Giant lions that can't compete should starve and give way to nimble new competition. You shouldn't be able to use your 100+ business units to subsidize the takeover of an entirely unrelated market. They are an invasive species and are growing into everything they can without antitrust hedge trimming. Instead of lean, starving lions, they're lion fish infesting the Gulf of Mexico. They're feasting upon the entire ecosystem and putting pressure on healthy competition. Your own capital rewards are cut short because of their scale. Do you like not being able to write apps and distribute them to customers? It's okay to pay their fee, jump through their hoops, be locked to release trains, pay 30%, forced to lose your customer relationship, forced to use their payment and user rails, forced to update on their whim to meet their new standards - on their cadence and not yours? Do you like having competitors able to pay money to put themselves in front of customers searching for your brand name? On the web and in the app stores? So you have to pay to even enjoy the name recognition you earned? On top of the 30% gross sales tax you already pay? And those draconian rules? That's fucking bullshit. We need more competition, not less. Winning should not be reaching scale and squatting forever. You should be forced to run on the treadmill constantly until someone nibbles away at your market. That's healthy. Competition from smaller players should be brutal and unending. That is how we build robust, anti-fragile markets that maximally benefit consumers. That is how we ensure capital rewards accrue to the active innovators. Apple and Google are lion fish. It's time for the DOJ, FTC, and every sovereign nation to cull them back so that the ecosystem can thrive once more.
  - throw10920 1y ago
    > Okay, so you're a hyper capitalist. Good, I dig that. Me too. Nothing in GP's comment gave any indication that they were a "hyper capitalist". You're just being emotionally manipulative, disingenuous, and acting in bad faith. This is categorically inappropriate for HN.
    - frank_nitti 1y ago
      Hmm well I certainly inferred the same from their comment: it casts “big tech” as the victim of the government, because the latter forced as “overpriced and shitty solution” It’s possible they’re not a capitalist and just extremely sympathetic to Apple and/or Google specifically, but that seems more of a stretch than what that commenter (to whom you’re replying) has inferred IMO
      - throw10920 1y ago
        Your assumption is equally incorrect, because the poster factually did not say anything like that. You can be upset at the EU for making performative regulation without addressing "real issues" or writing the regulation well, and yet still support strong regulation. The implication that criticizing the EU is equivalent to being a "hyper-capitalist" is such an insane belief that it borders on being farcical. Assumptions like this are what lead to political polarization. Don't do it. Read what the poster wrote, don't try to read their mind, and use your brain responding.
        darkwater 1y ago
        Reading the original comment, I would say that's you giving it a creative interpretation.
        throw10920 1y ago
        Reading my previous comment, anyone with decent reading comprehension can tell that I'm describing a possible interpretation. I'm clearly not assigning it as fact, as echelon is. I can also explain exactly why echelon's interpretation is unfounded, yet you cannot make any coherent argument and are forced to resort to allusions and baseless accusations stemming from a failure to read what I wrote. Although, that's consistent with a failure to read what ralph84 wrote, too.
daedrdev 1y ago
> Because cars are a low margin, high capital business with ruthless competition. Then why are they making such terrible carplay systems?
f33d5173 1y ago
When companies compete, consumers win. Don't make the error of thinking that because they're doing it for selfish reasons, it doesn't benefit you. > If you had to bear the true cost, it would be $150. That might be true, but it probably isn't. A larger company can spread the cost out over a larger number of customers, meaning the cost per customer is lower.
nozzlegear 1y ago
CarPlay doesn't show me ads for McDonald's, it doesn't show me ads at all.
- saagarjha 1y ago
  Yet :(
  - DANmode 11mo ago
    Fork.
yourusername 1y ago
When standalone GPS units for $500 were popular the big car manufacturers were still trying to sell GPS as a $2000 option. We've seen time and time again car companies will charge whatever they can get away with. So i'm very skeptical that maps actually cost $150 for the companies that charged me $800 to enable bluetooth calling.
lwkl 1y ago
Before CarPlay and Android Auto we had TomTom for $130 and map updates costing about $40. The map updates from car manufacturers were always sold at a premium. I bet Google Maps pays for itself through ads alone. In addition Google Maps gains a lot of invaluable data from its users like new businesses, reviews, pictures, updated opening times, traffic data and more. So no Google Maps isn't really "free" it's paid for by its users with ads and free labor to improve the mapping data. Having the users split between different navigation software is a worse user experience because the mapping data will be worse. So I welcome a monopoly in this case. The hard work of mapping is done by the government in most countries and paid for by the tax payers. So you are just paying the car company to convert the mapping data you already paid for into their proprietary format.

ralph84 1y ago

The EU mindset in a nutshell. It doesn’t matter how shitty and expensive the solution is, as long as they get to say they owned big tech.

