My inner curmudgeon is on board with the idea of only allowing important firmware updates to happen at the dealer. But the reality is that with so many cars on the road, OTA update is a better way to make cars safer.

In my case, for example, I have a 2014 and a 2015 car which are both more than a year overdue for a software updates. One is related to the braking system; the other to a problem where if you stomp on the gas in an emergency (like to avoid a crash), the car stalls.

The problem is that the dealers in my area don't have the capacity or the will to do software updates. One dealership only has maintenance hours between 9am and 4pm Monday through Thursday, and the ONE guy who is allowed to do software updates is only in on Saturdays from 9-noon occasionally.

The other dealership doesn't take appointments at all. It's first-come, first-served, 8am-5pm Monday through Saturday. I stopped going there because even at 7am, there's a huge line of people waiting for service. The final straw was when I sat there from 7am until 3pm for a very simple non-engine part swap that was covered under warranty.

The next nearest dealer is 138 miles away.

tl;dr version: OTA updates are good because there are places where you can't get a software update done at the dealer in a reasonable time.