Bought a car with a future subscription to its remote services (climate, lock/unlock, etc). Company wants $450/year for access. Guess what we aren’t going to sign up for when the free 2 year period expires?
Vote with the wallets folks.
this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2023
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Same thing for me with 5g hotspot in my new car. They said "hey that's free for 6 months, along with enhanced onstar", and I replied keep it, I don't fucking want it.
They looked at me like I was growing a second head. They said they didn't know how to deactivate it, as nobody had asked that before. My ass. They knew better than to ask for a credit card number to activate the service, at least.
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Only the stupid rich people who are complete fucking idiots are gonna spend money on this. That and people irresponsible with money who are also complete morons. Anyone with a sense of financial responsibility will absolutely not buy these shitty anti consumer cars
Only the stupid rich people who are complete fucking idiots are gonna spend money on this. That and people irresponsible with money who are also complete morons.
Sadly that's enough people to turn a profit so the rest doesn't really have a choice. It's either a fully enshitificated car, or no car.
I will build one or fucking walk
Sure, and like with everything else the free market is controlled mostly by broke morons and rich assholes. So it'll happen anyways because those two groups will fall for it, believing they're entitled to nice things.
And what happens when you don't have other options in the market?
I'll keep driving my old car that has no wireless connectivity.
I could also buy an old 1969 Ford Galaxie and have it fitted with an electric motor and a trunk full of batteries to build my own electric car. We can do that with any old car actually.
🎶 It's a bad idea, and they're all about it 🎶
I worked in design for a major global automaker, I designed and prototyped various user experiences around enabling/disabling features on demand, and paying a subscription. This was 7-8 years ago, and the context was developing countries and what we called "emerging markets" where people just bought bare bones base model vehicles, but there were always 1 or 2 highly desirable features they needed but could only get in a high spec model - they couldn't afford.
The idea tested very well, they could buy their cheap vehicle and then enable just the things they really need. And they would pay for that. I still think this is a valid and good use case for subscribing, in these markets and for these people.
Somewhere between then and today, sales and marketing entered the chat, and I know because I fought them tooth and nail. What I designed morphed into subscribing to everything for everyone. I don't work there any more and that's part of why.
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