Louis Rossmann made a video on it, and something that came to mind while I was watching it was that while regulation can in fact be abused, I think some regulation has to be in place because a company that can charge whatever it wants for a car doing this just for the sake of control is awful. Do we really own the things we buy, or do the corporations?
I know in the EU, they have a lot more laws/regulations about warranties and other R2R shit, I just want to be able to fix the shit I own by myself without the company hindering me from doing so because they want to treat me like a leasee while charging me purchase prices.
Edit: Starting in South Korea, but very concerned that it could be brought here considering horse armor started the gaming industry’s bullshit.
Car as a Service? Are car lootboxes next?
You'll own nothing and be happy.
Buy now for a chance to win the ultra rare 1 hour of heated seat card! Special deal today only! 50% off was 50k BMW marks now only 25k marks.
What you really get most of the time is a 60 seconds of heated seat card and random logo variations for the inside screen.
Consoomers: "Look I'm fine with pay2drive as long as it's cosmetics like that."
I'll be curious to see in a decade when the ones even more raised on this stuff come of age. I was helping my kid cousin hack a gacha game for free money and realized playing it that it's basically reminded me of slot machine, but it's used against kids. This particular kid is one of the better parented ones and has a lot of critical thinking skills and common sense for his age, but I know others that have lived doing almost nothing but consuming garbage media since they were an infant. It's going to be crazy to see how wholeheartedly they jump on board with this stuff.
I notice this with a lot of stuff, particularly the cashless trend, the removal of services and infrastructure (road access, public transit, payphones, post boxes, etc.), and even the removal of objectively useful business branches, like the only bank or post office in a whole town, or region, let’s say (a regular occurrence, where I live)…
These people a) live on their smartphones, b) are not poor (so they’ll never have their phone service cut off, and so will never need a payphone, or a fucking post box), c) rarely leave the house, d) do everything online, and e) think that EVERYONE is exactly like them, and that if they aren’t, they’re some sort of “anti-corporate Luddite standing in the way of muh progress”, which is literally what I was told on local subreddits when I pointed this out…
Live in a commuter town. It is very (generally upper) middle class, but I’m below the poverty line. As a result, almost none of those services I mentioned above exist here anymore, simply because “the upper middle class” here doesn’t care, and people living in the cities (which this isn’t) don’t have to deal with bald-faced corporate bastardry like that so much, so they don’t care, “lol”.
Especially galling when it is a government entity (Australia Post, the National Broadband Network, partly) doing this, while also signalling their “wokeness”, and giving the executives Cartier watches as “bonuses” (that’s a whole saga. Seriously, look it up). It’s fucking insane, and almost sickening, how “Gordon Gecko” they are…
Literally the entire “town centre” here is pedestrianised and “corporatized”, now. It’s fucked. They didn’t ask, they just did it. Even the parkland…
The whole thing is a fucking nightmare, yet the yuppie millennials around me have their wholefoods (literally), and their fucking “healthy takeaways”, so me raising these issues just makes me a “Luddite”. I kid you not. 😒
I used to live in such an area. At least somewhat but nowhere near the extreme. It was more of a new build area and the main reason I moved is everything got out of hand in a lot of those respects. I've been to dinner, hung out, whatever with people like that where they just look at their phone the whole damn time. It's a bit of a pet peeve of mine, like really, I took my time for this and you just sit on your phone. I've been very fortunate to build a small friend group and small family group of people that I get along with and while I wouldn't say we are like minded on everything political, we are like minded in how we do things and get along. Even more so since Covid, I really just would rather spend my friends time strengthening those relationships than bothering for a bigger group of people that would jut irritate me. So that's what I do to get by. I don't bother with people otherwise. If it's family I'm stuck with I'll tolerate them or just ignore them, because in the end I have my few close ones that I know are there.
I have called myself an old codger several times, so I guess the same as a luddite. Mainly because I don't like everything on my phone. I use my computer for most things I need tech for. I don't want to pay to park with my phone, use it for event tickets, look at a damn restaurant menu on it, etc. I've surprised people when I say I've never done a Zoom call and honestly have no idea how. Only video call I ever do is Facetime with a certain family member, because we are really close and don't live in the same town and he's young and accustomed to it. I use my phone for talk, text, and music otherwise and that's about it. Everything else can go back to the old ways.
Anyway, what you wrote is très wholesome, and I agree completely, ha.
Funny how we develop as people.
I’m nothing like my parents at all, and yet I completely agree with what you said there, and yet we’re just internet strangers, lol.
I have no idea why I am the person I am, but it certainly doesn’t seem to be genetic (unless I was adopted and just… never told. They never actually showed me the birth certificate, or any of that), or indeed particularly… Closely environmental, because I really didn’t learn this stuff from my peers at school, or whatever, lol…
I suspect it’s the combination of a few key teachers, and my grandparents, perhaps. But honestly, who knows!
I give a ton of credit to how I am to my dad and my grandfathers. There's a lot of dysfunction especially amongst the women in the family, but I spent a lot of time with my grandfathers just tagging along with them doing day to day man stuff.
