[kbos87]

Ongoing costs aside, it’s important to also recognize that there may have been massive up-front costs to develop something like self-driving before it generates revenue, which the manufacturer should have the right to recoup/monetize. If they choose to do that through a subscription, that feels like it’s within their right.

[kelnos]

Customers are not responsible for the company's business model.

I'm fine paying for software. And I'm fine with a subscription model if I actually get new things periodically during my subscription.

Put another way, if you sell me a static, unchanging piece of software (like a software update to enable heated seats), then that should be a one-time charge. If you sell me a self-driving package that gets regular updates over time, then I'm fine with a subscription.

(Self-driving software is a bit of a grey area, though. I should probably have to pay for new features, like "now it can drive on some more roads where it would previously disengage and require a human to handle it". But I should not have to pay for an update that fixes safety issues with existing functionality.)

[kortilla]

> But I should not have to pay for an update that fixes safety issues with existing functionality.

“I want free updates”

[kstrauser]

As the end user, I couldn’t care less about a manufacturer’s costs. That’s a them problem, not a me problem.

I understand your point. I just don’t care. They sold me a thing, and now it’s mine.

[kbos87]

That strikes me as a pretty dissonant argument on HN. If we play that out, no software creator would have a defensible way to monetize what they invested time, energy and money to create. Enforceable laws protecting IP are the difference between entire sectors of the economy existing vs. not being worth the effort.

[kstrauser]

I strong disagree. I'm not talking about making unauthorized copies of the car. I'm just going with the principle that's as old as the whole concept of property: once I buy something, it's mine.

If I own a shoe, I can paint it to look different or change its shoelaces. If I own a book, I can tear out the pages and rearrange them. If I own a TV, I can hook anything I want up to it. And if I own a car, I can modify it as I see fit. Those things are mine. If I no longer want them, I can sell them (barring a specific contract with the manufacturer, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine). And if a company wants me to pay them money while still retaining some kind of legal right to restrict how I use it, they can negotiate a discounted price for me to pay them.

When I walk onto a car lot, I'm not saying "whoa, check out this IP!" The salesperson doesn't hype me up by saying "you could own significant portions of this beauty today!" We don't sign a "purchase (most of it) contract". I don't pay "sales-but-all-rights-reserved" tax on it. The DMV lists me as the owner, not the IP licensee.

If I had to choose whether to support laws protecting IP versus laws protecting ownership, I'll pick ownership 100% of the time.

[wizofaus]

But the carmarker is surely within their rights to refuse to continue servicing your car, or declare that any attempt at modifying the electronics/software potentially makes it unroadworthy.

Having said that, I don't entirely understand why Tesla don't keep the software unloaded from the vehicles until the user chooses to purchase the add-on features: compared to everything else the software does, that's not exactly a particularly difficult engineering challenge.

[kstrauser]

That would likely be highly illegal of them, per the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. Unless they could prove that the process of you enabling the confiscated features caused something else to break, they're still on the hook for it.

[kelnos]

I don't think that's true at all, or what the person you're replying to is getting at.

If you sell me a bunch of hardware, that hardware is now mine, and I should be able to do whatever I want with it. If you sell that hardware with a bunch of software on it, I should again be able to do anything I want with that software.

That doesn't entitle me to updates of that software, or ongoing use of the company's cloud infrastructure. It's fine to require payment for that.

IP laws just aren't particularly relevant to the discussion at hand. I don't think anyone is suggesting we should be able to legally "pirate" the software running on our devices.

[kstrauser]

You're exactly right.

[rstupek]

I agree in principle. Are you also absolving them of any warranty on the car once you begin modifying it?

[californical]

Only if your modifications directly cause the damage that would have been covered under warranty. That’s actually been covered multiple times in US law and is fully your rights as a consumer, to maintain the warranty.

[californical]

Ok, here’s a web software analogy.

I run a news website. I charge $2 to view the news website. You paid to view to my news website, thanks!!

Let’s say you really prefer dark mode, but my news website is bright white. You install something like DarkReader, to make it inverted colors, so problem solved!

But now I realize that this is a market that I could charge for. So I start charging $5 for “news site with dark mode”.

Should it be illegal for you to use dark reader to view my news website with your light-mode-only license?

Technically I’ve shipped you the text and style for my website, which you are completely allowed to access and have paid for.. Then you’ve modified it for your own use after receiving the product. Is that wrong?