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Contrary to HN I think it's a very good idea.

Some people buy cars for status and bragging, so you need the car to be expensive. Others don't care. So instead of having too separate cars, you just sell the "base version" for $X and then sell "status upgrades". Like "skins" in video games.

The bragging person will brag about the expensive subscription, just like some brag about their AMEX/Centurion/... credit card, while the regular person will get a cheaper car since it's price won't be artificially inflated to cater to the luxury segment.

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You think it's a good idea that the performance of your car (and other features behind simple software flags) is remotely controlled by the manufacturer locking you into a relationship with them, giving them the ability to reduce the resale value of the car you "own" if you don't pay them an ongoing subscription? I don't think this is a model worth cheering about unless you're a shareholder.

Your Google Drive/DropBox/OneDrive storage space or your IntelliJ IDEA feature level (Basic/Pro/Ultimate) is also remotely controlled by how much you pay.

What's the resale value of the IntelliJ IDEA that you "own"?

Funny how HN thinks that's perfectly fine, but if you do this to cars suddenly it's a dystopian nightmare.

Google Drive/DropBox and OneDrive has continued costs for the hosting provider and for this reason a subscription makes complete sense.

IntelliJ IDEA can be bought as a perpetual license [1] and the subscription just gives you access to the latest version.

The increased acceleration would make sense if it was a one time payment but as a subscription its nonsense. Mercedes has no costs for it after they produced the car.

[1] https://www.jetbrains.com/idea/buy/#commercial (All yearly subscriptions include a perpetual fallback license.)

A better analogy is Office 365. Traditionally preputial licenses were purchased. Now consumers have become accustomed to purchasing access to the desktop applications through a subscription.

Advocating for this is the equivalent of going "Yeah man, it's not a big deal that you don't 'own' those movies/games/books on a digital service, and a company can decide to rescind them without refund if they didn't like the post you made on Twitter."

That's where this is going to head.

I too don’t like this, but no, advocating for it is not the same as agreeing with this scenario you imagined into certainty.

Considering that cars are becoming a bunch of electric motors controlled by a computer, I'm thinking that even without subscriptions we're going to see identical hardware sold as 2 different performance models with the only difference being a sotfware flag. Car manufacturers are extremely good at streamlining production.

I think it's Tesla that started with Autopilot and now others are also experimenting.

In the case of subscriptions, obviously the resale value will become based on base configuration without options with the buyer then hopefully able to get the subscriptions they want.

Having the hardware tuned to specific performance curve (via software) doesn't bother me as long as I know when I buy the car what I'm buying. There are reasons to do that, long term wear and tear, safety, insurance costs, co2, etc. But I resent being made to pay a subscription for something that has no natural need for one, especially when it requires no ongoing work for the company I am paying. It's slimey and only exists to erode ownership, increase the cusumers reliance on the manufacturer and will disporportionately affect poor people whose wealth is further lessened by never properly owning anything.

That’s what they’ve been doing for years, without subscriptions. It even makes more sense since the car doesn’t contain the things you don’t want.

It’s just pure greed and collusion and abuse of their position in the market to facilitate these things.

That's a good point - I reckon Mercedes haven't thought this through fully yet.

All cars have their branding and model number on display, perhaps what new cars will have is some kind of fancy electronic display on the back that shows the current model number. When you subscribe to the added extras, the display will show something different to let others know that your car is one of the special faster ones and, by extension, that you are better than the others !

A status tax is an excellent idea. Is it horrible and anti-consumer? Absolutely. Status hunger is a vice, and companies will figure out a way to exploit this in a more nuanced fashion, as it opens more revenue streams.

Blue check?

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