Submitted 1 year ago by L4s@lemmy.world [bot] to 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.
Pretty sure signal lights are a subscription option, and nobody that drives a Beemer has subscribed.
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.
Ironically the BMWs here in Germany tend to use their signals in my experience
must be a pretty busy guy if he has to install them in all those cars
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.
Funny thing is, they do help you. Sure, there’s assholes who see a signal as a sign that they need to speed up to prevent a lane change, but there are plenty of people who will see the signal and let you in, at least in my area. My own rule of thumb is if I don’t have to slam on my brakes to let you in, I’ll slow down for you, especially if you’re a semi.
Unless I know you pulled into an onramp lane just to skip ahead of the people not doing that bullshit when it’s stop and go level traffic. But it’s usually hard or impossible to tell who is an asshole and who is just using the onramp because they just got on the highway and I try to leave space for people just getting on.
They all run out of fluid and never bother refilling it.
I have a BMW motorbike, it’s a tiered subscription, the level I’m on allows for 10 flashes per month 😁
give up
No. That’s not what companies do.
BMW and Mercedes were the “leaders” in milking their customers and thus they got the most bad press. All BMW is doing is waiting until more companies start doing this and the whole idea of subscriptions in the car business becomes normalized to the public.
Unless consumers continue to shun this concept and the press blasts these companies for trying to push this nonsense, it will make a comeback in the years to come. Unfortunately, I simply do not think consumers will look at their long-term interests. Its like telling gamers not to pre-order the hottest upcoming releases because it encourages companies to release buggy software… all the pleading in the world ends up falling on deaf ears. Same too, I believe, will happen in the car market.
Not to mention that it’s clear that they don’t want to sell cars to individuals anymore. That’s what all these subscription models point to. They are hoping to sell fleets of autonomous cars to corporations and cities, and us plebes can rent them when we need them. The upside for the company is that now they have the ecosystem to charge an extra $5 for A/C per ride, $3 for the radio, and $10 to roll down the windows.
Ew. Sounds gross, so it probably isn’t far off.
HA, I read the title and thought “what is going on? I love my seat warmers” - I completely overlooked the word subscription because it is absolutely absurd that there would be an ongoing cost to the consumer for a feature that provides no ongoing cost to the manufacturer.
The cost of things has detached from what it costs to put the thing in the hand of the consumer, to instead a model of “what is this worth to you”.
Under capitalism it’s always been the case of"what is this worth to you". The difference is in the past if a company overcharges then a competitor could come along and undercut them (so long as the gap was big enough that it made financial sense).
Unfortunately, monopolies, regulatory/government capture, vertical integration, marketing and cartels have gotten so far out of control that consumers are left with little choice but to suck it up. And most governments in the Anglosphere don’t really care.
Yeah we’re reaching the point where it becomes clear that the market can’t bear everyone charging the most the market can bear.
People will pay extra for a luxury. People won’t pay the most they’re willing to pay on a luxury on every luxury they’ve gotten accustomed to at a reasonable price.
It occurs to me that all of these feature subscription models never seem to mention maintenance. Is that correct? Like, Ford wants to make a car that will deactivate the radio and blare annoying noises at you like you’re a fucking cat if you miss a payment, BMW and Lexus are gating performance and heated seats behind subscriptions and paywalls… But all you get is access. They arent going to fix the heated seats if a coil burns out. They aren’t going to fix a spun bearing you incur while using the extra performance you paid for. They aren’t going to repair a blown transformer in the radio. So you are literally paying for nothing. I am so glad I have an '07 Mustang Convertible. If I keep it maintained and looking good, the value will skyrocket when they actually standardize all of this abusive shit.
Of course, then somehow “Cash for Clunkers” will come back and be even less “voluntary” and suddenly most cars made before ~2018 will be removed from the road and bricked.
Your 07 mustang is ICE so in the next 3 decades will lose all value.
They arent going to fix the heated seats if a coil burns out. They aren’t going to fix a spun bearing you incur while using the extra performance you paid for. They aren’t going to repair a blown transformer in the radio. So you are literally paying for nothing.
This is what a warranty is for.
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.
just passing by, just wanted to say i liked your content a lot.
!usernamechecksout@lemmy.zip
What if I told you that you can get rid of all those monthly payments by signing up for our service. For only one all inclusive monthly fee you can pay all of them, including a service fee. Terms and conditions apply. Sign up today!
ain’t that a bargain ?
Uhh, you forgot about your insurance cost, tag fee, and driver’s license fee.
Man we keep running into each other.
What’s wrong with leasing a depreciating asset? Never own large assets that are sure to lose value. Even if it’s like a work truck that makes you money, let someone else’s books take the loss.
With vehicles, lessors get you on the overage miles. Negotiate it. When you turn the lease over, tell them you need to lease another one and you’ll do it with them if they waive the overage. If they won’t do it, go somewhere else. They won’t let you walk out the door without hacking away much or all of the overage.
? I was not taking issue with leases, just commenting on the notion of a cost over and above a lease/car payment.
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.
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.
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.
I think they need the smart features to get a 5 star safety rating.
Yes, and they will tell “Look! Consumer DEMANDED those smartcars! We are only replying to a demand!”
Such subscription models essentially beg to be hacked and/or for third parties to come up with entire replacement computers for the vehicle that bypass entirely all of the locks.
