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submitted 2 years ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

BMW Is Giving Up on Heated Seat Subscriptions Because People Hated Them::The blowback worked—but subscriptions for software-based new car features will continue, according to a BMW board member.

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[-] ocassionallyaduck@lemmy.world 346 points 2 years ago

Going forward, BMW says it will continue to offer subscription-based services but only for software options, like driver assistance and digital assistant services, which is completely understandable.

The fuck it is. You offer car features at time of sale. And if you want me to like your brand, at best you offer OTA or wifi updating for free to enhance the experience, and make me want to buy your next car.

You try and nickel and dime me for shit technology that has been around for 20 years, and I could give two fucks. I'll plug in my phone, ignore your entire. Infotainment and actively campaign for it to fail and blow up in your face.

[-] Wussy@lemmy.world 207 points 2 years ago

They're just trying to recoup the cost of being forced to install turn signals even though their drivers don't need them.

[-] mean_bean279@lemmy.world 46 points 2 years ago

They’re recouping the costs of hiring an in house orthodontist to fix all them buck tooth grills they made.

[-] NewNewAccount@lemmy.world 16 points 2 years ago

They’re hideous. I feel bad for all the people that were finally in a financial position to afford an M3/M4 and have to drive around that monstrosity.

Do they try to fool themselves into thinking it looks good?

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[-] Brokkr@lemmy.world 35 points 2 years ago

Agreed, subscriptions only make sense when there is an on-going service, like on-star (no idea if it is worth anything).

So if the digital assistant and driver assistance programs where getting service updates, then this would make sense. However, I'd say that driver assistance really shouldn't need a lot of updates if it was truly ready for the road.

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[-] mikeboltonshair@sh.itjust.works 27 points 2 years ago

Enshitification will continue until morale improves

[-] Kerfuffle@sh.itjust.works 18 points 2 years ago

I’ll plug in my phone, ignore your entire. Infotainment and actively campaign for it to fail and blow up in your face.

This sounds kind of funny. "I'll spend $60,000 on your car but I won't turn on the radio. That'll show you!"

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[-] fubo@lemmy.world 167 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Did cars peak around 2016? That's when you could get a plug in hybrid, with Bluetooth audio, a rear view camera, but no spyware or mandatory subscriptions. Sure they'd pester you to get SiriusXM but you could just say no.

[-] bamboo@lemm.ee 47 points 2 years ago

I'm not sure I'd agree on no spyware. Systems like OnStar are still tracking locations and are deeply integrated into the car. But at least this is before they subscription-ized basic features.

[-] Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 27 points 2 years ago

Cars peaked in 2004 or 2005, most cars since then seem to be user data collection engines with wheels attached.

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[-] flamingo_pinyata@sopuli.xyz 17 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

2005 - 2018 - Many decent cars were made in this period. Aside from all the pollution. And emissions fraud.

It 's the pinnacle of the small SUV fashion (I like them, sue me) but you could still get sedans and station wagons as well. Mechanical controls still ruled, no single touchscreens. Good audio was the norm, rear cameras not so much but you could get one. Small turbocharged diesels have the best fuel economy possible for a pure combustion engine.

Most importantly no online connection or subscriptions of any kind. I love the idea of electric propulsion. But in the current market it comes with so much undesirable baggage.

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[-] ikidd@lemmy.world 117 points 2 years ago

Pretty sure signal lights are a subscription option, and nobody that drives a Beemer has subscribed.

[-] Raiderkev@lemmy.world 60 points 2 years ago

If you ever feel like your just a cog spinning endlessly in a machine with no real purpose in your career, remember that there is a man in Germany who has a job installing turn signals on BMWs.

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[-] kerrypacker@lemmy.world 24 points 2 years ago

Signalling is trickle down bullshit that only helps those who come after you. You don't buy a BMW because you want to help others.

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[-] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 97 points 2 years ago

I hate everything about the idea of paying a subscription for a....{checks notes}...car. It's already bad enough when people are paying monthly for car payment or lease payment, now they get hit with a subscription for software?

I hate this timeline.

[-] cristalcommons@lemmy.world 27 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

just passing by, just wanted to say i liked your content a lot.

  • your username, 'Charles Darwin'.
  • the 'checks notes', bc you feel like a tired medician raising a brow when reading the umpteenth diagnosis of 'stupidity' in this world.
  • the 'i hate this timeline', bc our actions made us end in one of the world's bad ends. so take my upvote and my upcomment.
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[-] tabular@lemmy.world 94 points 2 years ago

Heated seats is my goto example as an attack on ownership. Good to see it stop but I don't want your proprietary software or SaS either. Give me a dumb car with no computer.

[-] redcalcium@lemmy.institute 31 points 2 years ago

Seems to be harder and harder to get a new car without all those "smart" features. Soon, it might be impossible to find one at all, just like it's impossible to find consumer-grade dumb tv in the market right now.

