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Comment by Urgo | Hacker News Reader

It only feels bad because you (not saying you, but you know what I mean) thought you were getting away with getting something for free you didn't pay for and it's being taken back.

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It primarily feels bad because unlike a spotify subscription, people still expect to own the cars they buy for tens of thousands of dollars, and this very effectively demonstrates how people who own the software you use can change what your car does with the push of a remote.

If I buy a traditional car that accidentally came with a premium feature, is the cardealer going to come to my house and rip the seat out?

Wait until you learn about all the software out there with trial features, there's enough of it that you'll be raising the pitchfork for the rest of your life.

These buyers were informed upon taking ownership that this was a trial. No mistake or accident happened.

Nah, it feels back because you had something that will be taken away from you.

They shouldn't have given it to the people in the first place.

I'm with you on that. Ideally it shouldn't have been given at all. I just don't see any issue with Tesla updating things to match what the customer paid for. And again, the Tesla website is super easy to use and they detail everything. You know EXACTLY what you are ordering when you order it. I may be bummed if I got some free extras if I was one of these customers but I'd be totally fine if the extras went away since I hadn't paid for them.

I'm wondering if when the customers were handed the keys though if Tesla let them know about this "free trial" of sorts.

Don't take me wrong. I understand that they now get what they paid for. It's clear to everybody. It still FEELS bad and it looks bad. Can't do anything about it. That's what it is since you come to this world as a baby. If somebody takes something away from you, you cry.

If somebody else gets something for free that you yourself paid for, you also cry.

But less than the person who has it taken away. Kahneman and Tversky did a bunch of research in this area measuring loss aversion [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion

It was the least bad option for Tesla at the time. Sure it may feel bad to you as a bystander but the other options would have felt worse to Tesla customers.

How so?

Not being able to produce and deliver promised 35k cars would have been a worse option. Doing so with the originally planned configurations would have been complex, disruptive, and possibly killed the company during a vulnerable time. Instead, customers are getting way better cars than originally planned (better seats, better roof, software-upgradable features).

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