The German car-maker says its “optional power upgrade” is designed to give customers more choice.

  • grue@lemmy.world
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    18 hours ago

    ECU hacks exists since decades ago…

    They call it unlock

    Yeah, no shit ECU tuning has long been a thing. I’ve got a '98 VW with an ECU tune myself.

    The thing is, they’re calling this outrage an “unlock” because they’re charging for it, which is obviously the essential difference. They are attempting to colonize your property in order to charge you rent for something you are already entitled to do!

    I repeat, that this is not something like heated seats or android auto/car play support (BMW did those as a subscription), something that renders the car almost useless if removed.

    This is exactly like those things, because they are restricting access to stuff that is already rightfully yours. It doesn’t fucking matter whether the feature is important or not; the only consideration is that the car came with it which means you already paid for it, and they’re trying to make you pay for it again.

    How the fuck are you still failing to understand how beyond the pale this THEFT OF YOUR RIGHTS is?!

    • Wispy2891@lemmy.world
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      18 hours ago

      Come on, there are dozens of way more useful features that can be unlocked without paying VW using obdeleven, I’m sure the same can be done for this.

      This is just a fancy way for a driving profile, like eco, sports, normal. Think it like “sports+”

      99% of people wouldn’t feel the need to enable this even if it was free but buried in the app menus

      And the most important thing is that there’s still the option to get it lifetime and tied to the car, so when you sell the car the new owner can still use it, unlike Tesla where you pay $10k for “full” self driving but then when you sell the car the feature vanishes into thin air and they keep the money without refund

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        15 hours ago

        What part of “it’s a violation of people’s property rights to try to extract rent for the thing they already own” do you not fucking understand?

        It doesn’t fucking matter what the feature is. Either get that through your skull, or STFU.

        • Wispy2891@lemmy.world
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          11 hours ago

          It’s 27 HP. 27 HP. Literally nobody could tell the difference with a blind test unless on a Dyno or on a racing track.

          And on an ev I would pay extra (one time, fuck subscriptions) to have less HP because that translates to more range, longer life for tires and cheaper insurance.

          In this specific case I’m ok, because it only takes money from gullible people.

          If it was something way more useful like GM that is intentionally disabling carplay or android auto because in this way they can sell a map/data subscription, FUCK THEM!

          • grue@lemmy.world
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            5 hours ago

            Fuck off, property-rights-hating shill! You are not only wrong but dangerously so, and there is absolutely nothing you could ever write that could ever change my mind.