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Comment by winternett | Hacker News Reader

I was ranting about this 2 years ago and a lot of people laughed it off...

I cited an auto start feature o VOLVO cars that required a siriusXM membership.

It's unfathomable that we reached this point of monthly subscriptions being implemented on things that we've already paid for. It's the first sign that we're in for a wave of not feudalism, but outright economic slavery. There is no rational consumer protection against many predatory business practices, and many are eager to be a part of monthly subscriptions for useless services for lord knows what motivational reason.

Mike Judge was a genius for making the movie Idiocracy, it's our future. No way around it now. :[

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> I cited an auto start feature o VOLVO cars that required a siriusXM membership.

As much as I dislike that kind of fee, it at least makes sense. The remote communication support isn't free.

Implementing it the way it used to be, with a proprietary radio remote, does not require any communications infrastructure support.

99.9% of the time this feature is used to start the car when the driver is within 50 feet. There's no need for it to be relayed through the Internet.

My Tesla Model 3 _can_ remote start the air conditioner via the cellular network, but it can also work via bluetooth if I'm within maybe 20 to 30 meters of the vehicle.

Of course, Tesla is also more friendly than these others and makes the service free.

This is something that bothers me as well, implementation decisions are what drives this a lot. I have a nest thermostat and it seems like the app decides to log me out randomly every once in a while and I have to go through the whole login/2fa process, sometimes in the middle of the night when trying to adjust the temp! There is no need for internet connected thermostat most of the time, I would much prefer Bluetooth with no login needed ever.

Why have such a thing ad why tolerate it - I mean get rid of it or tell whoever owns it now to fix it. What is the value of these things?

it came with the house and I haven't got around to replacing it yet, nor should I have to really.

I really wish that all thermostats at least had the option for local control. z-wave and other standards for this aren't even new.

I'm only familiar with the systems where the fob is still just a proprietary remote. It also has a phone app, and that's what costs extra. The fees are too high, but the existence of a fee is sensible.

It is free when the vehicle is parked at my house and has access to our wireless guest network. It can download updates just fine. This is purely a money decision by Volvo.

$300 a year is crazy. I never even turned that feature on.

well there is good faith implementation and a bad faith one. implicit in the clubbing of satellite radio & remote start is a bad faith revenue milking where they are trying to sell a rather undesirable feature with a very desirable one. I have a volvo and an older acura. I f*king hate this because my older acura can be remote started and volvo wont as I refuse to pay $15 a month for a already working & paid for feature they disabled after a few years.

what they really want is install a bunch of these leeching monthly subscriptions on your credit card that you forget about and they keep billing you for almost no marginal value.

volvo does not require siriusxm (which is satellite radio) for auto-start. it requires Volvo On Call subscription (you get one for free for first 3 years). And it's kinda reasonable, because Volvo On Call works via LTE and somebody needs to pay for it

There is a way, but you're not going to like it, and we can't discuss it on HN.

Sweet, can you send me an invite to that Discord server??

where to?

Does it start with “re” and and with “volution”?

Something about the government, in minecraft.

Why can't we? The American Founders literally wanted us to take up arms and kill people who violated our essential liberties. You can read this in their own books and papers. They were extremely clear about this... it isn't even up for debate, unless of course you're talking to a moron that's never actually read Jefferson, Washington, Madison, etc.

If we reach a point where we can't even restate what our Founders said, we're already in our twilight as any kind of civilized liberal society.

Now we can argue about what constitutes an "essential liberty". I'm not sure I'd put, "Heated seats in my BMW" in that category.

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