[kingcharles]

I understand the technical part: they are unlocking the extra power electronically.

What I don't understand is what is different between the headline saying that you can pay $60 for your car to go faster (true) and parent poster saying "pay an extra $60 monthly your already-expensive vehicle will not give the full outstanding performance that your particular hardware was engineered to do"?

Those two statements seem to say the same thing? What am I missing?

[fuzzfactor]

Good point.

Perhaps you are more comfortable with this approach than others, and are part of the tartget market Mercedes may be fishing for, which is just fine.

You straightforwardly don't seem deceived at all here either way.

OTOH I would estimate the majority of the target market is expected to be much more responsive to their marketing stance than my also-realistic interpretation.

BTW, congratulations on your coronation today, glad you took the time to comment with all the festivities surrounding the event.

[krono]

It is too vague and suggestive towards some sort of active enhancements being performed during your subscription, whilst in reality all they do is flip some "is_castrated" boolean value in a database.

Paying doesn't make the machine perform better than it already could; Not paying makes the on-board software limit the machine to perform worse than what it's actually capable of.

[s3p]

The perspective. It makes customers think that the software update is tuning the engine or doing something special to get non-standard performance, which is a lie. Mercedes (and I know many other companies) will intentionally nerf their cars and LIMIT their performance, and in this case Mercedes is flat out saying they will limit their customers' performance unless they pay $$.

So it's really about who is saying what. Mercedes is trying to make customers think in their head that this is a value-added bonus that's not there by default, but it IS there by default, and it's locked behind a paywall. Rewriting the statement in OP's voice helps the customer recognize the scam that is taking place. In my opinion, at least.