All of that can be accomplished with one-time purchases. What’s the value-add of a subscription?
It’s great that future buyers can upgrade, I think that’s cool. But now sellers can’t recoup any of the money they spend on these features, and over the life of the car they are likely to cost many times more. It’s brutal for lower-income people relying on decent cars to eventually reach a price point they can afford, because they’ll need to effectively pay for every option like they are buying new.
> All of that can be accomplished with one-time purchases. What’s the value-add of a subscription?
True, and some of these new car subscription features are indeed being offered as one-time purchases, BMW’s heated seats, for example. The value-add of a subscription is a lower up-front cost in exchange for rent instead of ownership. You don’t have to pay for the whole thing, and you can decide to stop paying for it before you’ve covered the product’s full cost.
> now sellers can’t recoup any of the money they spend
True, and people should (and some will) consider this before buying a new electric Mercedes, right? I hope so. Their FAQ states that the service must be disabled before resale. I’m pretty sure I won’t be buying one of these new. But for people who go in eyes wide open, there’s a decent chance they’ll still sell them eventually. Hey, who knows, maybe they’ll be force to sell for less than the car’s worth because of everyone’s subscription fears.
> It’s brutal for lower-income people
We’ve suddenly skipped a few steps here. We’re commenting on a Mercedes car with an optional feature to increase acceleration to 60 MPH by 1 second. This isn’t a brand that lower-income people are buying, by and large, and isn’t a feature lower-income people will be subscribing to. Cars for the lower-income brackets are already sold with zero luxury features, so I don’t see how this option feature aimed at rich people hurts poorer people at all, and I don’t see the slippery slope clearly in this case either.
It’s great that future buyers can upgrade, I think that’s cool. But now sellers can’t recoup any of the money they spend on these features, and over the life of the car they are likely to cost many times more. It’s brutal for lower-income people relying on decent cars to eventually reach a price point they can afford, because they’ll need to effectively pay for every option like they are buying new.