[HN Gopher] New Jersey legislators aim to ban most in-car subscr...
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New Jersey legislators aim to ban most in-car subscriptions
Author : toomuchtodo
Score : 229 points
Date : 2022-10-20 16:53 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thedrive.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thedrive.com)
| celestialcheese wrote:
| This is a great step. Subscriptions errode first sale protections
| by subscription-gating physical objects, allowing OEMs a work-
| around to first-sale doctrine. If you buy something, you should
| own it, and be able to fix it, scrap it, re-sell it, whatever you
| want.
|
| It's interesting NJ included self-driving in the subscription
| ban. These require significant overhead in compute, engineering
| resources and greatly impact safety, and if Tesla's pricing is
| any indication of overall market, FSD will cost a pretty penny.
|
| If full self-driving was offered at 10k up front for the life of
| the car, or $80/mo, I would imagine many buyers of lower-end
| vehicles would prefer a subscription.
| [deleted]
| n65463f23_4 wrote:
| wouldnt that 10k be amortized into the car payment for a
| similar monthly cost?
| odysseus wrote:
| So if NJ residents now need to pay a lump sum to get the same
| features, this means more sales tax money going to the state. I
| can see why legislators want to get behind this.
|
| Not a fan of subscriptions, but it's good to be aware what
| politicians are getting out of the deal.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Politicians get paid the same whether the state collects a bit
| more money from car sales or not. It's not like every excess
| tax dollar ends up in their pocket. Indeed, it's far more
| likely that car companies will want to lobby (AKA bribe)
| individual politicians to stop a law like this.
| codegeek wrote:
| As a NJ resident, it is good to see that we are doing something
| that may be a good thing. I am already tired of cars being too
| expensive with too many unnecessary gadgets while the engines are
| becoming more plastic.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Go New Jersey! Now get Texas and California on board so car
| companies don't bother offering these in the country at all
| Hamuko wrote:
| Aren't they suing California now for having "too strict" of
| emissions regulations because California's position in the
| marketplace makes it so that their rules become de facto law of
| the land? If that goes through, I'm not really sure if
| California can do really any automotive regulation that other
| states won't like.
| humanistbot wrote:
| The Supreme Court just heard arguments in National Pork
| Producers Council v. Ross [1], which is challenging
| California's law that pork sold in California must follow
| certain animal welfare / health & safety standards. A big
| debate is over whether it was genuinely a health & safety
| standard versus a purely 'moralistic' law that is seeking to
| de-facto regulate other states.
|
| The issue is called the "Dormant Commerce Clause" [2], which
| is the idea that one state can't place "undue burdens" on
| interstate commerce. California can't just ban all imports
| from Texas, or vice versa. But courts have generally upheld
| health and safety laws, like California's car emissions laws
| or Hawaii's very strict agricultural products import
| restrictions --- but only if it is narrowly-tailored and
| there is a compelling state interest. Hawaii has a very
| compelling state interest in keeping its unique biodiversity,
| while California has a compelling state interest in keeping
| the valley of asphalt known as Los Angeles free of smog.
| There isn't really a good bright line test or definition in
| existing precedent of what "compelling state interest" means
| when it must be balanced against "balkanization" [3] by these
| kinds of laws, so many are hoping SCOTUS uses this case to
| make a clear definition.
|
| But it is likely that this kind of law would be seen more as
| a morality regulation than health and safety. California
| argued that it was not an attempt to legislate moral issues
| in other states, but more of a health and safety regulation:
|
| > Mongan [California state solicitor] pushed back on some of
| the hypotheticals about state laws that would condition the
| sale of products on a company's general health care or labor
| practices. He told Barrett that Proposition 12 is "focused on
| the production of goods that are coming into" California,
| rather than on company-wide policies. "I think we would all
| recognize," Mongan said, that it would be problematic if
| states can condition the sales of those products on
| restrictions of wholly unrelated out-of-state purchasers."
