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Comment by marcuskane2 | Hacker News Reader

It's funny, because most of the people I know want the exact opposite.

We want physical buttons and dials, not touchscreens. We don't want our location and driving data recorded and sent over the internet to their servers. We want reliable engine starting, battery life and locks, not "smart" features which can fail due to software updates or being away from cellular reception for too long.

I'm not sure there's a single car being manufactured today that can compete with a car from 10+ years ago for a use case like "Will my key unlock the door and start the engine, after my car has been parked at a forest trailhead for a week".

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> It's funny, because most of the people I know want the exact opposite.

It’s funny because most people say they have the same opinion as you, but their shopping habits prove themselves wrong. Tech availability in cars has absolutely driven sales, despite everyone’s claims for desiring the alternative.

> Will my key unlock the door and start the engine, after my car has been parked at a forest trailhead for a week

Most car owners in America will never encounter this situation, and absolutely don’t care about it. Those car owners just don’t hang out in hacker news threads about cars.

> Tech availability in cars has absolutely driven sales

Car reviews and ratings drive sales, and the creators of such things are 100% beholden to automakers for access to the vehicles they need to do reviews. Thus they hype anything the automakers tell them to hype.

People want maps and spotify in their cars. They don't want to go into a menu to open the glove box.

Customers don't get the option to have all the manual controls they would have had in the 2000s plus maps and phone integration.

My mom does not fit that. She will not even look at a car that doesn't have CarPlay and doesn't mind using a touch-screen (though Tesla's extreme reliance on the touch-screen wiper controls was too much even for her).

Carplay/Android Auto have nothing to do with the requirements in marcuskane2's comment. They are just an interface so your phone can use screen built into the car as a second monitor. You can buy really cheap units to add to any 10+ year old car and the car will still work as well as it did before, with no additional data sent to anyone (that was not already being sent by your phone).

> Carplay/Android Auto have nothing to do with the requirements in marcuskane2's comment. They are just an interface so your phone can use screen built into the car as a second monitor. You can buy really cheap units to add to any 10+ year old car and the car will still work as well as it did before, with no additional data sent to anyone (that was not already being sent by your phone).

1. There is a strong correlation between built-in carplay and failing the requirements of marcuskane2's comment.

2. My mom would prefer a car that fails the requirements of marcuskane2's comment and had built-in carplay over the reverse.

> 1. There is a strong correlation between built-in carplay and failing the requirements of marcuskane2's comment.

What is the significance of this? There is an even greater correlation between built-in wheels and failing the requirements of marcuskane2’s comment.

Whatever negative effects of connectivity have nothing to do with CarPlay/Android Auto. They have to do with the availability of mobile broadband and software advances in 2024 that allow for more rent seeking.

If anything CarPlay/Android Auto are the only thing preventing more rent seeking, by giving people the option to use modern navigation and audio entertainment without going through a car manufacturer.

After considering your comment, I think my view on car features was an accident of timing. Car infotainment systems tend to be on a 5-10 year lifecycle. This means that AA/CP were often being introduced with always-on cellular data, which is why I associated the former with the latter.

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