And as in the case with these BMWs, the extra content was often included on the DVD itself and the “DLC” was just a decryption key allowing the owners to access the data on the disk they already owned. For example, if you bought Street Fighter X Tekken in 2012 the disk had all kinds of extra features that were locked unless you paid the publisher an additional hundred bucks or so.
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those tweets are a pox on the soul:
“bmw functions on-demand” ( who came up with that phrase? and dear god, that dash. who let you use that dash!? fire them immediately. )
"connecteddrive store ( now you could use a dash and you don’t!? well what about just a space? or do customers have to pay that extra for that too? and why not “the on shiver - demand store”? where’s the sense in any of this? )
“my bmw app” ( really, now. is there a “your bmw app”? 
and why not just call it the “mbmwa” if you absolutely must hurt your customers like this. )
it’s like they’re parodying corporate “human resources” speak. it’s awful
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Protip: if you need BMW’s smartphone app to use your BMW, it’s not your BMW.
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Of course this means that the actual COST to them for the hardware to heat the seats is low enough that it costs less to include it with every car, whether it is paid for or not. I’m guessing that the hardware is <$50 even though they charge >$500 for the option.
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This is also starting to lean into the increasingly common “software as a service” distribution model that many game and software publishers are pushing for, where you never really own a copy of the thing you nominally purchased but instead are buying access to a service that the publisher can (and have) shut down any time they like, cutting you off from using the thing you thought you’d bought. See also: Tesla remotely bricking it’s cars
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In that great way that modern journalism involves reporting without verifying underlying facts, this: Someone reports BMW is charging a subscription to use features so nothing more is needed, just echo the claim and don’t dig further.
Except that results in dishonest, incompetent reporting.
What BMW is doing is charging owners who didn’t purchase a feature initially and post-purchase wants it. Which, you know, is not any awful idea.
And which is not even being implemented in the US.
So we get superficial, incorrect reporting of something that isn’t awful.
Full disclosure: I bought a car recently, went with the less expensive trim, and there’s a feature or two for which I would happily pay a subscription fee.
Now, if anyone wants to dis Beamer owners…
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In the original reporting of this story on BoingBoing, it was acknowledged that it wasn’t (yet) implemented in the US, so no, it wasn’t dishonest or incompetent reporting. This post is about BMW’s response to the initial outrage, which shows a pretty tone deaf response to what people are upset about. And it absolutely IS an awful idea. Why? Because the hardware is present on all the cars already, whether or not someone purchased heated seats. It’s literally a software change to activate them, which costs BMW virtually nothing to do once someone wants that option turned on. So the cost of the heated seats is already baked into the base sale price of the car. The upgrade is just a cash grab for BMW. And their response in this tweet just shows that they didn’t understand what people were upset about. And your comment shows that you don’t either.
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If I buy a car from BMW that has the seat-heating hardware installed, but choose not to pay to activate it (either as a one-off or by subscription), do I own the hardware (as I do the rest of the car), or does it remain the property of BMW?
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Assuming I do own the hardware, should it be legal for me to bypass BMW’s software restrictions, if I can, and activate the heated seats myself for free? If not, why not?
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Does the answer to #2 change if I bought the car from someone else (e.g. private second-hand sale), and thus have no form of contract with BMW?
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While we’re on the subject, isn’t it pretty common in the electronics industry to have, say, high-end printers and cheapo printers with identical hardware but certain functions disabled or degraded by the firmware/software in the cheaper models?
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That is somewhat true. Sometimes it’s because the low-end devices use components that didn’t pass a quality gate. Rather than toss the component, they deactivate some of the features and let the flawed part run with less functionality. The healthy approach for a company to take when this is discovered is to say “hey, we can’t guarantee it will work and we don’t want you mad at us if it fails.” Be explicit in selling hardware, and that replacing the software is not a crime, it only means the company is not responsible any more.
No, BMW is basically telling people that their car isn’t really owned, only licensed. It’s an attempt to get the sucker who buys the car used to also pony up. And as the guys on Accidental Tech Podcast said, it is a dumb move because part of why you pay so much for a high-end car is because you want to own it, it’s yours, but BMW is telling you that you aren’t the owner, that you have to keep paying.
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I can remote start my Mazda with the free app, but once my 3 year warranty expires next year, Mazda will deactivate that feature unless I pay a monthly fee. Not to mention I can only opt out of data collection if I live in California. I guess car manufacturers are intent on segregating owners into sucker/non-sucker categories.
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Are there any advantages to being able to remotely start your car?
Or the EU. Which is where California got the idea for their legislation
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If you don’t have a heated garage or park outside, you can start the car and get it warmed up before you drive it. Or you can start the AC in the summer. You can have an aftermarket remote starter installed.
It’s not something I would personally use unless I lived somewhere where it might regularly get down well below 0 F. Living in southern Wisconsin and Toronto for most of my adult life there’s only a day or two here and there where I’d be tempted by this.
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This stands for “Downloadable Content”. It comes from console gaming, but people sometimes use the term more broadly now for “anything where I can pay later to enable content or features via software”.
Much like in these cars, in the DVD era of gaming DLC, the content was often already on your discs and you were just paying to unlock it. So, paying to unlock something you already owned. I was in the industry during that period and it was a dirty little secret that nobody talked about. Not always- sometimes the content was legitimately downloaded, but often not. After the game was done, the business people would carve out a few things to be “held back” for unlocking via DLC.
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Huh. We got a 3rd party remote starter installed on our Mazda (by the dealership.) Not only because the Mazda one was back-ordered for an undetermined time, but because it uses the car’s key fob instead of a separate one (or an app apparently.) Even if both had been available the salesperson was recommending the 3rd party option.
I never use it anyways, tbh. But I object in principle to having bought something that Mazda plans on taking away unless I pay up. I’d be fine paying for something if it offered added value, but instead you can tell they’re just looking for ways to bilk you. Even the crappy remote start can’t manage to do the job right and it turns the car off when you open the door.
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“you only pay for the additional features based on how much you wish to use them.”
One can imagine a cold 10º night, the person getting in the car, then weighing the options:
“Is it worth spending $1.99 to heat the seats tonight?”
Or, you’re in the mountains, with no internet connectivity, and you don’t even have that option-- until you figure out:
“If I tether my sat-phone to create an internet hotspot, I can have heated seats.” This is fine.
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Exactly! When selling convenience, the whole equation can easily change from “Is this worth it?” to “Am I worth it?” This is similar to what Kevin Kelly talked about in his excellent book The Inevitable, where KK talks about future industries being immediate, bespoke and enabling just in time convenience like having someone stand in line for you.
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Re #2, probably illegal but I like it anyway.
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Re the hypothetical: the seats are in the car but how do you do you know that he price included heated seats or a lower price because you got heated seats? That is, did the price include seats or a price reflecting getting the feature, not a partial price, that is, like getting the hardware without the software?
You’re living in an extractive economy; this is penny ante theft that actually can benefit some people.