| [3]
|
| [1] https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/national-
| pork-pr...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dormant_Commerce_Clause
|
| [3] https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/10/california-law-on-
| sale-of...
| giantg2 wrote:
| If they can sue someone over growing their own wheat, they
| can sue over just about anything with even a tenuous link to
| commercial activity.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| Filburn grew wheat for sale and in excess of the production
| controls, intending to profit from the wheat he sold while
| also maintaining his own supply.
|
| The connection to interstate commerce was based on the
| totality of the wheat he grew, not just the excess portion
| of it that he claimed wasn't part of interstate commerce.
| And notably, despite all FUD to the contrary, subsistence
| farming of wheat for personal/non-commercial consumption
| was legal at the time. That's why they had there was a
| threshold in the first place; to protect non-commercial
| wheat farming.
| treeman79 wrote:
| Commerce clause has been abused to hell and back.
|
| Peoples heads will fall off if the Supreme Court starts
| undoing all its prior decisions that rely on it.
| mminer237 wrote:
| _Wickard v. Filburn_ was about the federal legislature 's
| jurisdiction under the Commerce Clause: https://matthewmine
| r.name/law/briefs/2L/1st+Semester/LAW+531...
|
| Presumably automakers are suing California for the inverse
| thereof--the Dormant Commerce Clause-- _a la_ _Southern
| Pacific Co. v. Arizona_ , saying such authority is actually
| reserved exclusively to the federal government as an
| exception to states' general police powers:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dormant_Commerce_Clause
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| But I thought the GOP was all about states' rights. Surely
| they haven't been lying all this time.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| I know you're being tongue in cheek, but of course, the
| GOP's focus on Federalism is not about states' rights, but
| about reducing democracy in a nation where, on aggregate,
| their platform is unpopular. I don't think their voters are
| so naive that they haven't noticed, either - they simply
| don't care about that.
| treeman79 wrote:
| Conservative principles are far more popular than the
| left wing dogma.
|
| Abortion on day of birth Secure boarders Lower taxes and
| regulations. Personal responsibility vs government
| handouts Crime Boys in girls sports.
|
| Discus actual issues and many democrats will be shocked
| they they are in the wrong party.
|
| But hey, endless personal attacks is a strategy as well.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Both parties support federalism when it suits their
| platform and not otherwise.
| p0pcult wrote:
| wernercd wrote:
| Flip that: Democrats focus is on tyranny of the majority
| so that a few big cities can rule a nation that doesn't
| want to live by rules that are destroying places like New
| York and LA.
|
| It's not that we don't care... it's that we know why our
| system was setup the way it is.
|
| Because only an idiot supports "Pure Democracy" - we
| don't have pure democracy for many reasons.
|
| You simply don't care to admit those reasons and address
| the problems with pure democracy.
| merely-unlikely wrote:
| > they simply don't care about that
|
| Or don't feel there is a better choice. The biggest
| oligopoly in the US is in politics.
| leereeves wrote:
| > in a nation where, on aggregate, their platform is
| unpopular
|
| Many polls report that the Republicans are more popular
| than the Democrats at the moment.[1]
|
| Sadly, refusing to acknowledge the existence of differing
| views seems to be rather common these days.
|
| 1: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/2022-ge
| neric-...
| Retric wrote:
| Many congressional elections are unposed due to extreme
| gerrymandering this zeroes out voters from that party in
| a nationwide count.
|
| Going alphabetically Alabama 2 of 7 races without
| Democratic candidates which means Democratic voters in
| those districts will obviously not vote for a Democrat.
|
| https://ballotpedia.org/United_States_House_of_Representa
| tiv...
| dahfizz wrote:
| This is _polling_ data. You have to read the question. In
| this CNBC poll[1], the question was "which party do you
| want to control Congress?" and the Republicans came out
| ahead.
|
| In this[2] Harvard poll, the question was "would you be
| more likely to vote for a Republican or a Democrat in the
| midterm" and it was a 50/50 tie.
