
BMW wants to sell subscriptions to in-car features - loriverkutya
https://www.engadget.com/bmw-connected-drive-store-subscriptions-193746962.html
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nicbou
I am not in the market for a car, but I don't think I'd ever want to buy a
vehicle I don't fully own. Cars last for decades. That's a lot longer than
short-lived technologies and standards, and especially online services.

Fortunately, this trend hasn't quite reached the motorcycle world yet, but I
know KTM charges you to enable "rally mode" on your motorcycle.

I sometimes wonder what we will really own in 10 years. The operating system
on my phone and laptop are already taking worrying liberties.

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thomascgalvin
> I don't think I'd ever want to buy a vehicle I don't fully own. Cars last
> for decades.

That is the "issue" BMW is trying to solve here. Just like software
subscriptions, this automaker is trying to wring out more money for no work.

Hard pass.

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perl4ever
They already make unreliable cars and try to make it as difficult as possible
for amateurs and independents to repair, including the electronic aspects.

Doing things that should be simple, like changing the spark plugs or
transmission fluid, can be nightmarish.

Out of warranty BMWs often have oil leaks, that sometimes are as simple as
replacing a cheap gasket but will run you $500+ for a dealer to fix.

Here is a description of the procedure to replace the valve cover on a lot of
recent BMWs for DIYers:

[https://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1197637](https://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1197637)

It's kind of strange to me that this should be sustainable, because if you're
designing cars only for a short lease period when they're under warranty,
shouldn't this be less profitable than having better resale value?

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mc32
Everyone loves recurring revenue. They’ll find as many ways to make it happen
as possible. From club memberships to entertainment and sports to software and
and now durable goods.

On the other hand it means you can have partial ownership of things for a
slice of time. As in housing rental, it offers flexibility (the alternative
for people who can’t afford to build an average house is to build a shanty...

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radoslawc
It just a way to squeeze some more money out of customers. Add some nice
marketing babble that it's for customer's own good (lower maintenance fees,
offer simplified pricing, add elasticity, energy, synergy, bulshitergy) and
here you have it: "I'm sorry your subscription for AC has expired". Funny
enough there already are lines of cars where engine power and torque is just
set in software, so buying most expansive engine version is just buying
cheapest version with some variable in ECU software set to different value.
For me this is equivalent of selling premium version of application which has
sleep=10 removed from every loop and advertise it as many times faster. Why
people are accepting this? Take SketchUp for example, they recently went
subscription only and CAD software has somewhat steep learning curve, and you
kind of learn using it as "muscle memory" of shortcuts and general flow. I bet
many people will just buy subscription just for convenience of going on with
their work or hobby projects in familiar software.

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sokoloff
Are producers obligated to only sell at cost-plus, or are they permitted to
sell based on value to the buyer?

Do I cost an airline more money to transport me out on a Monday and back on a
Friday than the converse? (I suspect not, but not staying Saturday night makes
the former ticket more expensive on many carriers.) Does SSO really cost as
much to provide as the “enterprise pricing” tier suggests?

Those higher priced business flights or enterprise tier purchases help
subsidize the lower cost options, making it possible to sell a base version
and a deluxe and get enough revenue to make the economics attractive.

I remember years ago shopping for a Jeep Wrangler. There was a ~$175 option
for a larger gas tank (22 vs 18 gallons or so). If you bought the option, you
got the same physical tank and a shorter pipe from the filler into the top of
the tank (so more fuel would go in before the pump clicked off). To the buyer
of the Jeep, that option was worth something. I’m OK with Jeep offering it. (I
wouldn’t buy it, since you could easily install the “larger tank” with a
hacksaw, but I’m sure many did.)

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tonyedgecombe
_Those higher priced business flights or enterprise tier purchases help
subsidize the lower cost options, making it possible to sell a base version
and a deluxe and get enough revenue to make the economics attractive._

The purpose isn't to subsidise poorer customers though. Rather it's to
maximise revenue.

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rland
Who comes up with these ideas? I swear, there is a class of people (seemingly
in charge of every decision at big companies now) who just sit there and try
to come up with ways of extracting money from customers without adding value
to the equation what-so-ever. I'm sure the guy who came up with this brilliant
idea was paid a huge bonus -- while the engineers actually trying to make a
better car get nothing.

It's so tiring to see this happen again and again everywhere. It seems
actually doing things -- anything at all -- doesn't really matter to companies
any more. Who teaches people that this is OK?

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sitkack
> Who teaches people that this is OK?

Candy Crush. Farmville. Pervasive market segmentation.

What happens when the children who were fed a constant diet of DLC become the
c-levels of our future corporations? That world to me looks like some shitty
vending machine version of corpofacism

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radoslawc
Funny that BMW is pushing it again after CarPlay subscription fiasco.

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anm89
I used to think stuff like this was crazy and destined to fail but I've really
become aware of how far my preferences are from the norm over the last 5
years.

I think people on average are very open to integrating many subscription
services into their lives.

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m463
I think this might be something slightly different than you suggest.

I think all of it is (intentionally) confusing and people are always on the
verge of being overwhelmed and say ok fine ok accept it's only 99 cents, etc

Somewhere I read something like "californians are ok with paying all the
taxes" but it's not that they're fine with it.

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jdhn
This is something that I’m warily watching as we move towards a predominantly
BEV fleet. I don’t like the idea of subscriptions in software, and I really
don’t like it when it comes to vehicles. It will be interesting to see how
automakers deal with users who take matters into their own hands and start
tinkering with code in order to access features that would otherwise be locked
away if you don’t have a subscription. There’s already lots of experience in
the ICE world of tuning the ECU, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them have
a “secret menu” if subscriptions become rampant across vehicles.

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mips_avatar
The way the automotive industry thinks about market segmentation and now
subscriptions is beyond frustrating. They want the same car to sell at 3
different price points, but because there is nearly zero marginal costs for
most features the companies typically just build the top features in all the
cars and then turn them off in the cheap ones. I see why BMW is doing this,
but It still makes me angry.

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mcbutterbunz
> Say you buy a model with heated seats. You could pay for that feature only
> during the cold months of the year.

If I bought a model with heated seats, why would I pay to access the feature
that I already paid for? As everyone else will point out, this is clearly a
way to extract more money from customers. I can't see any alternative.

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siruncledrew
Sell a >$40k car, and bill ‘owners’ $10-20/mo for the entire life of the car
for convenience features is an easy way to squeeze a few $1000s more from
consumers.

It’s also a great way to get consumers to hate it after being nickel-and-
dimed.

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jti107
i guess there are no gamers at BMW...otherwise they'd know about the rage that
micro transactions elicit

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tonyedgecombe
It's not even that rational. We know what the cost is and can decide if it's
worth it or not. But you can see from this discussion people get quite
emotional about it.

