The fact they can legally charge a subscription for a fitted feature that does not pose any continuous cost for the company is insane
It should be forbidden by law.
Next we’re going to get a subscription fee to unlock the full potential of our phone batteries. But if we don’t pay, at least we’ll have 50% of the battery 🤮
Look, just go buy a different phone if you don’t like it. Doing it this way subsidizes the price for those that don’t need the extra battery size. Plus studies have shown it’s actually good for the battery!
/s in case that wasn’t obvious
Apple is already doing it
Every company is doing it. Old batteries throttle so they don’t just cut out on you. I wish people would actually learn about how this stuff works before APPLE BADing, but hey. I can’t expect that much from the internet.
Copium.
But since it’s not, don’t buy anything from those companies.
If there was even a chance a boycott would be feasible, they wouldn’t be doing what they’re doing. The only way to force change is to force it. Voting with your wallet is bullshit and won’t work against an oligopoly.
Customers have voted with their wallets and it has worked, but I do agree that it should also be legislated.
One company caving about one thing doesn’t cancel out the overall trend of enshittification and subscription bullshit. Things are getting worse on the whole because voting with our wallets just doesn’t work well enough to beat back all the corporations trying to take advantage of us.
I don’t disagree with you. But until we can get some sort of legislation, our only option is to not give those companies any money.
Flip it to instead focus on them forcing limited lifespans for the cars by doing this and then dropping support.
The fact they can legally charge a subscription for a fitted feature that does not pose any continuous cost for the company is insane
It’s called “Rent-Seeking Behavior” and it has infected essentially every single fucking millimeter of the market.
You’ll own nothing and you’ll fucking like it.
Rent-seeking.
Wait till they pull a HP and brick your car for not using their official fuel.
Or the Tesla blows up because you sent a mean tweet.
A mean xit?
Pronounced “shit”
Xit is catchy but I’m still more fond of xcretion.
“you liked ElonJet, so we’re now banning you from all Tesla services”
The tesla drives you directly to the gulag
Or Epson bricking your car cause it got 6 years old
Car in the 90s: … door doesn’t close securely anymore … the windshield is cracked … the brakes don’t work sometimes … the transmission is slipping … the engine is misfiring … the alternator doesn’t work anymore … the coolant is way below the add mark … steering fluid is almost empty … you have no more headlights … the rear trunk door has fallen off … CAR IS STILL DRIVEABLE
Car in 2020s: … The car is all in one piece (it may even be brand new) … one random system trouble light … alarm goes off at regular intervals to annoy you to the point of taking it to a mechanic.
Windshield wiper fluid low is so obtrusive. It warms you next to the odometer as a message pop-up instead of a light, other things have lights, why doesn’t it? Know what’s worse? It also pops up multiple times on the dashboard touch screen blocking you from seeing your navigation while driving. At least I know I’m low on wiper fluid!
My 2020 Seat Ibiza doesn’t warn me about wiper fluid at all. It just stops working, which can be quite annoying when it’s empty right as I’d really need it
They couldn’t meet in the middle and just do a warning light lol
It’s like all of the annoying assholes we knew growing up somehow managed to get into decision making positions at all the major corporations. It’s so common now for designs to be absolutely completely fucking terrible. Constant nagging and annoyances. Fuck off already! I’m living my life, stop trying to live it for me.
I ended up buying in bulk 6 gallons of wiper fluid. My solution is to always have extra now lol. My last car I’d run on low for a year, this one I filled it twice just this summer!
Oh man, I forgot about the doors that don’t close properly. You knew it was going to be a fun ride when you got in one with a bungee cord holding it shut.
Lol … I grew up for a few years on a native reserve in northern Ontario … I remember driving around in trucks without doors
On one drive with my friends as young teens … I was 13 going on joy ride … as we tore through town, the front hood flipped open and onto the windshield … while we going fast on a narrow gravel roadway … it’s one of those moments where you go from sheer joy to absolute terror in a heart beat.
I’ve been in a lot of shitty vehicles in my life and we learned how to make things work … as long as it had pistons and a carburetor, we could get it to run.
Ironically, BMW, the company that was charging a heated seat subscription, is also the same company that still lies about its horsepower numbers today.
