this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2023
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Literally every company is doing this. There was a time when, for example, Apple could reverse engineer the Word document format and make their own word processor that uses them. This was very common and resulted in things like IBM PC clones that sped up innovation.
Now companies use litigation and corporate buyouts to reduce their competition, then set up ways to extract rents on customers rather than providing a service. Business folks love this because it means a consistent stream of revenue that won't go away. And now you've got carmakers looking to charge by the month for features.
For more details, read Chokepoint Capitalism.
When I reach the point at which I am forced to buy a car like that, I'd just find out from where the feature gets controlled and hack in my own controller and a good 'ol switch.
Right now it's your right to do what you want to your car as long as it still passes vehicle inspection, but it appears that car makers want new laws that prevent you from modifying your own car.
If we just sit on our hands now, well likely move into a future where we will be forced to either pay subscription or take public transit, which requires subscriptions.
The Library of Congress added "software that runs land vehicles" to their copyright exceptions somewhat recently. That's why farmers are legally allowed to use cracked software from Ukrainian grain farmers to run/repair their tractors
At least public transit is an ongoing service. I'm far less opposed to subscriptions when I'm actually being provided with something for them.
Car manufacturers trying to charge subscriptions for features in the car you own feels like racketeering. They're not providing an ongoing service, they're asking me to keep paying them to not remove a feature.