|
| Generally, I think OP's conclusion is correct. There is a
| tendency in this bubble to assume that the GOP is dead
| and unsupported, but that is not the case.
|
| [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/20/gop-holds-big-leads-
| on-key-e...
|
| [2] https://harvardharrispoll.com/key-results-october-3/
| Retric wrote:
| I agree the GOP has quite a bit of support, even when
| they lose an election they still get close. However, it's
| important to understand what is actual support vs
| designing your platform for the system vs tweaking the
| system.
|
| The 2016 presidential election was R 62,984,828 to D
| 65,853,514 in votes with 55.7% turnout of registered
| voters. But in that exact same election the house votes
| went 63,182,073 R vs 61,765,832 D. In other words the R
| house got +200 thousand votes and D lost over 4 million
| votes in the house.
|
| That kind of advantage is common in recent elections.
| They lost in 2020 at R 72,760,036 vs D 77,529,619 in the
| house, but was still much better for them than the
| presidential election at R 74,216,154 vs D 81,268,92.
| [deleted]
| jedberg wrote:
| That's the congressional vote, which suffers from
| gerrymandering.
|
| In raw numbers, far more people support the Democrats
| than the Republicans.
| dahfizz wrote:
| Its polling data, not an actual vote.
|
| According to this CNBC poll[1], on the question of "party
| preference to control Congress", the Republicans come out
| ahead. Its close, but hardly the landslide Democrat
| victory you would expect if nobody supports the GOP.
|
| I would recommend you take another look at the polling
| data[2]. It might help pop some bubbles.
|
| [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/20/gop-holds-big-leads-
| on-key-e...
|
| [2] https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/2022-g
| eneric-...
| leereeves wrote:
| It's the _generic congressional vote_ , which is simply
| the percent of people polled who prefer either party.
| It's analogous to the popular vote for President, not the
| percent of seats either party is predicted to win.
| Retric wrote:
| Many races only have candidates from a single party.
|
| Which discards votes in any such count not just from the
| election tallies but also likely voters.
| leereeves wrote:
| Pollsters know that, so they phrase questions to avoid
| the issue, like:
|
| "Would you rather see the Republicans or the Democrats in
| control of Congress, or doesn't this matter to you?"
|
| (from Monmouth)
| Retric wrote:
| That doesn't help when you ask if someone is a likely
| voter and they say no because of who's running.
|
| Granted it doesn't say it's asking likely voters, but
| somehow they got 95% of responses say they are registered
| voters when only 50% of Americans are registered voters.
|
| (Page 8) https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-
| institute/documents/monmout...
| leereeves wrote:
| > somehow they got 95% of responses say they are
| registered voters
|
| That's 95% of people who are old enough to respond to the
| poll (under 18 are excluded without reporting) and don't
| hang up.
|
| I don't find it strange that people who aren't registered
| to vote hang up without responding to the poll.
| Retric wrote:
| There are many possibilities, but the point stands that
| it's clearly a very biased sample. Almost 80% of people
| between 65-74 are registered voters but that's still a
| long way from 95%.
| jedberg wrote:
| All the surveys are only of "likely voters". People who
| live in heavily gerrymandered districts tend to say "I'm
| not planning on voting". Also a lot of younger people who
| generally support Democrats aren't even included in the
| surveys.
| pessimizer wrote:
| If this were generally true, you'd see more polls erring
| in favor of Republicans. I can't recall any mainstream
| polling misses that have; do you have any references?
| rhcom2 wrote:
| Support for party isn't the best metric for support for
| the _party 's policies_ though. There is broad support
| for gay marriage for example but marriage between a man
| and a woman and the "incorrectly decided" Obergefell v.
| Hodges is still part of the Republican platform.
|
| To me support for a party is much more about tribalism
| and branding than actual policy.
| w1nst0nsm1th wrote:
| But FDR, with its New Deal, is still the prefered US
| President, and by a large margin :
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_pres
| ide...