Subaru did this with remote start. Instead of just selling you the damn option you have to pay a subscription. Fuck that I’ll just walk outside and start the car…
Yeah, I wouldn’t want a car without e.g. a trip computer. But I also defintly don’t want a “smart car”.
Do you mean the old mechnical trip computer, or are you refering to trip with software-only features?
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.
No, you’re not understanding.
They save money by only producing the luxury model. Then they disable the feature electronically.
But to prevent you from just jailbreaking the car, they need to have a system to monitor your status. So they need to be able to check and update software that you can’t control, etc etc.
It’s still greed, but it’s like greed with extra steps.
People were objecting to the subscription, but they should have been objective to the locked features.
They’ll never stop the shitification, it maximizes profit.
People were objecting to the subscription, but they should have been objective to the locked features.
Why though, if it’s cheaper? Do you rather pay for features you don’t use or pay to remove features?
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.
The only thing that matters is voting with your wallet
The problem is all the other people voting the wrong way with their bigger wallets.
Mostly, but never discount the power of well-wielded shame
Damn, who would’ve guessed people are tired of subscriptions?
Someone must’ve found an easy way to jailbreak their cars
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.
Yeah I don’t think the headline means they hated the heated seats, but that they hated the subscription.
Subscription based models is how they kill the second hand car market. No one will touch a BMW with a subscription off lease.
does BMW make money on second hand cars then? probably just parts…
BMW parts are bonkers expensive. I have a Cooper and whenever something goes wrong the repair is stilly expensive. Mini may be BMW’s cheaper brand when you drive off the lot. But ownership costs outside of warrantee are BMW through and through.
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.
Modern-day low-quality shoes are already kind of a walking subscription
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.
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.”
I would love to see the sales metrics that made them backpedal
Number of times potential customers walked out of dealerships hurling swear words behind them.
[…] 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
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.
Next: brakes subscription 😁
And for an added 59.99$ we will also enable your airbags, subscribe now and get a cup holder for free.
I would not be surprised if they were to limit the power unless you pay for subscription.
No way, I cannot believe that didn’t work. Shocked
I actually am, usually companies force their shit down the consumers throats and they happily gulp it down, buying their new products when they come out as well. This is a pleasant surprise to me
Yeah I thought this would go down like the netflix login clampdown - people online rally against it and say they’ll cancel Netflix, but in reality their subscriber numbers are up massively
What surprises me is how often it works given the very simple fact that regular people don’t have effectively infinite money. Who is it that is just eating this subscription pile up and never reaching a limit? “Most people”? That just can’t be it.
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.
It’s frustrating since by using your tethered connection you’re using the same data that you already pay for. If there’s a limit on how much data, why does it matter how you pay for it?
Good. Wtf
Good, good, don’t buy that shit people.
there was a subscription to pay for fucking heated seats?? even when you buy a car you dont buy a car
“Turning the engine on between midnight and 6AM is a premium feature. Subscribe now for only $29 per month. BMW. Sheer driving pleasure.”
It was even dumber kinda. They decided that it was easier not too have options for heated or non heated seats so they made all cars with heated to simplify production and if you bought the xar with heated seats thats it you got heated seats no subscription but if you didnt and changed your mind you had too pay as a subscription for them too activate the heating your car was already equipped with.
BMW: “But we’re going to keep the invasive data harvesting, though. I mean, Germans have never done anything bad with people’s data, right? Tell them, IBM…”
That’s a big giant “no shit” from me.
I just wonder how much of a market there is in fixing these issues for consumers. As in, giving people FULL ownership of their own cars…and to hell with ridiculous corporate “laws” like the DMCA.
Good fucking ridiculous
While petrol is an old form of subscription from car manufacturers and fuel stations
Show this post to every person that thinks companies control their user base and not the other way around.
Yea, fuck those guys, my phone will always have a headphone jack and i’ll always own a perpetual license to adobe and i’ll always have DRM free media for movies and books that I purchased.
Companies never do anything I dislike, everyone else is just beta soy boys complaining about being given what’s good for them
Did anyone ever try splicing some wires to provide direct power supply to the heating elements? Then again, I wouldn’t put it past BMW to make this brick the car due to “hEaT pIrAcY”
They’ll be back. And in greater numbers.
I mean why did anyone buy a BMW during that time? Just worldwide no one buy any BMWs for five or ten decades. Let the brand tank.
fubo@lemmy.world 1 year 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.
superkret@feddit.de 1 year ago
No, they peaked in 2012, when the new Dacia Sandero was released.
kent_eh@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Good news!
randomaside@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
Wow! Great! Nice! Anyway…
RunTillYouPuke@lemmy.world 1 year ago
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bamboo@lemm.ee 1 year 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 1 year ago
Cars peaked in 2004 or 2005, most cars since then seem to be user data collection engines with wheels attached.
Ton@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Peak car was 1990-1994, largely mechanical, little elektronics and reliable as hell. My Merc from that time is built like a tank and everything is screwed together, not glued.
flamingo_pinyata@sopuli.xyz 1 year 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 many undesirable baggage.
mean_bean279@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I think most importantly it was that they often didn’t have an infotainment with everything integrated in it and that regular cars still were mostly using double din head units which are perfect to swap out. It’s a standard that we should have kept but didn’t. ☹️