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Bob Parker's avatar

If you provide infrastructure that you build and support and I want to use, then that seems a reasonable target for a subscription, to help you defray the cost of the infrastructure. If you provide hardware that I've paid for that doesn't need that infrastructure, then charging a subscription is a ripoff.

If I've already paid for them to put the heaters, and whatever other hardware, in my car (they aren't going to put them in for free in hopes I'll subscribe down the line) charging me to turn them on is heinous. That stuff is all local, and doesn't need BMW-supplied infrastructure to operate. It would be like Particle charging me a subscription to enable the bluetooth or wifi on the chips I've bought from you, whereas charging me to use your cloud and its features is reasonable.

When they come up with features that actually need infrastructure support, then they can start looking at subscriptions. This is just another way to extract more money from their customers.

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Mantechnic's avatar

I'll never go subscription anything. No way man, if I pay for a vehicle, everything will be done up front. Call me old school but I don't even like any software that charges by subscription (ie Microsoft 360). I'd rather buy the entire package and use it for 5-7 years - who cares if its 'out of date' (I still use Office 2010 on the older machines in our shop).

BMW just gave me another reason to never buy one (other than their horribly unreliable vehicles).

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