BMW Adaptive Suspension Can Be Added via Subscription. Suspension As A Service (SAAS)
BMW's Adaptive M Suspension subscription has ignited controversy. Are you paying extra for features already in your car? Find out more.
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Why is this bad in a nutshell.
A) The only way to control access to this feature is to lock down and phone home. If it doesn't phone home then when someone figures out a way around your present security its possible for someone to sell said features forever. Such DRM could hurt repeatability by accident or more likely on purpose.
B) There is no reason to fail open so even if BMW is still chugging when they stop taking your cars phone calls and retires those servers you get no more feature.
C) The amount spent over the lifespan of a car wherein people opt to take care of their valuable asset absolutely dwarfs the cost able to be extracted up front
D) This functionality opens the door to a hacker not just turning off your features but turning off your car. This includes state sponsored attackers and people who are just generally pissed off at the geopolitical actions of your country of origin. If you are in the US that is a lot of fucking people.
E) Product segmentation on average increases the amount you can extract per user. Allowing segmentation by features turn on or off in software by the month it allows far greater segmentation with no reasonable expectation that the baseline will be lower. This means the lowest end user of a model pays the same for even less. The median user pays somewhat more and the max user pays a LOT more.
F) This means wholly paid for used cars now come with a car payment to the manufacturer.
Now there are half a hundred people on the boards of these companies and 338M of us in the US. 449M in the EU. There is no reason to allow this misfeature to continue to be a thing in our markets. If automakers don't like those restrictions any one of them can opt to most of the most valuable markets in the world and find their fortunes exclusively in China while their competitors eat their former marketshare.
Forgot one that was mentioned up-thread, which was that even if you don't pay for the fancy suspension you will still have to pay for fancy suspension parts if they break.
Fantastic point
C and e don’t sound like bad things
At least not bad enough for the company not to do it
All of it is a reason for people to vote not to allow it. This can be accomplished federally or via initiatives in states. If a handful states comprising 30-50% of the pop wont allow it then it will be dead.
Seems like forcing liability would be more successful
More successful or more beneficial?
Forcing the company to be liable for the data they collect would be more likely to stop them from doing it than trying to outlaw them collecting it
No it wouldn't because poor people can trivially be kept out of court all kinds of ways from binding arbitration to half assed enforcement. As a rule if you want someone to NOT do something you have to tell them they can't do it!
No it wouldn’t because elected officials don’t represent poor people
But we’re talking about buying new BMWs anyway. Your logic was just too stupid to not laugh at
The problem is there is no reason to suspect that a lucrative strategy doesn't spread to other manufacturers and indeed segments.
And it will be long established before it effects the poor
By which time it will be normalized. How about we fix it now.