echelon 1y ago
Okay, so you're a hyper capitalist. Good, I dig that. Me too. Big tech is literally a machine putting a ceiling on your ability to build. They tax and control everything, lock down distribution, prevent you from operating without rules. If you get big enough, they self-fund an internal team to compete with you. Or they offer to buy you for less than you're worth. If you don't accept, they buy your competitor. Capitalism should be brutal. Giant lions that can't compete should starve and give way to nimble new competition. You shouldn't be able to use your 100+ business units to subsidize the takeover of an entirely unrelated market. They are an invasive species and are growing into everything they can without antitrust hedge trimming. Instead of lean, starving lions, they're lion fish infesting the Gulf of Mexico. They're feasting upon the entire ecosystem and putting pressure on healthy competition. Your own capital rewards are cut short because of their scale. Do you like not being able to write apps and distribute them to customers? It's okay to pay their fee, jump through their hoops, be locked to release trains, pay 30%, forced to lose your customer relationship, forced to use their payment and user rails, forced to update on their whim to meet their new standards - on their cadence and not yours? Do you like having competitors able to pay money to put themselves in front of customers searching for your brand name? On the web and in the app stores? So you have to pay to even enjoy the name recognition you earned? On top of the 30% gross sales tax you already pay? And those draconian rules? That's fucking bullshit. We need more competition, not less. Winning should not be reaching scale and squatting forever. You should be forced to run on the treadmill constantly until someone nibbles away at your market. That's healthy. Competition from smaller players should be brutal and unending. That is how we build robust, anti-fragile markets that maximally benefit consumers. That is how we ensure capital rewards accrue to the active innovators. Apple and Google are lion fish. It's time for the DOJ, FTC, and every sovereign nation to cull them back so that the ecosystem can thrive once more.
- throw10920 1y ago
  > Okay, so you're a hyper capitalist. Good, I dig that. Me too. Nothing in GP's comment gave any indication that they were a "hyper capitalist". You're just being emotionally manipulative, disingenuous, and acting in bad faith. This is categorically inappropriate for HN.
  - frank_nitti 1y ago
    Hmm well I certainly inferred the same from their comment: it casts “big tech” as the victim of the government, because the latter forced as “overpriced and shitty solution” It’s possible they’re not a capitalist and just extremely sympathetic to Apple and/or Google specifically, but that seems more of a stretch than what that commenter (to whom you’re replying) has inferred IMO
    - throw10920 1y ago
      Your assumption is equally incorrect, because the poster factually did not say anything like that. You can be upset at the EU for making performative regulation without addressing "real issues" or writing the regulation well, and yet still support strong regulation. The implication that criticizing the EU is equivalent to being a "hyper-capitalist" is such an insane belief that it borders on being farcical. Assumptions like this are what lead to political polarization. Don't do it. Read what the poster wrote, don't try to read their mind, and use your brain responding.
      - darkwater 1y ago
        Reading the original comment, I would say that's you giving it a creative interpretation.
        throw10920 1y ago
        Reading my previous comment, anyone with decent reading comprehension can tell that I'm describing a possible interpretation. I'm clearly not assigning it as fact, as echelon is. I can also explain exactly why echelon's interpretation is unfounded, yet you cannot make any coherent argument and are forced to resort to allusions and baseless accusations stemming from a failure to read what I wrote. Although, that's consistent with a failure to read what ralph84 wrote, too.

daedrdev 1y ago

> Because cars are a low margin, high capital business with ruthless competition. Then why are they making such terrible carplay systems?

f33d5173 1y ago

When companies compete, consumers win. Don't make the error of thinking that because they're doing it for selfish reasons, it doesn't benefit you. > If you had to bear the true cost, it would be $150. That might be true, but it probably isn't. A larger company can spread the cost out over a larger number of customers, meaning the cost per customer is lower.

nozzlegear 1y ago

CarPlay doesn't show me ads for McDonald's, it doesn't show me ads at all.

saagarjha 1y ago
Yet :(
- DANmode 11mo ago
  Fork.

yourusername 1y ago

When standalone GPS units for $500 were popular the big car manufacturers were still trying to sell GPS as a $2000 option. We've seen time and time again car companies will charge whatever they can get away with. So i'm very skeptical that maps actually cost $150 for the companies that charged me $800 to enable bluetooth calling.

lwkl 1y ago

Before CarPlay and Android Auto we had TomTom for $130 and map updates costing about $40. The map updates from car manufacturers were always sold at a premium. I bet Google Maps pays for itself through ads alone. In addition Google Maps gains a lot of invaluable data from its users like new businesses, reviews, pictures, updated opening times, traffic data and more. So no Google Maps isn't really "free" it's paid for by its users with ads and free labor to improve the mapping data. Having the users split between different navigation software is a worse user experience because the mapping data will be worse. So I welcome a monopoly in this case. The hard work of mapping is done by the government in most countries and paid for by the tax payers. So you are just paying the car company to convert the mapping data you already paid for into their proprietary format.