Subj : BMW charging monthly for heated seats
To   : Warpslide
From : Nightfox
Date : Wed Jul 13 2022 09:30:16

  Re: BMW charging monthly for heated seats
  By: Warpslide to All on Wed Jul 13 2022 09:56 am

 Wa> German automobile manufacturer BMW is diving into the world of 
 Wa> microtransactions for some of its vehicle features.

 Wa> BMW has been putting features behind a subscription paywall since 2020,
 Wa> with heated seats being the newest addition in countries like Germany, New
 Wa> Zealand, the U.K., South Africa and now South Korea.

I heard about that.  It seems a bit ridiculous to me to buy something that has a feature, but then have to continually pay a subscription to use that feature. They already did the work to add it to the car, and that work should be reflected in the price you pay for the car when you buy it, rather than having a subscription to use that feature.

This reminds me a bit of the failed DivX video format, which came out soon after the DVD disc format came out in the late 90s - You'd buy basically a DVD movie (though at a lower price), and every time you watched it, you would pay a fee (something like $3).  A DivX player would need to be connected to a phone line so that it could call and charge your card for watching the movie.  That system quickly failed as it didn't become popular.

Nightfox
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