Hacker News Reader

Comment by 7thaccount | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand why you'd buy a BMW when they treat customers this way. Vote with your money.

Thats the beauty of it. You can not. Because we do no longer have a free market. All car companies, belong by shareds to a few titanic entities, who will push this in lock step to all there companies. Welcome to the gilded age.

BMW is a pretty recognizable brand and other than Mini / Rolls Royce (the latter of which you probably won't need to avoid and the former tries to sell you on the fact that they are a life-style rather than a vehicle for an entirely different demographic) voting with your feet may well have the desired effect.

I think you under estimate how many OEMs there are.

Which “few titanic entities” are you referring to? Tesla? BMW? Toyota? Volkswagen Group? Gheely? BYD? Hyundai? Honda? … the list goes on. Basically there isn’t a more competitive anti-monopoly industry than the car industry.

But don't they all cater to different segments of the market?

Somebody who wants to buy a BMW will likely not be cross-shopping with a Hyundai, even if there's are models at the same price point.

True so they only have: Audi, Lexus, genesis, infiniti, Tesla, Daimler, the list goes on… to choose from.

The luxury car segment is also huge…

Really? I could always buy an Alfa Romeo instead, which not only comes with heated seats but also with leather as standard upholstery in the Giulia and Stelvio models.

The Chinese car manufacturers are going to eat them alive soon anyway.

I agree. Why bother creating a workaround for this problem? The easiest resolution to this is to spend your money somewhere else.

I'll bet you a barrel of beer that all luxury cars will have all features locked behind perpetual subscriptions within 5-10 years.

"Great" thing about consolidated megacorporation dominated markets: you have nowhere to go if only three companies decide to squeeze more money out of you. And shareholders WILL demand that every car manufacturer squeezes more money out of you by locking equipment you own now behind subscriptions.

LOL, locked. There is no such thing when I have physical access to the computer.

Breaking DRM on that physical computer is illegal and good luck getting your modified vehicle insured if it fails the manufacturer bootloader lock check ;)

It sounds like you missed last 15 years of developing DRM technology and IP law.

My insurance company doesn't care about the infotainment center in my vehicle and DRM hasn't stopped anyone ever. Look at all the farmers waiving their middle finger to John Deere. When has anyone in the history of buying insurance been forced into a bootloader check? Never, you're making stuff up.

If I own the car outright, I own the computer and can do whatever I want to it. Seems like you missed all the DRM hacks, and think vehicle insurance companies do IP law.

> My insurance company doesn't care about the infotainment center in my vehicle

Driving habits and all the data tracking that will be standard in a few years will absolutely be critical to your insurance company, and it stands to reason that they would use any semblance of hacking any part of your car and thus risking the purity of the data (nomatter how unrelated) as a pretense to deny coverage.

What happens if the computer is destroyed in an accident? Nothing, because insurance companies aren't insuring driving habits, they're insuring property. People modify cars every day all day and can still obtain insurance.

I don't drink beer, but I would take that bet. No one has followed bmw into subscription model for Apple car pay. The only reason other companies works follow this model, is if it succeeds

I think real workaround would be getting in contact with your local congressperson and passing legislation outlawing the practice because this is a prisoner's dilemma that forced cooperation would fix -- the car market would be better for everyone including sellers if this was forbidden. But that kind of thing requires a functioning government.

Remember non-smart TVs? I can vote with my money by not buying a TV at this point.

You still find them in the premium segment. TV for businesses often lack most smart features. Price range > 1000$ though.

We just lost the vote on TVs is all (for now). As the wolf sheds the sheep clothing though that might change (not optimistic).

I doubt BMW is going to nail this on their first pass, but subscriptions are obviously more lucrative so they may keep trying (or others will).

Regardless, software running everything is a nightmare in progress. The quality standards are atrocious and regulations haven’t even come close to keeping up.

It seems unlikely that regular TVs will come back without some very stringent legislation preventing monetization. As it is, Vizio makes less money from selling their hardware than from other BS.

I think its just as good to vote by hacking. Like when pirating music was a result of people just saying f-u to the way industry was trying to sell us music, why not have hacking car software be a way of saving f-u to the car industry trying to rent-seek us to death. The music industry changed and now we have reasonable streaming alternatives. See if the car industry gets the message as well.

I know this is a rhetorical question, but presumably because the benefits outweigh the negatives in their case. If you're looking to buy a fancy car in Texas, you're probably not particularly interested in heated seats.

Something about a monthly fee for basic functionality screams “low class” to me. It’s like the difference between renting and owning. “You don’t have enough money to buy outright, so you’re forced to pay for a basic thing in perpetuity.” That taints BMW’s brand. I’ll buy a Lexus, thanks.

There is probably a large percentage of BMW drivers who are renting or leasing their cars.

What happens when air conditioning is a monthly charge?

Texas gets plenty cold in the winter months, particularly in the high plains; heated seats would absolutely be useful for a decent chunk of the year.

Also, customer service aside, they're not great cars in the first place. If you're buying a gasoline car and it's not a Toyota or a Mazda, you're doing it wrong.

I guess you haven't heard about Toyota's subscription fee for enabling remote-start[1].

Eventually they're all going to jump on the bandwagon.

[1] https://www.motor1.com/news/554620/toyota-subscription-fee-r...

Mazda is doing the exact same thing. When my wife and I purchased our CX-5 that was an option and we said "hell no" even though it gets to -30 F in the winter in the Upper Midwest.

The trend toward turning products into subscriptions has been in flight for at least 20 years. It was bullshit when it started and it continues to be bullshit today.

At least in your example you still have a lovely CX-5.

The people who want a BMW to show the world they own a BMW are exactly who they are targeting with this.

Same situation as Mercedes. Taking dumb money more or less.

Tesla pioneered this nonsense via FSD subscriptions (which doesn't even exist) and limiting the battery. And yet everyone around these parts cheers them on.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com