| [deleted]
| jaywalk wrote:
| At least with something like this, it would be relatively
| simple for the manufacturers to just enable the functionality
| based on where the car is sold.
|
| Can't do anything like that with emissions regulations.
| acomjean wrote:
| Kia and Subaru do that in Massachusetts with some features
| (remote start). They blame "right to repair" laws we have
| on the books..
|
| https://www.techdirt.com/2022/02/07/kia-subaru-disable-
| usefu...
| AlexandrB wrote:
| You totally can. VW's emissions cheating scandal was about
| the ECU firmware tuning the engine for lower emissions when
| it detected an emissions test and then switching back to
| tuning for performance the rest of the time. No reason you
| couldn't do the same but based on location.
| [deleted]
| Bilal_io wrote:
| I can see them attempting that, but it'll give legislatures
| in other states an incentive to make it law as well, simply
| from the view of "look they're treating us different" which
| usually pissed people off more than when everyone is
| treated shitty but equally.
| causality0 wrote:
| Good. I'm tired of every single industry becoming a bunch of
| rent-seeking vampires trying to nickel and dime me to death.
| kennend3 wrote:
| Can we add XM radio to the list?
|
| I bought a new car and they keep calling and send mail to my
| house far too frequently.
|
| I've told them NO around a dozen times..
|
| They are bordering on harassment.
|
| Just because you put some receiver in my car doesn't mean you can
| constantly contact me. I never asked for it and they should take
| no for an answer.
| Retric wrote:
| Rather than simply saying No tell them to put you on their do
| not call list.
|
| Saying that is useless in many situations, but for a company
| like XM Radio that you haven't done business with they really
| need to follow those rules.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| Some companies have notoriously desperate pesterering. I've
| opted out of XM Radio and Spectrum solicitation multiple
| times. It doesn't seem to stick.
| Retric wrote:
| You must explicitly use the words "Put me on your do not
| call list."
|
| It's dumb, but _"If you want a telemarketer to stop calling
| you, do not say "Quit calling me" or "Don't call me again."
| In some companies, Reps are informed under strict
| guidelines to only delete records if the customer
| specifically requests they do so. Telemarketers are only
| required to put you on the "Do Not Call" list if you
| SPECIFICALLY request to be put on it._
|
| https://consumerist.com/2007/08/27/to-get-telemarketers-
| to-s...
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| I tend to agree for heated seats, but not for driver assistance.
| I think there will be a chilling effect - New Jersey customers
| might be forced to pay upfront for driver assistance features
| that residents of other jurisdictions could pay for on a monthly
| basis.
| scotuswroteus wrote:
| You're saying that only New Jersey is doing this for New
| Jersey-specific reasons. No other state's legislature thinks
| it's entirely bullshit. Yeah, that's definitely a smart,
| informed understanding of how each state's legislature works
| and is motivated and not at all a stupid took-Econ-101-before-
| I-developed-common-sense take. Totally agree. Chilling effects.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| It would take the company extra legal work to figure out if
| they can offer a driver assistance subscription in New Jersey
| or not.
|
| Perhaps New Jersey customers would have to wait longer than
| others for the whole product (because there is too much
| complexity in having a NJ-specific SKU)..
| AlexandrB wrote:
| I prefer to be able to choose which payment mode I want (by
| using a credit card or line of credit) instead of being
| railroaded into monthly payments. Subscriptions also never end.
| You never "pay off" your heated seat subscription.
| pxx wrote:
| I don't get it. People seem to think that if you ban this
| practice, you'll get the premium package for free. That's not
| going to be the case.
|
| Currently, you can pay for heated seats all up-front or via a
| monthly subscription. This proposed legislation prevents you from
| paying for it via a monthly subscription. So automakers will stop
| allowing you to do that. All you've done is limit customer
| choices.
| nequo wrote:
| Subscription services are a technology for carmakers to
| practice price discrimination.[1] Price discrimination
| reallocates consumer surplus to carmakers. It is not good for
| you unless you're a carmaker.
