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Comment by sokoloff | Hacker News Reader

Is the objection to the turning a one-time payment into a series of monthly payments? Or is the actual objection that the net present value of those monthly payments is too high?

If you want to turn something that used to cost me $400 one-time into a subscription that costs me $1.49/mo, I'll be happy that you've offered me the subscription and will buy it in subscription form. Charge $9.99/mo for that same subscription and I'll be incensed.

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The objection is, if I own a car, then the car manufacturer shouldn't be able to disable functionality. If I buy a car with heated seats, I should be able to use them as much as I want, and the manufacturer should have no control over that. The cost concern is secondary to losing control of devices that we ostensibly own.

I agree, provided the purchase arrangement of the car included the perpetual (at least until it broke) heated seats functionality.

If the car was instead sold/bought with the heated seats as a subscription, I don’t see any problem with them being, well, a subscription.

The problem is that, since subscriptions are more profitable and look better to accounting, soon I may no long be able to get that deal of buying basic functionality of my car upfront. It’s the classic subsidized printer gouged ink model, except it’s entirely artificial here (no new ink is being shipped to me, the printer is just turning on or not) for increased profits and hiding the trust cost to the customer.

Strong and broad consumer rejection is the only recourse for people not being ripped off by turning what was an owned asset into a rental through this method of cost hiding, which is why I think people are being worked up.

When my cars basic functions stop working I'd rather it be that they're actually broken, not that I've lapsed on payments. I agree that it's definitely a matter of degrees, there are a finite number of months in the useful lifetime of a vehicle so for the right price it might be preferable, I just usually drive a vehicle for as long as possible. All that being said, aren't we all tired of unnecessary monthly subscriptions? Not to mention the fact that there's the predatory implication they simply hope you forget you're paying.

If you buy something you own it, you don't subscribe for physical things. That's the outrage, double dipping from manufacturers.

If I buy a car with heated seats physically there then i own them.

On that note, if someone just enables them without payment i'm curious of the legality. (or selling devices to enable it)

In the software world, we have seen things that used to cost a one-time payment of 60$ turn into a 100$ PER YEAR subscription [0]. I'm sure no manufacturer will make a subscription system that will make them less money. It will, in all likelihood, end up being an order of magnitude more remunerative for them compared to the one-time payment.

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20150316090012/https://purchase.... https://www.youneedabudget.com/pricing/

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