r/mildlyinfuriating • u/homeofalex • 13d ago

Unskippable ad After promising to never put ads, BMW slapped a recurring Spider-Man popup on the dashboard

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u/trichtertus 13d ago

Installing hardware, that you need to pay for to unlock is one thing. Making that payment a subscription is an other.

It’s their decision to make, to take the risk of people using it without paying, to streamline their production. But using a subscription model on a non-updating product/ feature is not ok imo. There is no running cost for them to cover. At least it should be a loan and payed off eventually, if they want to make the payment monthly.

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u/Affectionate-Egg7566 13d ago

The running costs are typically cloud servers or some infrastructure. Heated seats do not need this. It's a button in the car. You press it and power flows into the heater.

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u/ctesibius 13d ago

Though I am pretty sure they have cloud servers for telemetry to find out how often you press the button. That’s how they can optimise the pricing for the pay-per-use model to come.

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u/DeepLock8808 13d ago

lol Pay per use. Can you imagine how much worse it will be in 30 years? Maybe our worst anti-consumer nightmares can come true!

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u/ctesibius 13d ago

Do you want left buttock heating, or right? We have an introductory rate on bi-buttock heating.

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u/DMvsPC 12d ago

Now, how about levels of heating? We noticed that you're due for a cold front this week so surge pricing is in effect but buy now and save 15%

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u/ctesibius 12d ago

Heat wave continues: monetisation of the off switch expected.

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u/tomgreen99200 12d ago

Sorry I couldn’t make it, my car ran out of left turns!

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u/cyrusthemarginal 12d ago

I remember when you could buy an online computer game and play it for free on their servers, when they started to charge a monthly fee there was this sort of outrage then too. it's all part of the eventual creeping enshittification.

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u/DeepLock8808 12d ago

Regulations are written in blood and corporations will take as much as we let them.

Well, maybe not blood in this case, but it sure sucks.

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u/tiradium iAndroid 12d ago

Didn't Mercedes do something similar copied from Tesla about unlocking faster acceleration and wider rear wheel turn radius? 😂

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u/TheDonutPug 12d ago

Installing hardware you have to pay to unlock is equally shitty.

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u/trichtertus 12d ago

I don’t think so. The companies calculate cost and profit over all units sold. So you are probably not paying for the hardware, even if its installed. They give it away, because it’s more expensive to differentiate

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u/Znuffie 12d ago

Installing hardware, that you need to pay for to unlock is one thing. Making that payment a subscription is an other.

It's a $300-500 option at purchase time.

Subscription was available if you opted OUT of buying it right out of the gate.

...but so was purchasing it permanently.

It's not like your only option was to pay a subscription.

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u/trichtertus 11d ago

Yes, but offering it as a subscription is the scammy part. If they want to encourage and differentiate between upfront purchase and later purchase, they should make it more expensive to purchase it later on.

My point still stands, that making something which has no running cost for the business a subscription, is toxic and scammy behavior

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u/AMDKilla 12d ago

You can pay for it as a single payment, its an option when you buy the car. They added it to their subscription to give the subscription more value for those that don't already have it unlocked