The response to this would be, fine reduce my range, but also swap out the battery for the proper size.
So, the dead mass is there even in brand new cars. I'm guessing the 60 -> 90 swap is because they're not making 60 anymore and it's just all 90 with a software cap... The OP thread even mentions that essentially Tesla forgot to lock the capacity and just left it with the full 90.
Basically it's the whole issue about takebacks of physical features via digital un-licensing. There is no direct parallel in the past. A dealership removing accidentally installed physical components after an unrelated service is unacceptable. A digital provider revoking accidentally provided licenses seems pretty common (I still remember Dropbox giving free storage in very early on promos and later going "oops, that actually expires!"). So this is kind of in the middle. A digital license that controls access to a physical good.
Not having that extra space will dramatically lower the lifespan and reliability of the drive. Same with these batteries.
They just need to be honest about what they're selling.
I have a Samsung SSD. How do I know how much to overprovision? 100Mb? 200Mb? 1000Mb?? How would I know?
When they sell an SSD as, say, 2Tb but then I'm expected to assign 20Gb of that just for reliability, that's materially worse than a drive that advertises 2Tb but doesn't count the overprovisioning. But they're both advertised as 2Tb.
If they're selling a 2Tb drive, it should work as a (reliable) 2Tb drive.
Just like hard drives that manage bad blocks themselves.
All large silicon chips (dram, CPU, GPU, FPGA, SSD, etc) are built with spare sections to replace non-functional ones. A 6 core CPU could be really only 6 but could also be a disabled 8 core when not enough people buy the more expensive 8 core, and they built too many of them. GPUs can be the same, but there are a dozen different functions that could be broken, so they sell it as the next lower SKU. For example, mining chips don't need HDMI, so if HDMI is broken, normally you would toss a 99% good chip. Contracts for digitally controlled goods need proper consumer protection. Tesla just happens to use the feature a lot. Much cheaper to lose 30kWh worth of raw material that might not have passed qualification, and sell it as a 60, than pay for inventory, scheduling, and swap/configuration stations on your assembly line.
Also, if rumors get out that SKU xyz CAN be overclocked or unlocked 10% of the time when a higher chip is used, people will buy and return 9 cards before getting the bonus, causing lots of grief to the entire supply chain and 9x packaging/refurb costs, and then have to sell as open box at a lower profit. Not gonna happen. These locks are heavily encrypted, or physically unaccessible.
And assuming the software change didn't account for that by giving a bit more capacity.