BMW is toying with the idea of owners paying a subscription for features. Things like heated steering wheel or braking assist would have a subscription fee. It is proposed that owners could sign up for features for a few months or years. How far will Adobe's subscription idea go?
Subscription Software - It's Moving to Cars
- Thread starter Paul F
- Start date
Cars-by-subscription programs have been around a while.
https://www.autoblog.com/car-subscription-services/
https://www.autoblog.com/car-subscription-services/
In 1975 I spent a year at Oxford University studying Theology ...
First Trimester I lived in a dorm room ... no heat but for a radiant grill in the wall ... needed 50P to start it up. Turns out mine was broken
and worked without the toll ... cold winter ... could see your breath in bed and in the shower. So I would flip the switch to heat the grill, climb back under the
covers and when the chair and clothes for the day next to the grill were warm ... rush to change and off to breakfast of cold coffee, stale toast and
mixed grill ....
Less than today's quarter but interesting take on economics ...
First Trimester I lived in a dorm room ... no heat but for a radiant grill in the wall ... needed 50P to start it up. Turns out mine was broken
and worked without the toll ... cold winter ... could see your breath in bed and in the shower. So I would flip the switch to heat the grill, climb back under the
covers and when the chair and clothes for the day next to the grill were warm ... rush to change and off to breakfast of cold coffee, stale toast and
mixed grill ....
Less than today's quarter but interesting take on economics ...
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Started with leasing the vehicle ... then security and satellite communication for nav and assistance ... just expanding the theme.
Truth is they will price themselves out of a large part of the market .... however the younger generation will not realize what autonomy they lose
to subscribe to the hive ...
filmguy123
Veteran
This sort of stuff is a conspiracy that’s not a theory, it just is. The perpetual move to keep consumers from owning anything is problematic and in some ways more than a little concerning.
There’s enough incentive there to get us interested, but the Overton window is shifting. What will prices on all our subscriptions be once we’re hooked and there’s no alternative?
Rent your home, your cars, your entertainment, your phone, everything. There are more obstacles than ever to building net worth, at least in any traditional sense, and the pace is quickening.
Though I’m not worried about BMW so much; I suspect the push to self driving electric cars that work like uber without humans will begin to replace vehicle ownership. With a subscription model available, of course.
There’s enough incentive there to get us interested, but the Overton window is shifting. What will prices on all our subscriptions be once we’re hooked and there’s no alternative?
Rent your home, your cars, your entertainment, your phone, everything. There are more obstacles than ever to building net worth, at least in any traditional sense, and the pace is quickening.
Though I’m not worried about BMW so much; I suspect the push to self driving electric cars that work like uber without humans will begin to replace vehicle ownership. With a subscription model available, of course.
cyvideo
Veteran
Oooh! The memories. Mine were Bristol '65. But it was a "Florin" for gas... two Bob in the meter in the hall back then. Thanks for the memory jolt.
Chris Young
puredrifting
Major Contributor
This stupid, oppressive model is what turned me off to Adobe. I used to own the complete Adobe suite of products, used them for decades, was a huge advocate and booster of Adobe. Now I hate them as a company and refuse to pay
their stupid subscription fees for any of their products. I've been limping along with old versions of Lightroom and Photoshop for years, but lost Photoshop on my new iMac because it came with Catalina. Inexplicably, while Photoshop 6.0
stopped working, Lightroom 3.1, which is ancient, still runs on this iMac under Catalina. I'm just looking for new tools to replace Adobe products and many of my colleagues and friends, like me, have gone to FCP X and or Resolve simply
because they don't have a subscription model.
In our live streaming business, we, unfortunately have dozens of subscriptions, none of which are really expensive but when you have ten to twenty payments a month for Zoom professional, Zello, StreamSpot, etc. it all adds up to about a
nice car payment per month, even though several of the products we only use occasionally but they make it such a PITA to turn the subscription on and off that you end up just paying the ransom for products you aren't even using, simply because
you'll need it in a few weeks for another project.
In the grander scheme of things, I agree with mcbob, things seem to be moving toward mindless acceptance of a future that history has proven to be bleak, oppressive and bereft of individual freedoms, under the illusion that
people still have a choice about things in their day to day lives as we all bow to our corporate and governmental masters who have decided what's best for us.
Insofar as the car ownership model goes. Back in 1989-1990, one of my coworkers had to drive a very long distance from Huntington Beach to West LA and so he thought he nailed the optimal arrangement. You buy a new car with cash. Then drive it for 2-3 years. Then trade it for a 2 year lease. Because he really drove considerable distances, his tendency was on the lower end of both terms. His main point was this - within a 4-6 year cycle, you get two new cars and, when the cycle is over, you're not that far financially from where you would have been buying one new car and then driving it for 120,000 miles.
He calculated that was better than getting two three year leases. YMMV. Literally.
He calculated that was better than getting two three year leases. YMMV. Literally.
WRT to subscription. There's a certain "news" personality, who works for a major news network. She also used to have a net based news/opinion site that the network told her to shut down. But the corporate is now allowing her to launch a paid subscription podcast. Her sales pitch to her fans is "donate". And that has always driven me bonkers. She's making somewhere around $6M per year and she wants her fans to "donate"? EFFF-mount that.
Try out Affinity products (Photo, Designer, Publisher). I believe they still have a 30 day trial period. I cancelled my Adobe subscription shortly after it was announced and haven't looked back. Use Photo for everything I used to use Photoshop for. YRMV
While this can certainly feel true...I'd like to think that when corporations, etc get too greedy... new one's that can compete pop up (ala Affinity for Adobe)... so long as individuals don't have mindless acceptance... of anything.