Which way? I’ve seen advertising use wheel hp instead of crank which is what I assume to be the default.
Their performance models often make more power than what they advertise. One modern example.)
In the positive direction. Many of the new M3s and M4s, and even the Toyota Supra that they manufacture, have been marketed as making less power than cars that they will easily beat in a drag race.
B58 “240/140/supra” claim 330, actual numbers around 350/370 in some cases.
Looks like customers have successfully voted with their wallets. Nice!
So rare for that to actually work these days.
Because people are so numbed by all of these things, that masses are just silently accepting all of what these companies throw at them.
Consumers have to wake up from this lethargy and start to support honest business or it will be too late.Narrator: it was already far too late…
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BMW cancelled plans for this heated seats subscription based on memes like this. Keep up the good work!
BMW didn’t give a single fuck about some autistic teenagers online making memes. They cared about actual customers not buying BMWs over it.
The memes helped people decide not to buy it
Highly doubtful. The people actually in the market for a bmw aren’t spending their time looking at memes.
But teenagers will eventually become potential customers so it should matter.
And maybe the memes can help spread messages. I mean i get ads from companies in meme format so it must have some effect.
I’ve wondered about how feasible it is to bypass all of these artificial locks these car companies put on their “services”
If you want to maintain the warranty, that’s where you’re going to be screwed. If you’re buying used, who gives a fuck. Root the car and turn everything on. The car manufacturer cares about the first sale and that’s it. They’ll attempt to make it hard to root to prevent resales with more features enabled, but we’re going to do it anyway. A lot of people are pessimistic about the future of cars (which is fare for new cars), but personally I don’t care. Fuck the companies. There’s a way to control all their devices whether they like it or not.
Isn’t DMCA 1201 the problem here? It’s the same law John Deere beats hackers, crackers and tinkerers over the head with. They put a token, flimsy digital lock on their equipment so any replacement must be blessed and ordained by JD itself to work. If you defeat that lock, or tell someone else how to defeat that lock, you’re on the hook for fucking prison time or 500.000 bucks on your first offense. I agree with the spirit of your comment, when I purchase a thing the manufacturer can go fuck itself. But right now governments around the world (other countries have their equivalents based on the WIPO internet treaties) put all their legal weight behind this business model.
Wait, prison time for telling someone else how to bypass a subscription to a non-digital item? I thought the guy getting two years in prison for “copyright infringement” by streaming a video game online was too much!
The only video game prison thing I saw was the guy who distributed SD card pirating cartridge and got fined into indenturement, which should not be a thing.
Wasn’t there an exemption recently, thanks to iFixit? https://www.ifixit.com/News/54317/section-1201-exemptions-for-2021-repair-consoles-medical-devices
Right To Repair is growing and John Deere is a battle line.
I hear it’s pretty easy
Do not take my word for it. I’m not a mechanic. Fuck I don’t even have custom firmware on my Prius
This feasible.
Hopefully as my life goes on I will continue to make more money as I go.
I intend to use that money to own and maintain old ass cars until it’s literally illegal.
I understand your sentiment but cars today are safer, quicker, dont rust as much, and get better gas mileage.
The cost to maintain an older car won’t be cheap and it is shit for the environment.
We just need to place government regulations on subscriptions. With recent wins pertaining to right to repair, hopefully they pick up speed and people start voting to make good changes.
If you purchase a product, you should own it. If it has a feature that is disabled by the company, they should have to lease that space on your product, thereby paying you for the storage. That would incentivize not making products like this.
Just because cars are getting newer, does not mean that they’re easier to repair on your own
I flatly concede that new cars are safer. Granted that, it’s not really that bad to maintain an old car if you take a known good platform purchased in cash and maintain it in a low rust area (which I am). I present two examples:
I have a 1991 Chevy S10 I bought in 2011. Other than fluid changes, I have put in brakes (twice), battery, starter, and a water pump in it since that time. Total cost, maybe $300? I bought the truck for $2500 and it gets around 25mpg.
I have a 2005 Scion xB. Purchased 2019, I have put only brakes into it (cost $150ish). Cost was $2800, and it gets over 30mpg almost always.
