"feature owner didn't pay for tells owner he didn't pay for it"
Would be appropriate too, I think. It is one thing to just not include a certain feature, but it is another thing to still include a button that only has the function to remind you of a possible paid upgrade.
People thought that they bought a car, but they also bought a relation with a company. Like people who buy a smart TV and think they bought just a TV set. Actually they bought a TV set and a relationship with a TV producer who now keeps sucking up their data and shows ads on top of the programs that they intended to watch. How should I call this? Smartphoneification of everything? Is this a good thing?
Of course modifying the software isn't cheap, unless you're going to learn how and do it on your own time, but that's not a marginal cost
Disclaimer: My private daily driver runs Ubuntu and LibreOffice.
So not only was the maginal cost exactly zero, some engineer actually spent time building the gating logic.
I mean, I "hate" having to pay for stuff in stores too (markups and all). Like it or not those "zero marginal production cost" products don't have zero cost to develop, so "induced scarcity" (aka. charging the user) is basically the best way to recoup development costs.
I do not have a solution for this, but the fact that it's a problem is obvious to me, and the fact it will only get worse with time is also obvious.
I don't see how the first sentence contradicts the second sentence. Audi is solving problems (a hot car) for people, by providing a product (an AC). The fact that they're "inducing scarcity" or whatever is orthogonal to this.
>I do not have a solution for this, but the fact that it's a problem is obvious to me, and the fact it will only get worse with time is also obvious.
The fact that you don't have a solution for this suggests that this is a necessary evil that has to exist for society/the economy to work properly. I find it pretty undemocratic and unjust that the government has forces me to make payments to it (ie. taxes). That doesn't mean it's "corrosive" to a democratic/free/just society.
> The fact that you don't have a solution for this suggests that this is a necessary evil that has to exist for society/the economy to work properly.
My, or your lack of imagination as to a solution for this does not prove a solution does not exist, nor does it prove we should not search for one. If everyone along history thought like that, we would still be living in caves.
If you're talking about utility, the standard argument in support of it would be the same one used for copyright/patents, ie. "even though there's utility to be gained by prohibiting such restrictions and granting access to the product for everyone, the lack of scarcity will eliminate the profit motive from future endeavors, and will therefore eliminate future investment/research making us worse off in the future"
>My, or your lack of imagination as to a solution for this does not prove a solution does not exist, nor does it prove we should not search for one. If everyone along history thought like that, we would still be living in caves.
That's true, but at the same time it seems rather pointless to complain about how something is "corrosive to capitalism" when there isn't an obvious solution. Going back to my previous example, I'd love to live in a world where we can get public services (comparable to today's levels) and not pay any taxes. However, if there's no viable alternative in sight I'm not going to complain about it. I also recognize that even though there might some yet undiscovered funding model that doesn't involve compulsory payments, it realistically doesn't exist or is hundreds of years away, so searching for it seems like a fools errand.
Which is actually NOT part of the capitalist model at all, but rather social engineering (i.e. socialism) where the government circumvents capitalism for the sake of inducing a particular desired social outcome. In the capitalist model property rights only exist as a consequence of natural scarcity. Copyright does not exist in the capitalist model.
I consider changing good products to use emotional and marketing manipulation to make customers feel bad about not paying enough "abusive". Just like every other action that prioritizes maximum money extraction over paying customer satisfaction. It doesn't make for a happy society.
This entire statement seems like a stretch. Do you also find it "abusive" that freemium products try to upsell premium features, or that a cloud storage service prompts you to buy more storage after you ran out?
>Just like every other action that prioritizes maximum money extraction over paying customer satisfaction. It doesn't make for a happy society.
By the same token, as a paying netflix customer I'm pretty dissatisfied that I have to pay $15/month. I'd be much satisfied and happier if it only costs $0.01.
Even if features have zero marginal cost, they are important for market segmentation, which is important for reducing the cost for most people by allowing less price-discriminating purchasers to pay more.
Imagine instead this was a button that was labeled, "I'm rich" and pressing it echoed back "Yes you are".
That could be similarly paywalled and used for market segmentation.
Instead, they choose to paywall a feature that has minor benefit like "climate sync" (I'm not sure I even understand what that means, I live in temperate climate).
I doubt it, More likely “manufacturer gets better returns from car model thus increasing projeted profits> Stocks go up”
Porsche should be close, being part VW
The actual story is much less interesting.