[altairprime]

Choosing to move that particular goalpost suggests financial problems, though. If they were making excellent cars and a reliable profit growth at the same rate as a growing U.S. upper middle class population, then they’d be completely set for life and would never have had to stoop to this. What isn’t clear yet is whether their apparent failure is rooted in macroeconomic, manufacturing, and/or operations — but choosing the “race to the bottom” indicates they are no longer a luxury brand, and that’s their golden goose killed and eaten for a promo. Look to the absolute wreckage done to the Firefox brand solely by the Mr. Robot promo, as an HN-recognized example in a more familiar industry, and that destruction was to a free brand!

> More importantly, these advertising anti-features gravely - perhaps terminally - violate user trust. This event tells us that “Firefox studies” into a backdoor for advertisements, and I will never trust it again. But it doesn’t matter - you’re going to re-enable it on the next update. You know what that means? I will never trust Firefox again.

(6.5 years ago, 1385 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15941799