Separate to these, I have an e-scooter I use for commuting and small errands on nice days. I think the trio makes a great combo of practical stuff mover, people mover, and “just me” mover. I find it hard to believe this trio would be anything close to the carbon output of making two new equivalent cars and burning the same amount of fuel with them.
Thoughts?
How is that s10 getting 25mpg, that’s wonderful as new it only got 22 mpg. The 1992 Jeep Cherokee outisde my place last I tested got 10.8 mpg. 6 cylinder mostly metal no airbags. Now the snapper push lawn mower I have that was bought in the early 80s is a better example of what you want. I mowed a half acre with it today and it started up on the first pull. Spark plug, sharp blade, and a motor and it gets beat by my neighbors $3000 rider but Ill save that dollar anyday. Exercise isnt hurting my fat ass. That thing runs better than the Honda motors i thought outran their time.
No one cares, but it started up first pull this year after sitting all winter uncovered in a backyard with small amounts of snow
You’re probably right about the mpg. The odometer has been broken for ages and I was estimating milage by adding up my commutes. I am at high altitude which does help a bit due to the lower wind resistance however.
6cyl anything from that era is almost always rough on gas haha. My dad also had an XJ – it’s actually what I learned to drive in. But yeah, terrible on gas.
I have a older mower too (not as old as you). But it’s creeping up on 10 years old. It’s a Troy-Bilt with the Briggs motor. Same though, first start of the season it’s sometimes two pulls, and then almost always just a single pull after that.
I understand your intentions, but blindly believing modern cars are safer just because they’re modern isn’t exactly a good mentality either.
For instance: the Volkswagen Up!! Being safer than the Renault kwid which is still better than the equally modern fiat panda, which got the lowest possible grade.
Remember: the auto industry will not make safer automobiles without pressure, I know this because the volkswagen T2 was built all the way to 2014 only getting performance or interior updates because of the lack of pressure on them to make a safer vehicle for that class.
Edit: also do note that the kwid built on Brazil is significantly different from the Indian kwid, meaning that one got 3 stars and the other only one.
As a side note: the Volkswagen Up! performed well when it was tested in 2014 by latinncap
So the car I drove to work today is from 1992/93. Doesn’t even have airbags. No AA brakes… and I can almost guarantee that it doesn’t fold like a car from the 2020’s
You know, the article I’ve sent mentions the differences between the Brazilian kwid and Indian.
One of the points mentioned in it is the differences between reinforcements in both vehicles, being the Indian having weaker structures and less safety gear. (No airbags and such) Thus it got a lower score.
Notice how this 1989 toyota celica does this is a good car from the day, notice how the driver’s face bangs against the steering wheel? That’s what airbags are for, older cars offer minimal head protection.
And the “older cars don’t crumble” thing is proven to be bogus over and over again, if you look closely the older cars folded more frequently than their modern counterparts. In the case of the corolla, it didn’t fare better than it’s new and improved interation
Consider this quote: “It’s not the fall that kills you; it’s the sudden stop at the end.” -Douglas Adams
Of course, automobiles are unlikely to fall, but it means that a sudden stop can cause a lot more harm than what people think, crumple zones are meant to absorb the shock.
Thus an automobile without any crumple zones whatsoever means that the car will be fine, but the sudden shock will cause lots of damage to your soft and mushy human body.
Modern automobiles have proven to be, on average, safer than their older counterparts. However as I have said: there are safe cars, not so safe cars and death traps. Which goes back to what I’ve said: measuring an automobile’s safety solely by date of manufacturing is overly simplistic.
To be frank I kind of feel a sour grapes vibe :P but don’t fret, I can’t afford a new car either. Not every one can and that’s where older cars shine.
Though I’d take a dacia sandero over a fiat panda anytime.
Ah, so you’re THAT guy in the scifi movie!
I would love to be that guy in a sci-fi movie!
That time when Toyota overbuilt the shit out of an in-line six with way less power than it could handle as part of a gentleman’s agreement to avoid government intervention and ended up being an absolute fucking monster.
“Oh, but the stock supra had no power. It’s not fair to compare it to .” That was the point you nitwits, it was supposed to be modded.
Haha 1khp 2JZ go brap brap brap
Meanwhile hillbillies are learning how to start ford f150s with the button that opens the door.