|
| Without subscription services, they only have the option of
| limiting heated seats to certain trims. If you want heated
| seats, you can buy one of those trims. But that trim probably
| comes with other features, too, that contribute to your surplus
| as a consumer.
|
| With subscription services, they can force you to pay for
| everything feature-by-feature. This is worse for you, better
| for them.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| This is false. Price discrimination is good for consumers
| that opt out. In the absence of price discrimination the
| price ends up somewhere in between, which is worse for
| customers that would have paid less.
| Larrikin wrote:
| Good, it shouldn't be an option. Killing the subscription model
| for cars in the crib prevents the subscription model from
| eventually being your only choice one day.
| ianferrel wrote:
| Price discrimination often allows producers to capture more of
| the surplus for complicated reasons that mostly boil down to
| the fact that they are the party with more information.
|
| A limit on complicated pricing models likely results in some
| deadweight loss, but may result in higher aggregate consumer
| surplus.
|
| Choice isn't everything.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Price discrimination works fine without subscriptions. They
| can charge $1000 for heated seats one time rather than
| monthly. This is entirely orthogonal.
| ianferrel wrote:
| Uh... If you have more pricing options, you get more price
| discrimination. It's not _entirely_ orthogonal.
| raverbashing wrote:
| > prevents you from paying for it via a monthly subscription
|
| And why in tarnation would I pay monthly for something that has
| a fixed cost to the manufacturer?
| nordsieck wrote:
| > And why in tarnation would I pay monthly for something that
| has a fixed cost to the manufacturer?
|
| There is a broad equivalence between capex and opex.
|
| I find subscriptions distasteful, but I can still acknowledge
| that, depending on the price, they may be reasonable compared
| to ownership.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I would happily pay $10/mo for 5 months a year for the 4
| years I expected to own the car rather than $250-500 to buy
| heated seats.
|
| I don't care about someone else's costs; I care about the
| value I get and the price I'm asked to pay. If someone else
| makes a profit because they structure the deal smartly, good
| for them.
| kelnos wrote:
| The problem is that you're still paying some subset of that
| $250-500 (in addition to the subscription fee), because in
| order to offer the subscription option to anyone, they have
| to include the hardware in every car, even if a particular
| owner decided not to buy the subscription. The carmaker has
| to defray that cost somehow, and that means every car gets
| a little bit more expensive up front, regardless of whether
| or not you pay for the subscription.
|
| Also I wouldn't be surprised if you're not permitted to buy
| the subscription on a month-by-month basis, and instead
| have to buy it in 6-month or 12-month chunks. Maybe some
| carmakers don't do this, but they can, and some will.
| leetcrew wrote:
| I really doubt the per-unit hardware cost to install
| heated seats is anywhere near what they cost to option.
| it's not a complex technology, and plenty of cheap cars
| come with them standard. the manufacturer might even
| break even on the additional parts cost by only making
| one kind of seat. or they might make up for it by
| increasing the margin in some other option that you may
| or may not choose. who knows?
| pessimizer wrote:
| Doesn't seem wise.
|
| a) spend $250-500 to buy heated seats, which you will sell
| in 4 years with some portion of that $250-500 as a premium
| added to the sale price of the car, or
|
| b) spend $200 (and the overhead on managing the bill for 4
| years) on heated seat rent, and in four years you can sell
| the option to someone else to pay $10/mo, assuming the
| company decides to allow that option to be transferred
| rather than refuse in order to damage the sales of lightly
| used vehicles.
| [deleted]
| sublinear wrote:
| Nope. The cost of the hardware is always necessarily still
| passed on to the customer before they even pay for the
| subscription to "unlock" it. It's double dipping.
|
| It makes no sense to gamble that upsells will be successful in
| exchange for a more competitive price. There's guaranteed loss
| with that idea.
|
| The components pre-installed must cost something and it's not
| possible for the manufacturer to get that money back unless
| they both installed inferior junk nobody wants and then baked
| it into the price.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| > The cost of the hardware is always necessarily still passed
| on to the customer before they even pay for the subscription
| to "unlock" it.