[-] raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 22 points 2 years ago

It's why I am considering availability of public transportation when house-hunting nowadays. When my car breaks down, I hope to be able to NOT buy a new one. Ideally, for the rare occasion that I need one in the future, I could rent one.

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[-] Ton@lemmy.world 72 points 2 years ago

BMW really doesn't understand this business model. They tried to pull this shit with CarPlay in 2018 as well. Which one could buy as an €300 option, which was rediculous by itself, but was later moved to a fucking subscription.

It also caused a huge uproar, largely forgotten by Covid now, but they also had to backtrack that. And now they've tried it again, also to backtrack again.

Fix your cars to be a better value prop than that fuckface's or the Chinese cars. Then you'll make tons of money. Not by nickel and diming your customers.

[-] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 69 points 2 years ago

Just a reminder that if consumers hate it enough, they can have the power to change those decisions. If they or content or "don't care" they are passively agreeing and allowing it continue. Let your voices be heard, share articles like the Mozilla investigating car companies that collect your sex life and biometrics. Let your representatives know.

[-] A2PKXG@feddit.de 20 points 2 years ago

The only thing that matters is voting with your wallet

[-] Philolurker@lemmy.world 19 points 2 years ago

The problem is all the other people voting the wrong way with their bigger wallets.

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[-] StorageAware@lemmings.world 44 points 2 years ago

Damn, who would've guessed people are tired of subscriptions?

[-] Cobrachickenwing@lemmy.ca 38 points 2 years ago

Subscription based models is how they kill the second hand car market. No one will touch a BMW with a subscription off lease.

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[-] Smacks@lemmy.world 38 points 2 years ago

Someone must've found an easy way to jailbreak their cars

[-] Kerred@lemmy.world 17 points 2 years ago

I was going to say it wasn't that people hated them, I was thinking it was BMW users either didn't want to pay or found a buddy to do it for free.

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[-] Argyle13@lemmy.world 38 points 2 years ago

This has to end, somehow. Or pretty soon we will have shoes with soles subscription: you want a proper shoe, you will have to pay a monthly quota.

[-] 1847953620@lemmy.world 41 points 2 years ago

Modern-day low-quality shoes are already kind of a walking subscription

[-] brygphilomena@lemmy.world 54 points 2 years ago

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

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[-] OldTreePuncher@lemmy.world 18 points 2 years ago

Terry Pratchett said it best!

“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money,” wrote Pratchett. “Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of okay for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.”

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[-] Saneless@lemmy.world 35 points 2 years ago

I would love to see the sales metrics that made them backpedal

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[-] _bug0ut@lemmy.world 30 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

[...] but subscriptions for software-based new car features will continue, according to a BMW board member.

I wonder what they're going to try to nickel and dime people over next. I mean, if they're offering internet service/access or other things that are an ongoing service, fine. That's mostly fair... but if they're charging you to flip a bit in the car's internal database (or even worse, a central database somewhere that keeps your car's data) but the feature is installed in your car and costs BMW nothing to enable it, then ewwwwwww

Took a deeper look at the article...

[...] BMW says it will continue to offer subscription-based services but only for software options, like driver assistance and digital assistant services, which is completely understandable.

Hahahahahaha no. For the most part, absolutely no.

[-] Centaur@lemmy.world 27 points 2 years ago

Next: brakes subscription 😁

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[-] BeautifulMind@lemmy.world 27 points 2 years ago

Seems a little bit like when your cell phone carrier disables the tethering feature on your phone and wants to charge you money to enable that. For me, infuriating to know that I'd paid to have hardware capable of being a wifi hotspot, then to be charged to use it. The "service" being provided amounts to first-we-degrade-the-thing-you-paid-for, then we-charge-you-ransom-to-get-it-back.

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[-] inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world 26 points 2 years ago

Look, it's shitty that they're putting this stuff behind a software lock and subscriptions just like the shitty practices of the gaming world but with shitty behavior comes opportunity with the cracking world.

[-] local_intruder@programming.dev 24 points 2 years ago

No way, I cannot believe that didn't work. Shocked

[-] ohlaph@lemmy.world 21 points 2 years ago

Good, good, don't buy that shit people.

[-] BigBananaDealer@lemm.ee 21 points 2 years ago

there was a subscription to pay for fucking heated seats?? even when you buy a car you dont buy a car

[-] Chatotorix@lemmy.world 18 points 2 years ago

"Turning the engine on between midnight and 6AM is a premium feature. Subscribe now for only $29 per month. BMW. Sheer driving pleasure."

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[-] tdawg@lemmy.world 19 points 2 years ago
[-] uriel238 19 points 2 years ago

This is the sort of reason that we need the capacity to jailbreak cars, or install your own on-board computer system that controls car shit.

I want FOSS car software, or would if I drove.

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this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2023
1794 points (100.0% liked)

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