> the alternative is that BMW physically has to remove the heater components or disable them permanently, so as a second hand buyer, I'd be permanently locked out of the upgrade
No, the alternative is to simply sell what you have 'as is', and not to try to graft a subscription model onto every sale.
Rather than selling unnecessary services BMW should focus on selling cars. And with the number of software issues their vehicles suffer from (a friend of mine was an avid BMW fan for many years his cars spent more time in the shop for software issues than mine ever did for all of their maintenance put together over the same 20 year period) they should strive to have less software related components rather than more of them.
Finally, what do you think the chances are that they are able to keep that service up and running over the service life of their vehicles?
No, the alternative is to simply sell what you have 'as is', and not to try to graft a subscription model onto every sale.
Rather than selling unnecessary services BMW should focus on selling cars. And with the number of software issues their vehicles suffer from (a friend of mine was an avid BMW fan for many years his cars spent more time in the shop for software issues than mine ever did for all of their maintenance put together over the same 20 year period) they should strive to have less software related components rather than more of them.
Finally, what do you think the chances are that they are able to keep that service up and running over the service life of their vehicles?