this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2026
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Adafruit: From Ultimate Driving Machine to Ultimate Rent-Seeking Machine: The BMW Logo Screw Patent.

If you haven’t already heard, BMW’s R&D teams have been busy “innovating.” Unfortunately, they aren’t focusing on the things that actually matter—like stellar engine performance or the legendary driving dynamics that gearheads love. Instead, the C-suite execs decided that the best use of their engineering budget was to design a proprietary security screw specifically intended to prevent BMW drivers from fixing their own cars.

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[–] jjlinux@lemmy.zip 74 points 5 days ago (26 children)

No biggie. In less than a week we'll have thousands of Chinese Amazon sellers providing these tools to everyone for lose to.

[–] Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world 37 points 5 days ago (8 children)

Yes, but. If they add enough "special" things you need, that will reduce the number of average people and independent mechanics that will go through the trouble of getting all the "special" tools. Thier goal isn't to stop you. It's to inconvenience enough people so that they won't bother. Which drives more business to thier shops, which in turn makes them more money. And since they are publicly traded, it doesn't even have to actually make them money. Just make the market think it might.

[–] bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 8 points 5 days ago (7 children)

Its all a plan. People think I'm a conspiracy nut when i explain it. I think they're dumb for not seeing it. Capitalism is the best planned scam.

[–] postmateDumbass@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago

This is the only focus on the ultra wealthy market, let the wanna be people pay too much, and fuck the rest of the low profit margin people.

Good news is this how you get a French/Russian Revolution. Eventually.

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