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Comment by SOLAR_FIELDS | Hacker News Reader

I also think the author misses the mark on this statement

> Apple’s long-term goal is likely to find ways to directly monetize CarPlay. It could license CarPlay to carmakers at some point. But with the entire global car market amounting to only around 70 million cars per year and the car industry’s slim profit margins (ranging from 5% to 15%), it must reach a high market share to get significant revenue from it. However, carmakers may be hesitant to invest in what they see as a competing product.

I don’t think Apple sees this as a promising revenue stream. It’s just another way to encourage people to stay within the walled garden. That seems many times more valuable than any possible licensing fees they would get from manufacturers

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> I don’t think Apple sees this as a promising revenue stream.

Isn't the value of CarPlay/AndroidAuto indirect? As in that the value is coming from the data being generated to enable better mapping? Because the truth is that some of these mapping services' main utilities depend on a large network of users (e.g. information about congestion, road notices, etc[0]). In that way it seems beneficial to get your app onto as many vehicles as possible and even gives motivation for making CarPlay cross-platform (even if the main benefits only go to Apple users).

[0] Also, wtf AndroidAuto. You pull data from Waze users for things like speed traps, road hazzards, etc, but you don't let me contribute when using Auto? Why is there no button (or voice command) "report road hazard"? Hell, this'll even help you classify events for your ML models.

The information you are referencing could be retrieved without CarPlay though. I am sure car specific data has some value to Apple, but given they aren’t really in the car business it might not be the primary driver/motivation here. It’s probably more likely that the data was way more valuable when they were building their own car but now that has been scrapped perhaps not as much?

I hate to say it but monetize subscriptions, not new car sales. It's got to be worth as much as a seat warmer.

Wait I gotta be missing something. Are seat warmers a subscription now?

Damn, indeed I missed that section

> With their own software platforms, they are desperately trying to find recurring revenue streams, whether it's a subscription for seat heating or driver assistance systems

..........

> Are seat warmers a subscription now?

They almost became a subscription, but BMW backpedaled at the last second[0].

0. https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/7/23863258/bmw-cancel-heated...

Pretty soon the pedals will be a subscription or pay per use.

That’s called “leasing a car”, and it comes with a limited number of miles per year, beyond which you pay $X/per 100 miles iirc. I wouldn’t know the details, because I bought my car instead of leasing, but I remember looking at lease terms that all had a mileage limit +extra pay per N number of miles.

> I don’t think Apple sees this as a promising revenue stream. It’s just another way to encourage people to stay within the walled garden. That seems many times more valuable than any possible licensing fees they would get from manufacturers

I agree this is the optimal way of seeing it. Apple did not do the same with App Store though. The initial vision was to just apply enough fees for hosting and vetting the apps. Now with the way they hold on to the 15/17/30% fee, they are treating it like a revenue stream instead of a "courtesy service".

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