Posted on 02/06/2022 9:39:03 AM PST by yesthatjallen
How would you feel about paying $5 each month for the ability to lock and unlock your car from a distance through an app? What about a $25-per-month charge for advanced cruise control or $10 to access heated seats? What if those charges continued long after your car was paid off?
As vehicles become increasingly connected to the internet, car companies aim to rake in billions by having customers pay monthly or annual subscriptions to access certain features. Not content with the relatively low-margin business of building and selling cars, automakers are eager to pull down Silicon Valley-style profits. But unlike with Netflix, you won't be able to use your ex-girlfriend's uncle's login in your new BMW.
For automakers, the advantage of this model is clear. Not only do they get a stream of recurring revenue for years after an initial purchase, they can hope to maintain a longer-term relationship with the customer and build brand loyalty, said Kristin Kolodge, an analyst at JD Power.
This approach can also allow carmakers to streamline manufacturing by building cars to more uniform specifications, Mark Wakefield, who runs the automotive and industrial practice at the consulting firm AlixPartners, told Insider. Down the line, owners can add on the features they want à la carte.
It's all made possible by the advent of over-the-air software updates, which were pioneered by Tesla around a decade ago and are now entering the mainstream. Today's vehicles are more internet-connected and computerized than ever before, meaning car companies can reach deep inside a vehicle to add new capabilities and tweak things from a distance.
SNIP
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Because if some dumbasses want the bells and whistles, it becomes standard, and we all pay for it.
A handful of journalists wrote that the food was too expensive. After reading this, the commissioner of the World’s Fair conducted a survey of the restaurants in the foreign zone, and estimated that full meals at these establishments cost about 43 cents on average, which was a standard price for a sit-down meal at a moderately priced Manhattan restaurant.
I have another dumb question: Can cars being sold today be disconnected from the internet permanently?
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It depends, but mostly, yes. But you’ll lose various features and potential inability to patch buggy software. The average lay person could do it in their garage, but with a little research it can be done. You’re better off buying an older vehicle that doesn’t have a software/digital OS and learn how to turn a wrench. Besides, old cars are an investment with ROI, new vehicles are money pits at best.
A 12V source and a two dollar switch fixed Heated Seats. Saves $5.
Wonder what head lights from 6pm to 6am costs?
No and yes. To get the services they are charging extra, o. However heating a seat comes from your alternator, permission comes from them. Just requires a hack to over ride.
There are other things these companies could charge for - like AC in Southern states... Don’t put anything past ‘em,.
We rolled over for software and app subscriptions. Why wouldn’t we roll over for this?
If you don’t use cruise control you must not do much long distance driving.
Exactly!
It’s certainly to that point with farm equipment.
My 1965 GTO is looking better and better as my daily driver!
I payed for the hardware when I bought the car. I get the whole car or no car, everything on those wheels belongs to me. If not, they can keep the damned thing.
Seventh, conservatives are persuaded that freedom and property are closely linked. Separate property from private possession, and Leviathan becomes master of all. Upon the foundation of private property, great civilizations are built. The more widespread is the possession of private property, the more stable and productive is a commonwealth. Economic levelling, conservatives maintain, is not economic progress. Getting and spending are not the chief aims of human existence; but a sound economic basis for the person, the family, and the commonwealth is much to be desired.
Sir Henry Maine, in his Village Communities, puts strongly the case for private property, as distinguished from communal property: “Nobody is at liberty to attack several property and to say at the same time that he values civilization. The history of the two cannot be disentangled.” For the institution of several property—that is, private property—has been a powerful instrument for teaching men and women responsibility, for providing motives to integrity, for supporting general culture, for raising mankind above the level of mere drudgery, for affording leisure to think and freedom to act. To be able to retain the fruits of one’s labor; to be able to see one’s work made permanent; to be able to bequeath one’s property to one’s posterity; to be able to rise from the natural condition of grinding poverty to the security of enduring accomplishment; to have something that is really one’s own—these are advantages difficult to deny. The conservative acknowledges that the possession of property fixes certain duties upon the possessor; he accepts those moral and legal obligations cheerfully.
https://kirkcenter.org/conservatism/ten-conservative-principles/
“For $40 you can by a heated seat pad that plugs into cigarette lighter... no monthly fee”
“Sorry Sir, you didn’t pay us $5 a month for that power outlet to function, so we turned it off.”
” I accidentally hit the round knob on the center console about 6 months ago and for the first minute or two of the heater being on, I thought I...”
First time that happened to me I thought I peed my pants.
That was one of the funniest jokes Carson ever did. Hilarious! I’m leaving this thread for a few minutes to watch it.
And your vehicle will not allow you to violate any traffic laws, or travel anywhere commoners are prohibited from traveling to.
I have had 3 Mazdas with the Map App, the dealer wanted $400 for the chip to make the thing work with updates for three years. I refused and bought chips on Ebay for about $35, same OEM chip and got the same updates easily.
It’s all a racket, most of the options they want a subscription for you can do without. Of course will they make it a fee to lower your windows?
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