Technology

Man, never thought I'd see the day that after market car crackz become an industry.

Hardware As A Service (HAAS).

So, you buy a car with all these features, but you don't pay for them. They are disabled by default. You jailbreak your car, everything works without paying extra, but then you realize, you broke your warranty.

I wish that someone sues when something breaks in the car that you didn't opt in for.

And... yet better, they get sued when something breaks that is in connection with a paid service and someone suspects that it's because they paid part caused it.

What ever happened to you buy a car and that’s it. No need for subscriptions to things like suspensions, steering wheels, running engines…. You know the things I bought.

And what happens when all the cars are like this? EAAS? (Enshittification As A Service)

BMW is always making headlines with this crap, are there any other brands doing this shit? I know Hyundai IONIQ has a free trial for you to be able to unlock your car and whatnot with an app, later they will do it subscription based.

We start again with a strange Germany in Europe:)

Germany; don't do this please...

I can easily foresee the drm services or servers being shutdown, like the Microsoft music server....most you bought can no longer be used if moved.

Eventually they will "retire" this model and shut down servers. Making the car maybe driveable, but won't have stuff you paid for I bet.

Plus, eventually someone will unlock this with a hacked car software patch anyway.

If I own the car it's my hardware to use. If I don't own that suspension then someone needs to collect their property from my car.

Lol, good luck with that. I'll stuck with my dumb, subscription-less and app-less ebike. And still manage to beat cars due to insane traffic.

Automatic headlight dimming, only €82 per year.

I actually think this is a great idea. Hear me out.

They fit the hardware that you can't touch while the Motor plan is active, but when the right to repair legislation kicks in, and we start debating whether we actually own the cars we buy, all these scumbag practices will mean that any car outside of the Motorplan should be able to run cracked OS's and everyone gets free BMW features on their cars after motorplan expires.

I vote they keep going for a bit, then they get their asses handed to them with out of maintenance plan service options and 3rd party features.

So, the car gets very expensive suspension, but to use the features you need a subscription? So if I don't want the active suspension feature, I am still stuck with the very expensive active suspension hardware...

Yeah, no, I'll stick with Subaru. Everything they make uses tech from the dinosaur age of motoring.

There are basic rules for coming up with these types of product subscriptions:

1. Is it something a large number of customers can't live without?
2. Is it something that costs money to support and continue developing? Subscriptions help defray that cost and loyal users are happy to keep it going.
3. Will the feature be actively used on a regular basis, going forward?

Now apply these to seat warmers, suspension adjustments, self-driving, or whatever else shows up in the future. If you don't hit all three, head back to the drawing board.

P.S.: This isn't limited to cars. It's equally true for any hardware product.