[filcuk]

That's no different to paying $1K for a CAD licence. People just need to come to terms with the fact that the line between HW and SW is becoming blurry.

Obviously, I don't like up-paying for features I don't get to use. The price of the product must be the same, having benefited from mass production. With that being the case, I'm actually glad I have the option to save money now and upgrade later.

The concept isn't a problem, it's companies taking advantage of it (and us).

[jjulius]

>The concept isn't a problem, it's companies taking advantage of it (and us).

To borrow a phrase you used earlier, I truly don't believe that we need to come to terms with companies blurring this line and taking advantage of us.

[Timon3]

I'm paying $1K for a CAD license because I can't write a CAD program myself. I can easily change a 0 to a 1, why should I pay $1K (or however much) for a piece of software that does this?

[overnight5349]

It's closer to using a CAD package and finding out you need to pay extra to save files.

Which is a real thing that has actually happened.

The functionality exists, the code already has been written, but it's disabled so as to extract more money.

The arguments about cheaper manufacturing is pretty well pointless. If the cost of adding seat heaters is negligible, what justification is there for charging extra? You pay for the hardware either way. This is rent seeking and nothing more.

This is a topic that's been beaten to death in the electronics industry for years. Oscilloscope manufacturers design and sell a 500MHz scope, but cripple it to 200MHz unless you pay 50% more. Or they put 16MSample of memory in and restrict you to 8 unless you pay $400 for an "upgrade". The cost of buying the lower model and upgrading it later is usually much higher than just buying the high end model.

In any case, it's not like manufacturers are selling the lower tier model at a loss. They're taking lower margins on the crippled hardware, yes, but then they charge you ridiculous prices that are orders of magnitude above the real cost of the additional hardware.

[matwood]

Cost != Value.