|
| That's not true. Razors are the canonical example of a
| product sold below cost, there are many others.
|
| > The components pre-installed must cost something
|
| They must cost something, but there's also a significant cost
| to creating multiple SKU's, and that cost is likely more than
| the cost of the heated seats.
| sublinear wrote:
| > That's not true. Razors are the canonical example of a
| product sold below cost, there are many others.
|
| Trivially wrong. Heated seats are not required for a
| vehicle to function.
| sokoloff wrote:
| On my Jeep Grand Cherokee, without checking I wagered the
| wiring harness would be the same across the models without
| heated seats (mine) and with (the junkyard leather seat
| package I bought). I was surprised to learn I was wrong.
| [deleted]
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| > People seem to think that if you ban this practice, you'll
| get the premium package for free.
|
| No, no one thinks that. What people do think is that if they
| buy it, they will own it, and it will be theirs. Not a rental
| from a megacorp whose auth servers shit the bed on the coldest
| day of the year.
| bluGill wrote:
| The good news is I can not pay for heated seats, and then run
| my own wire to get it.. it won't look as nice, but it will
| work
| bombcar wrote:
| UNAUTHORIZED VOLTAGE DISCHARGE DETECTED
|
| SYSTEM SAFETY MECHANISMS ENGAGED
|
| car is now inoperable
| merely-unlikely wrote:
| Right to repair laws would help here.
| kabdib wrote:
| Just because you've paid a lump sum doesn't mean that
| terrible servers aren't involved every time you start your
| car -- they could just be checking the perma-status of your
| purchase every time ("for security purposes").
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I think this is great, and though I agree that determining
| whether there is an "on-going cost to the manufacturer" will be a
| gray area that automakers will try to game, I think that's a
| solvable problem.
|
| The heated seats example is a great one. There is no reason for
| this not be a one-time charge.
|
| On the other hand, I think it's fair to offer autopilot/"full
| self driving" on a subscription, or at least the _upgrades_ as a
| subscription. Clearly there is a large ongoing cost to
| continually improve self-driving capabilities, and it seems
| reasonable to me to have a pricing model that reflects that.
| leetcrew wrote:
| > The heated seats example is a great one. There is no reason
| for this not be a one-time charge.
|
| if you're referring to BMW, the heated seats are still
| available as a one time charge. they're just also available as
| a subscription if you didn't option then upfront. heated seats
| seem like a weird fit for the subscription model, but as long
| as the upfront purchase option is reasonably priced, I don't
| really see the issue with this.
| dahdum wrote:
| The issue is you already paid for the heating element in the
| seats when you bought the car, and you are driving it around
| as dead weight (however small). You own the heater outright,
| they are gatekeeping your ability to use it.
| paxys wrote:
| That has nothing to do with subscriptions. The manufacturer
| could still sell you the car with the heater disabled, make
| you drive around with the dead weight, and charge you a
| one-time fee to unlock it. That would be perfectly
| acceptable under this law.
| fintechjock wrote:
| > On the other hand, I think it's fair to offer autopilot/"full
| self driving" on a subscription, or at least the upgrades as a
| subscription.
|
| Agree with your overall point. However, this probably isn't
| feasible considering most companies will follow Tesla's FSD
| upgrade model.
|
| Autopilot / FSD upgrades are often more safety than feature
| related. Allowing people to opt out of upgrades but keep their
| older FSD just means a bunch of vehicles on the road with
| depreciated safety features.
| w1nst0nsm1th wrote:
| In Belgium, home shitrooms are considered as a premium feature...
| You have to pay monthly fee to use them or you can get locked
| outside (or inside) without notice, even if you own your house.
|
| Seriously, nobody said a thing when HP started to do it with
| their printers. And everybody jumped in the wagon when we started
| proposing such a thing as SaaS, IaaS and so on.
