Parenting this is the best thing they can be doing for the consumer. Prevent other car companies from including this scummy feature. Now I just need to think "not Ford" when I go buy a car and I'm all good.
On the other hand, licensing this patent to other auto makers could become a great source of revenue for Ford. I'm sure all auto makers would implement the feature. You won't be able to avoid it.
I don’t like it for the security aspects of it. If it can be done remotely, someone other than Ford can do it.
However, I think it is ethically okay otherwise. If you don’t fully pay for something you don’t own it and it’s still the property of whoever holds the loan on it.
I know most HNers probably haaaate this idea. The upside is that lower repossession costs lower the risk and make goods available to lower wage income workers.
You're not paying towards ownership of a SaaS site. You're paying a monthly subscription fee.
If you're 34 months into a Dropbox subscription you don't own anything. If you're 34 months into your car payments you might have thousands in equity in the car.
Even getting outside of the ethics -- Lots of cities in the US are also automobile-dependent and turning off someone's car seems counter-productive.
We definitely need to push back on these types of controls aggressively, including advocating for consumer protections.
