[i1856511]

We are first familiar with this concept of payment activation in software where all product units are identical and the cost to produce an additional unit is 0. To implement this same concept in a machine is a little funnier. If this means the car units can be produced identically, at a lower cost of production per unit, I understand why companies do this. But it is also a natural human reaction to be frustrated by this concept implemented mechanically where the cost to produce is >0. Both sides have a point.

[oliwarner]

Pay-walling software features —like this— means you also have to stop the user from modifying or maintaining the software running on the thing I own. Slightly reductive but if I can't do what I like with something I buy, is it really mine? If it's not, why am I expected to pay full price?

Hopefully consumer rights will catch up, and make nonsense features like this go away. But I expect manufacturers to resist this as much as they can, probably tying it into certified safety systems and playing a "think of the children" argument.

[gruez]

>Slightly reductive but if I can't do what I like with something I buy, is it really mine?

Software is almost always licensed, not sold/owned.

>If it's not, why am I expected to pay full price?

This isn't really a good argument. For one, it implies that if it's on sale for black friday or whatever, that it's magically fine because you're no longer paying "full price". Moreover, the concept of a "full price" is nebulous at best. Suppose the "full price" of a product is $999,999,999, and the discounted price (with locked down hardware) is $1,000. I doubt that would alleviate your concerns.

[car_analogy]

> Software is almost always licensed, not sold/owned.

Everything comes with software or anti-consumer legalese these days, and I could argue that one should be allowed to modify a local copy of one's software despite a license, but you know what? I don't care. These practices are a direct attack on consumer control and autonomy, and the legal fig-leaf of "licensed" doesn't change this.

You can let them keep chipping away at what rights we have left, or you can fight back. But don't use mere legality as some kind of justification for these practices, or, worse, as a reason to not resist them.

[oliwarner]

As I said, it was slightly reductive, but does channel a sincere belief of mine: I should be able to choose the software that runs on my hardware.

That could mean anything from a source-available, non-redistributable, personal-use-only control and media system published by the manufacturer with a mechanism to allow me to upload my changes, through to an open enough system that I can just replace the whole thing. There are middle grounds (eg packages or apps) that adhere to set interfaces. You could just replace the HVAC module here.

Without that sort of control it's very easy for software systems to rot away well ahead of the hardware. We've already seen a multitude of subscription-maintenance options for mapping and entertainment. I've had enough. It's my computer running in my car, let me operate it my way.

[Tostino]

Okay, and you are talking around the point GP was making entirely.

The minutiae of if software is generally licensed or sold really doesn't matter to their argument, and you acting like it does is strange.

[EMIRELADERO]

> Software is almost always licensed, not sold/owned.

Not really. What people usually mean by that is that the IP to the software is licensed, but the copy is owned. Copyright only governs copying and redistribution, not use.