|
| Apple App Store recommandations is 90% filled with subscription
| apps very few people actually use or like. Don't get me started
| with these pay to win games were you have to buy 'coins' or
| 'diamonds' to spend in the game if you don't want to wait 24h for
| a building or wathever before you can continue playing.
|
| I have consulted prices for a remote virtual desktop instance for
| malware analysis et reverse engineering training (I don't trust
| home virtual machine) on Azure...
|
| I have nothing again MSFT and think it's a company which still
| produces real value for its consumers on many fronts (as opposed
| as WeWork, for example). But the price they ask for a remote
| machine with very low specs is stagering. How a manager could
| decently believe it's a good idea to give away in 6 or 12 months
| the same money you could use to buy enterprise level hardware
| with 5x specs ?
| [deleted]
| paxys wrote:
| People sure seem to love government overreach when they think it
| works in their favor.
|
| The economics behind one-time vs subscription pricing is very far
| removed from the responsibility of a New Jersey bureaucrat. Let
| Ford and BMW and Tesla figure it out for themselves. If people
| really do hate it as much as the article and the lawmakers seem
| to suggest, they will simply not buy it.
| travisporter wrote:
| Your first sentence is interesting. If government represents
| the will of the people then it would not be overreach.
| supernova87a wrote:
| So what's the fundamental principle here, and why does it only
| apply to car companies? Just because you can make a law that way,
| it follows a principle you respect?
|
| I'm not concluding my opinion on either side of this right now. I
| just am lately skeptical of the number of laws and movements we
| have that are justified "because I agree with this particular
| outcome" but aren't sustainable principles to run a society off
| of (without constantly having to create exceptions). Even if I
| like that I'm not being "gouged" in NJ, is the principle behind
| this right?
|
| Is the principle, "you shouldn't be charged for something that a
| company has already built and put in the product"? Or "we don't
| like paying for something that seems like you should physically
| have control over"?
|
| If it's the first one, how does this not apply to subscription
| models in general? Tons of companies have stuff they've already
| built and put in what the customer could conceivably already
| access without charge. Printer ink, locked CPU cores, how about
| private areas of venues that you have to pay extra to access?
| Software that a company has already developed but doesn't "cost
| them anything" to keep offering to you aside from a login
| barrier. First class seats on airplanes. Doesn't this all follow
| the same principle?
|
| On the second principle, why is this specially deserving of
| interference / protection in what customers are willing to pay or
| tolerate? Why don't they pass a law about not being "gouged" on
| extra storage on my iPhone costing $100 more? The memory is
| already in there, why should I be forced to pay extra to unlock
| it? (or similar analogy)
| yupper32 wrote:
| Cars are often one of the most, if not the most, expensive
| purchases people will make in their lives. It's not
| unreasonable to me to have extra protections for those
| purchases.
| vkou wrote:
| For the same reasons that car buyers enjoy more consumer
| protections than purchasers of most other goods. Because cars
| are incredibly expensive, are necessary for life in America,
| and because there's huge incentives for manufacturers and
| dealers to screw the buyers.
| solomatov wrote:
| "Costing money to maintain feature" is a great criteria for legal
| subscriptions. Could it be applied more broadly than in the car
| industry?
| dawnerd wrote:
| Mainly targeting subscriptions to enable seat warmers for
| example. That's something becoming more common that has zero
| cost to the manufacturer past vehicle delivery.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Oh but the butt heat license server will cost them money!
|
| So after 15 years they will deprecate the service. Probably
| in the middle of the winter.
| bearcobra wrote:
| I have mixed feelings on this. On one hand the idea of
| subscriptions for components that are physically present in the
| car and don't require ongoing cost by the manufacturer to support
| them is annoying. On the other hand I think that there could be
| some advantages to that model. The costs of cars seem to going up
| considerably because of all the advanced features. If it is
| possible to standardize some of the manufacturing process to
| reduce cost and control access to items with software that could
| be a win. It would also be nice to have the ability to try
| features out in your real live before deciding if you want them.
