If you asked drivers "would you like a brand icon shown on your screen for the radio station, the trade-off is a couple bucks more expensive car and more opportunity for bugs to crash your radio" -- who would say yes? Does anyone actually want this "HD Radio" technology, did anyone ask for it?
Who are the car manufacturers (and radio standards setters for that matter) working for?
"Would you like a car that updates its entire control panel, unannounced, with a software upgrade and will hide familiar buttons on you when you need them the most?"
Yes, my last car I specifically looked for HD Radio support. The metadata is nice to have, but the audio quality is genuinely much better. Especially on AM, where a lot of sports broadcasts still are, depending on the market.
And its where the stations hide their good content. it's no spotify of course, but a way more diverse offering on many stations hd2 and hd3 signals, still without ads on several as well.
I believe moving to digital also allows stations to broadcast more channels. For instance, KUOW, the source of this bug, has KUOW-2 and KUOW-3 only accessible via HD Radio that broadcast things like the BBC news feed and classical music.
Of course, maybe you'd like to have that option without being exposed to logos.
Yes, I want HD Radio. In Los Angeles, KROQ's secondary HD channel plays KROQ as it existed in the 1980's, including some old jingles and such. I think it's such a cool idea.
Who are the car manufacturers (and radio standards setters for that matter) working for?