3 ms·
Pressing the lane assistant button on a Mercedes steering wheel and getting a “you’ll need to activate your subscription first” message really drove up my blood
by greenpresident 8mo ago
Pressing the lane assistant button on a Mercedes steering wheel and getting a “you’ll need to activate your subscription first” message really drove up my blood pressure.
- hermanzegerman 8mo agoYou know you can just buy it?
- greenpresident 8mo agoIt’s built in. There is a dedicated button for it. Hard to justify imho.
- b40d-48b2-979e 8mo agoThey already bought the car.
- whynotmaybe 8mo agoI'm wondering whether it's a generational vision and that the concept of ownership of software with hardware is slowly becoming obsolete. Every young adult I know uses a subscription for everything I used to buy. Even though they own the device on which they consume it. Spotify for cd's, Netflix-Disney-Amazon for vhs and dvd's, Udemy-Masterclass for books.
- tzs 8mo agoCDs were around $16 in 2000, which is equivalent to around $30 today, which is around 2.3 times what a Spotify premium subscription costs for one person. Equivalently, a Spotify premium subscription in 2000 would be a little under $7. I guarantee that if you asked young adults in 2000 if they would be interested in a subscription that lets them listen to nearly everything available on CD, at any time, as often as they wished, for $7/month they would have been ecstatic. Same for DVDs, which were typically in the $20-25 range for new releases in 2000. They would not have been quite as happy as they would have been with Spotify because of the way video is split among several streaming services, but it would still be seen as a tremendous improvement.
- hermanzegerman 8mo agoYes, despite knowing that it's not included. It's like hitting yourself and complaining afterwards about it
- GoatInGrey 8mo agoIn this case, they bought and currently own the sensors and hardware that the ML model is stored on. Moreover, the software runs locally. It's a silly example, but you can think of it as buying a house and the ceiling lights requiring a subscription to turn on. As an aside, I wonder how long this can keep up before it begins affecting laws around theft and property damage if the person operating, storing, insuring, and maintaining the physical objects don't contractually own them. Is Mercedes a victim if the LKAS camera gets damaged or stolen, rather than you?
- hermanzegerman 8mo agoI mean they surely knew this before they bought their car and bought it anyway. So I don't get the complaint Are you sure they bought the ML Models? The Hardware is inside because it's required for the emergency lane keeping, but I wouldn't be surprised if the OEMs would have a deal with the supplier where they are paid more if this feature gets enabled
- Banditoz 8mo agoYou're missing the point.
- wolvoleo 8mo agoAnd the EU companies are surprised a lot of people buy Chinese now. Screw the subscriptions. I don't care how much the shareholders want them.
- burnte 8mo ago> Screw the subscriptions. I don't care how much the shareholders want them. Agreed. The investor requirements of any company mean nothing to me as the consumer.
- moolcool 8mo agoWoah, which model was this in?
- greenpresident 8mo agohttps://www.reddit.com/r/mercedes_benz/comments/1oq9xum/active_steering_assist_is_now_a_subscription_for/ https://www.reddit.com/r/mercedes_benz/comments/1oq9xum/acti... This is an example of what I am talking about.