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Comment by DefineOutside | Hacker News Reader

How do you justify BMW also charging $18/month for heated seats?

You also have the option of paying up front for the optional heating. This has long been a pay-ahead-of-time option that you had to specify before the car was manufactured. They are now giving you the option of having a subscription instead, and putting the hardware in the car. In reality, nothing has changed because the same pay-ahead option is still there.

Does that answer your question, or is my answer not clickbaity enough?

> In reality, nothing has changed because the same pay-ahead option is still there.

That is not true. In the past you have owned a car you bought. Who is going to pay for seat heating if a seat has to be replaced? Who is paying for the fuel caused by the extra weight for stuff you didn't want. What happens if you decide to modify the car you own and run the seat heating yourself?

This is complete nonsense. In the past it was normal to have that extra weight in your car and no seat heater button because you didn’t pay for it.

I'm not the OP, but it doesn't answer my question - what's their excuse for preventing me for using an existing feature in a product that I purchased?

It's not fully "your vehicle" if they control the software:

https://youtu.be/Ag1AKIl_2GM?t=57

You can pay a recurring subscription fee to access features that they own.

Greed. “Why get some of your money when I can get all of it?”

What's changed is now I physically have heated seats and can't use them.

That business model isn't new. It is common for cruise control modules to be installed in all vehicles and "enabled" with a certain steering wheel having extra buttons.

Having the functionality restricted behind a missing button etc isn't new. For example, it's the same with engines where the same block is used across different performance variants when used with the uprated parts... The new bit is being charged monthly for access. If you don't pay, they remotely disable the functionality.

That’s been common for like… the past 50 years?

I don't believe that justification for one thing necessitates justification of another, tangentially related thing.

I don't agree with either thing being paywalled, but I also can see nuance on things being paywalled; if there is a legit service cost to the manufacturer associated for example.

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