Yeah it’s shit, lol…
It’s very weird living in what I would call a “services desert” (the payphone thing is particularly annoying/frustrating, as is the loss of the post office and bank branch, and the complete lack of evening/weekend public transport), but you know what’s weirder??
My parents, who are obviously more than twice my age, lol, do not think like either you or I do (you’ve seen my previous posts, I believe. You know enough, from that, that this will probably be no surprise). They fucking love being on their phones/laptops all the time. They love streaming, and hacked my account, to get access to streaming services they couldn’t be bothered organizing themselves.
They hate the idea of payphones. They hate letters. Shopping in person is “inconvenient” to them. As is having to go in to teach students (they do occasional Uni work) in person.
They would much rather just use Zoom.
They’re so fucking bonkers that they literally prefer to write letters (despite what I said previously) to their neighbours, rather than speak to them, whenever there is an issue/dispute…
So…
This clearly isn’t a “genetic” predisposition, lol.
I’m much more like you, and agree completely. Despite, or perhaps in spite of, both of my “gene donors”…
I hadn’t really noticed before, so much, but the pub (you know, the traditional “pub”) is pretty much my element, lol. I love shooting the shit and talking to people while drinking beer and watching the game/band/fireplace. Exactly as I did last night.
Vaguely like Cheers, but actually real, lol.
Those places are disappearing, here, though, unfortunately…
My Dad? Hates pubs. Hates people who go to pubs (except for, say, the hipster “gastropub”, lol). And my mother wouldn’t be caught dead in one. Even for my birthday.
So…
We are more than the sum of our genetic parts, basically, I suppose!
It's funny even my grandmother who is over 80 spends forever on her phone and will totally ignore you when you visit. Weird. She's hypocritical about it too, my teen cousin was over there visiting and said she was getting all over him for being on his phone the whole time, yet she will do just the same when you're there. He's way less attached to his phone than she is normally, just wasn't really having a good day and was texting me kinda blowing off steam. I'm a bit of his best friend fun uncle even though I'm technically not his uncle.
Yes.
Leasing cars has been a thing forever.
And the option to fully buy is there.
You guys are just looking for outrage porn at this point, like leftists do.
More reasons not to buy BMW
They'll just have to market it as "for the climate". People would fall over themselves to get it. The sheep just love virtue signalling.
Imagine being able to pat yourself on the back for paying extra for "carbon-offset" "zero-emission" heating. Every time you turn it on a tree gets its wings!
Just root and jailbreak your car. What are they gonna do?
??
It actually could be a DMCA violation.
This is the strange part. What part of the functionality goes away when you don't pay?
Probably the entire functionality.
Everything is computer controlled in modern cars. If your car has any sort of network access and can talk to the company that built it, you don't own it any more. It will do what the manufacturer tells it to, or what law enforcement tells them to tell it to do.
To better serve our customers we are announcing a subscription plan for direct fuel injection for all existing models...
Want your turbos on your turbo engine to work? Well we're going to have to charge you a monthly subscription plus the carbon tax for that.
I just bought an Outback and, for some reason, the sunroof option was inseparable from their network service. It's a mystery to me how the two are related.
But good god did going through all of the options raise my blood pressure. I hate the car industry, and I hate that the PC industry is going the exact same direction with overpriced unmodifiable gear. Piece of molded rubberized plastic? $100. Another piece of molded plastic? $250. Set of black lug nuts instead of stainless steel? $300. Fuck you.
Honda only adds intermittent windshield wipers to their mid and upper trims. A basic feature with most other manufacturers. Honda wants you to pay $2000 more to get that $20 switch.
They're probably part of the same module, so it's cheaper for them to just disable or remove(or not install) the entire module. A lot of the computer modules in cars cover multiple things, regardless of whether their paid for or not. It's just how mass production works.
This is why I keep my “dumb” car, which predates any of this shit (1998, baybay!).
It’s fucking great, and I will likely drive it until a) it dies, or b) someone offers me money that I can’t refuse for it (it’s a rare one), lol…
But fuck, it is so much better to drive than any of the computerized plastic shitboxes from the last decade or so, including the model of the same car, from just over a decade later…
It’s bizarre to drive both, and see the difference. And then to drive an even more recent car, where the “tech” is even more intrusive, and cannot truly be turned off… Hell, it’s actually galling, frankly.
Or drive into a brick wall at 130 mph like what happened to Michael Hastings
Or have the seats replaced with aftermarket heated seats. You can’t prevent someone from modifying their car as long as it still considered road legal. And aftermarket seats and steering wheels probably aren’t going to do that.
New Law: Seeing as sudden temperature changes can startle or injure a driver, all automatic heated seats and steering wheels must be made and installed and licensed by someone who bribed us to make this law.
I could see this passing in CA and NY immediately after subscribers drop
Unfortunately, I think you underestimate just how much power companies like this have over regulations like that…
I hope you’re right, but I wouldn’t… Rely on that. At least going forward into this “brave new world” they are building…
Much like the aviation industry, these companies are as “powerful” (and certainly insidious) as many governments, and they know that, too…
Deny any services, warranties, protections, recalls, etc.. So, basically, you can never take it to an authorized dealer when it breaks down, and this is a BMW, it will break down, frequently.
