Hacker News Reader

Comment by ale42 | Hacker News Reader

Of course consumers will get some benefit in return, like heating seats for free instead of paying a subscription to turn on a resistor... right?

View on HN

It will be like mobile games: watch these ads to earn free Heating Tokens(tm)

Or give <targeted-family-member> a lift and talk about <survey-topic> to earn 30 days of ad-free seat heating

> In his desk drawer he found the contract; since signing it he had found it necessary to refer to the document many times. Sure enough; payment to his door for opening and shutting constituted a mandatory fee. Not a tip.

> "You discover I'm right," the door said. It sounded smug.

> From the drawer beside the sink Joe Chip got a stainless steel knife; with it he began systematically to unscrew the bolt assembly of his apt's money-gulping door.

> "I'll sue you," the door said as the first screw fell out.

Philip K Dick, Ubik

I also recommend "The Merchants' War" from Frederik Pohl. Its satirical description of a word dominated by advertisement companies resembles ours painfully.

Cannot find quotes of it, it is not a very popular book as it seems.

For sanity sake, don't give them ideas

Only for a while, after that they'll have to pay if they want it to warm up at a reasonable pace, then they'll have to pay for warm seats when the temperature is above freezing - all to save the environment of course - and then they'll just have to pay no matter what upon which a new cycle starts: camera's recording facial expressions which are used to detect susceptibility to coercion so ads can be launched at the most vulnerable moments but in return you get a premium seat heating subscription at the low, low price of ${lotsomoolah}.

Really they should charge more when it is colder out. What's the point of a free market if it can't respond to consumer demand? Our ChargeTooshie seat warmer uses our comprehensive 5g wiretapping network and innovative AI to provide drivers the absolute maximum value that they can afford. With ChargeTooshie, drivers can be assured that they will not freeze to death, because we now accept credit!

Charging more when it is colder does not exclude charging more when it is just chilly. For even higher profit^Wcustomer satisfaction seat heat rates can be made dynamic based on a number of different inputs like temperature, demand, car occupation, driver stress, fuel/energy price, road congestion, time of day, length of trip and customer status. How about a tiered pricing schedule with a Basic, Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum level? Basic is free, good for who only occasionally expects to use seat heating but offers no discounts. Bronze is for those who use seat heating a bit more often, say 1 to 2 hours per week with a discount of 10% on basic rates. Bronze membership is only €10/month, buy NOW! Silver and gold offer steeper discounts for a monthly fee of €25/€50 while Platinum is for the discerning user who wants to pay more for QUALITY. With custom-designed heating profiles and a subscription to our weekly magazine where you'll read about the latest trends, with great deals from out partners. Buy NOW for only €75/month!

I expect their plan is to deploy this in rental car fleets. You won’t earn a discount but the rental car company will get a kickback from Ford for their fleet purchase. Think RyanAir but cars.

It'll probably be baked into the price and therefore not directly visible to you, similar to how video game consoles are priced cheaply relative to their manufacturing cost with the expectation that they'll make up for it on royalties/connected services. It makes no sense to give some feature for "free" to make up for it, because the feature could still be used for product segmentation purposes. For instance heated seats is still useful as a differentiator for a premium trim, so it'd make no sense to give it to everyone for free.

Did you know BMW was trying to make heating seats a subscription service?

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

They dropped it, but the damage to the brand cannot even be quantified. It is fully deserved though and they also stick to their on-demand features.

Not really a car I would ever want to buy if they do not clean up management after such a farce.

This is beyond not being a cool brand anymore.

I do, but how does what you said invalidate anything in my previous comment? I explicitly said that they'll keep such features as an upgrade, rather than making it free, which is totally consistent with what BMW is doing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com