“I might be wrong, but I thought Toyota was the first to do this do this, maybe with heated seats?”
BMW was famously first in 2022 with the heated seats you need a subscription for. BUT >>>>>>
What happened after
The backlash was intense, with customers feeling like they were “paying twice.”
BMW killed the heated-seat subscription by 2023.
They later admitted it was basically a mistake.
I was an early adopter of Garmin GPS.
It made sense to me to have to pay for updates to the maps downloaded to the devise. They were necessary to remove errors, update for new roads be placed in service and add features.
Garmin eventually changed to life time free updates as competition entered the market.
Paying subscription fees for hardware that you for which you have already paid makes no sense to me.
I don’t see this as a lasting business model. People simply do not have the disposable income to pay for this kind of thing.
Or, perhaps, it was useful information (’feedback’) regarding just how far an automaker could go before buyers started pushing back. “Let’s just try it, and see what the reaction is. If they accept it, it’s another $XX Million a year for us. If they don’t we just drop it, and call it a mistake.” “Sounds good. Proceed.”
Just leased a new BMW and all features are available for the entire 4 years, except the criminal Sirius/XCM company subscription of 1 year or 6 months or whatever it is.
Sirius/XM criminally reactivated millions of dead subscriptions then sent “debt collections” to the old subscribers but that debt collection company was nothing but Sirius/XM claiming if you bought a two year subscription they would waive the debt collection fees.