Someone's going to post how to "root" your car and hot patch all these lockouts.
Unless I'm leasing it's: My car. My software. My seats. My heating elements.
It's hard to say because you usually have to move up a trim level to get heated seats and steering wheels but those prices seem to be about what those features would add to your car payment if bought outright.
I'm thinking BMW wanted to simplify manufacturing and not produce unheated seats at all while adding granularity to the availability of features, but I guess if you're adding the heated seats in anyway they need DRM to keep people from activating them for free- so might as well make it a recurring payment.
I can see how a series of mildly scummy moves all came together to create a wildly scummy move.
Another wrinkle is every major news outlet report I read implied you have to subscribe for a year at a time, but "brobible" (idk what that is) makes it clear you can subscribe for individual months, so you could just pay $36 for the heart of winter if you want.
That's not really bad compared to a crappy Amazon/Chinese heated seat overlay that looks and feels like crap, that you have to unplug when not in use, and could catch fire at any minute.
Mass production actually makes it cheaper to produce as few different variables as possible. It's quite plausible that it started this way, but then turned into this when they ran it past the suits.
You'll own nothing and you'll be unhappy.
Why dont you just regulate your need to spend money on BMW and let the fucking retards do it?
What makes you think this will stop at heated seats in luxury cars?
I saw a great video by Upper echelon today, if I remember when I wake up I will post a link but it should be easy to find. There exists a safety vest for motorcycles. That vest is 400 buckerinos but if you want actual functionality you have to pay 12 bucks a month or another 400 to have those features unlocked. Safety as a service is here and it is terrifying.
I'd prefer the free market to regulate this kind of stupidity. I don't trust it will though, as it seems any other thing that appears to be stupid microtransactions or subscriptions to me end up making a boatload of money.
If I were to regulate it, would be nothing more than requiring clear disclosure of the terms.
Isn’t this what Tesla have always done?
Reddit is already “fact checking” this, and saying, “No, it isn’t happening in da USA, so it’s perfectly fine! Don’t you worry about that! [as the Hillbilly Dictator used to say]”
Like, no joke. SMH…
yes yes be greedy perhaps we will see tony teach folks how to build a clunker from spare parts
What are you talking about exactly ?
I'm on the BMW configurator for a Series 3, and heated stearing wheel is part of a 1900$ package. That's just a flat fee increase to the price of the car. Heated seats come baseline.
There's no subscription service. Are you confusing the increase in financing it costs vs subscription ?
The article in the video: https://www.motor1.com/news/597376/bmw-heated-seats-subscription/
Ah, so not really outrage worthy.
Which I did see and is in the video, it's just really iffy not adding it to the price of a car that's already an expensive luxury car, and begs the question of “why a subscription model?”
Some things may be going on here. Saving on the assembly line by reducing the configurations is probably part of it, but the consumers not wanting to foot the cost of the added configuration becomes an issue.
So BMW installs the hardware, but then only charges for it for consumers who want to use it.
But then, some consumers do calculations, like "406$ for 4 months a year" and opt out of it. But what if those consumers could have it cheaper ? Then they opt in. The hardware is there anyway, so might as well "rent it out".
Let's say you use it 4 months a year. At 18$/month, it takes 22 months to reach the 406$ price tag. 22 / 4 is 5 and a half years. If you don't plan on owning the car for 5 and a half years, it becomes cheaper to just not take the option permanently and just subscribed to it. Heck, one of those years winter is really mild ? Just don't.
I don't really see the issue here, this is all a numbers game for everyone involved. As long as the option is still there to buy permanently, there's no problem.
Just don't buy that car. I will admit that once a whole industry becomes monopolized regulation may be necessay, but at this point you still have alternative options.
You're acting like you live in a free market, when in reality big corporations are part of the state
So you just want to double down and increase state control further?
I'm okay with a state that makes life better for normal people and families, even if it means less freedom for multinational megacorps
Believe me I'm no fan of megacorps, but I find that most government regulation makes things worse, not better.
Good regulation requires that the government 1. Understands the problem well enough to fix it, and 2. Actually wants to fix the problem, as opposed to paying it lip service and then just supporting big business for for those sweet kickbacks. I think it's very rare for both of those things to be true.
You're correct, but nevertheless many of the problems that we have are already a result of government intervention. The entire economic edifice that allows corporations (or more importantly, megacorporations) to exist is a result of governments creating these legal entities and enabling them to act in various different ways that normal people wouldn't be allowed to
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/07/no-bmw-is-not-making-heated-seats-a-subscription-for-us-cars/
Just because it’s not happening here yet, doesn’t mean it can’t, remember horse armor?
A few thoughts:
I think it’s possible to draw a line between necessary consumer protections and rent-seeking regulations.
“Not on this site” he laughed, sadly…
Certain people here have a very black and white way of viewing the world, so they will just call you and I stupid for saying what you just did, even though it is actually the most logical, sensible position to take, lol.