These companies just care about the first sale, but I guarantee you there’s going to be a thriving market in the future of rooted cars with all features enabled, and they’re going to be far better than whatever the dipshit buying the new car for 4 times as much gets.
What do you mean by hillbillies?
It took me far too long to realise that this was a meme and not a link to a news article…
Car companies absolutely understate performance. Probably even more so now.
The Volkswagon recall really pussy whipped the entire automotive industry.
Vwagy group cars are still being made this way. Audi engine, Lamborghini transmission, etc. The internal components are just shared between productions to cut costs, while they tweak the timings in the computer to match the customer expectations.
They got their hand slapped by the EPA for the TDI emissions line, but the cars are basically performance vehicles detuned. You can supe a modern jetta or golf up for under 3k, 90% of it is just changing the intake and exhaust manifolds while changing shift timings. The Jetta models actually improve fuel economy with an APR tune.
Yeah the EPA TDI bullshit is what I was talking about. It blows my mind to meet EPA “Standards” they had to make the engine perform worse and be less fuel efficient.
How does that blow your mind?
Capturing emissions and recirculating them back through the engine to reburn them is inherently less efficient for power. It reduces the amount of emissions at the tailpipe at the expense of power and longevity. The EPA doesn’t give a shit about how much power your car makes, they care about the sulphur and NOx emissions from diesel engines making it into the air.
You can make a more fuel efficient and powerful diesel that will go for a couple million miles by straight piping it, but the emissions are god awful.
Not the process, the standards. Burning more fuel to “reduce emissions”. then I have to spend a bunch of money “fixing” a brand new vehicle to get the power and fuel efficiency the car was always capable of in the beginning.
Your Jetta can only hit those numbers rolling coal.
Awesome! I’ll have a “peace love” and lgbtqaaip2s+ bumper stickers to really confuse everyone.
Can you elaborate? I’m not familiar with the connection you’re referring to.
Thier TDI desiels were programmed to have a “emission testing” mode which meets EPA standards, and then a “normal drive” mode which was more powerful and more fuel efficient, but didn’t meet standards. They got caught and had to recall and buy back every car that had this feature.
For sure, I’m familiar with that. You said it pussy whipped the industry. I don’t understand how they’re connected.
The post is about lying about performance, and how no one does it anymore. VW was the last big lie before they got slapped so hard no one does it anymore.
Gotcha. I’d usually call that “honest” rather than “pussy whipped” so I think that’s what my disconnect was.
This was at it’s peak in the nineties, with the gentlemens agreement between the Japanese automakers. I suspect some vehicles had their power underrated by 50KW or so.
“They don’t make them like they used to.”
Yeah dad, you are right. You are far less likely to die.
Fatal crashes have actually gone up in recent years. Likely due to an uptick in SUVs and pick up trucks with their huge blind spots
There are less crashes now overall but they are far more deadly.
Its under 5 falaties per 100K in most of europe. Norway at 2. Monaco at 0 (but foes that count?)
Russia is at 11.
Usa is at 13.
Really not true about diesels. DPF is a common problem but didn’t even exist in early diesels. Mechanics hate DPFs. Maybe true about petrols.
But EV are better still (if you can have a home charger) and weren’t really a thing in the 80s/90s. Bar milk floats.
I’m not a car guy and I really can’t even tell if you responded to the right comment or if it just makes so little sense to me I wouldn’t know either way.
I’m not a car guy, but I am the son of one and have plenty of gear head friends. DPF is Diesel Particulate Filter. It basically catches all the soot and then, when it’s full enough, and the DPF is hot enough, there is a fuel injector that injects fuel and burns it all out. That’s called a regen. When see white smoke, that’s probably what you are seeing. If the DPF gets clogged, the engine won’t start as it can’t exaughst. So being able to regen is important. To get up to temperature to regen, the diesel needs to be run hard for about 10-15 minutes. Which it will get on a decent speed trip. DPFs came in to make diesels less dirty. Though you can argue it’s moving the problem as much as reducing it. It’s illegal but common, to bypass DPFs when it starts being an issue.
I know all this because it was the DPF that killed my last diesel.
Very widely held view that diesels were more reliable without DPFs. That they aren’t good for the mileage they were pre-DPFs. Of course they were also even dirtier.