| Or it could allow drivers to add features for short periods of
| time. It might not make sense to buy heated seats if you live in
| Florida, but are travelling to Colorado for a ski vacation paying
| $10 to unlock if for a month might an awesome feature.
|
| I think the middle ground would be to require manufacturers to
| offer a lifetime unlock option for any feature that could be
| subscribed to without an ongoing maintenance cost.
| anon23anon wrote:
| Does create an interesting problem of if your vehicle is out of
| warranty and you buy the heated seats package shouldn't they
| responsible to fix the heated seats if they're not working.
| neogodless wrote:
| > If it is possible to standardize some of the manufacturing
| process to reduce cost and control access to items with
| software that could be a win.
|
| I think if you believe any savings will end up with consumers
| and not manufacturers, you'll likely find the manufacturers are
| happy to prove you wrong.
| mission_failed wrote:
| I challenge you to find a single example of introducing
| subscriptions reducing costs
| [deleted]
| jasonsb wrote:
| Driver assistance systems for example. I don't want to pay
| for those features, but if I don't get them when I configure
| the car it's going to be much harder to sell the car a few
| years later. If those features can be activated later on, I
| won't lose money when I'll sell my car. So it reduces the
| initial cost of the car and then I also get a better resale
| value.
| forthefuture wrote:
| It's already priced in. You're just paying more for the
| features you aren't using.
| rconti wrote:
| The law seems to allow software unlocking, just not
| subscriptions.
| MonkeyMalarky wrote:
| >The costs of cars seem to going up considerably because of all
| the advanced features.
|
| Or Maybe they could just not add all those features? Crazy, I
| know.
| neogodless wrote:
| > if an automaker or other associated party can prove that it
| costs money to maintain the feature and/or service in question,
| then it'd be legally allowed. This would include services like
| OnStar and such.
|
| While I don't disagree with the exception here, I think they
| should outlaw mandatory subscriptions... like OnStar, which GM
| has started to add to most of their cars. It's not in the MSRP,
| but it's a required cost at the dealer.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| No one is forcing you to buy that car mode. Many cars don't
| have mandatory subscriptions.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Now apply this argument to ads on smart TVs. Oh wait...
|
| Recurring revenue business models are really appealing and
| companies are happy to take a short term hit in sales in
| order to increase their recurring revenue. Add to that the
| fact that people choose cars for all kinds of irrational
| reasons and I cynically expect car subscriptions, including
| mandatory subscriptions, to become the norm within a decade.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| >"Now apply this argument to ads on smart TVs."
|
| I'd love that. But sadly I can't vote with my wallet
| because virtually every television _is_ a Smart TV
| nowadays. I would gladly pay more for a TV if I could find
| one that wasn 't bundled with all the extraneous stuff.
| Especially one that isn't designed to be a sign in a fast
| food restaurant.
| neogodless wrote:
| No one is forced to buy any car, including ones with
| subscriptions for heated seats. That isn't really a useful
| argument.
|
| Mandatory subscriptions take what might be the "ideal" car
| for a particular consumer, and add in an extra (in this case)
| $1500 cost for something you do not want. It should 100% be
| the buyer's choice if they want to prepay 3 years worth of an
| "optional" subscription.
|
| It's better for consumers of something that external like an
| internet service is not forced upon you when buying a
| vehicle. There's no downside to consumers if it's optional -
| but it makes otherwise good options for vehicles worse.
| Arrath wrote:
| > I think they should outlaw mandatory subscriptions
|
| Agreed! Mandatory subscriptions are outrageous.
| devrand wrote:
| I think it still works for that. In the OnStar case you have
| the option to decline the service, but you still need to pay
| for it. That would likely run afoul of the requirement that it
| has ongoing costs to support the service.
|
| So I think this law would force automakers to either back-off
| or include it in the MSRP.
| neogodless wrote:
| > you have the option to decline the service, but you still
| need to pay for it
|
| That's not how "declining a service" should work. How about I
| _don 't pay for it_ and then I don't get the service!
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