Would You Pay For BMW's Heated Seats Subscription?

this one was making waves today bmw to start selling heated seat subscriptions this even got a reaction from vin what did he say he said ugg [Laughter] he was a massive reaction from him yes he did not like this he doesn't even have a bmw though no no no bmw um no skin in the game but just forecasting for the future yes old man old man vin rip van winkle over there the auto industry is racing towards a future full of micro transactions 18 a month to power that heated people just hate this people this just really bugs people to know that you have that the expense of installing the hardware to perform the task is it's in there it's already been paid for but that there's a software lock that is in between me and using that feature which was installed it exists elsewhere it's existed forever in games forget about it in games it's all over the place people have had to adjust it's like okay you want to unlock this section or this outfit here you go and it's in there it's in the game yeah digital but it's all digital the game is digital and then the micro transaction is also what's weird about this is you have these coils sitting in your seat capable of heating you up and even a button for it on the dash and but since it's software because it's probably a touch screen they say maybe we can micro transact that yeah but i'm here to say maybe it's not as bad as it sounds no because i started thinking about okay now this is for for sure this is not for me i don't want a subscription for my heated seats but i started thinking about self-driving on tesla and how in my travels as i ask people how are you spec how are you going to spec your tesla so many people have not been interested in self-driving at the current upfront cost but they have said if i want in the future i'll just get the subscription have you ever heard this from people yeah i would try it see that's my description that's what i'm saying and everyone seems fine with it so it's it's there's a strange psychology there where uh people are to take comfort in the fact that they can subscribe to certain things i think because there is technically control there in a way whether you can buy it for a hundred bucks a month the self-driving but you can turn it off in the month after i know buddha does the exact same thing with these heated seats um i think the heated seats are a bit more offensive because the physical components are the self-driving components are in there the self-driving components are in there too yeah that is true uh but anyway it's i think it's when you have an expenditure basically people are trying to budget the expenditure which is fine and in bmw's case i know this it why have i taken the position of defending this this is crazy i do not like this at all but i'm just gonna i feel the need to showcase what's really going on you can buy unlimited heated seats which is the old way you would have added heated seats as a line option on your vehicle for 415 dollars oh okay you can still do it but maybe you're not sure if you'll ever use it maybe you're in a climate where you would never use a heated seat it's hot all the time right or something like this well then you have the 18 a month or not at all or you can have a year for 180 or three years for 300 if maybe you have a lease on the car these are options for you but i do agree it opens the door to some pretty strange reality in which driving could become such a nuisance and headache when you go to hit a feature and then it's a pop-up that'll be four dollars that'll be 70 cents it's a it's a terrifying proposal yes yeah because i'm trying to drive as well at that moment like uh launching your plaid imagine every single time it's like five bucks you know you want to do that again every time you want to use the nav or you can imagine the old carnival ride oh you want to turn you want to turn the volume up to 10 no no that last notch no no no no that last notch is going to cost you five you can imagine it gets pretty wild uh and bmw is not the only one interested in something like this by the way just to click finish up the bmw thing though the company's uk uk digital store includes costs for heated steering wheels 12 a month uh recording footage from the cameras which are already installed in your car 235 for unlimited use and there's an iconic sounds sports package so that your car can play the engine sounds for 117. right now volkswagen is obviously inspired here they're probably working on this even beforehand but pay-as-you-go autonomy rather than a monthly subscription let's say to self-driving they imagine a future in which you might only need like 50 miles during a road trip of autonomous driving where you need to relax and it might be a thing you use very infrequently around town but then once or twice a month you want to use it so they would imagine a prompt that would come on screen once you hit the freeway or you put in the nav for a long distance and they would say hey that in this portion do you want autonomous for the next 50 miles yeah and you would click ok and it would cost you a few dollars right kind of like when you go on a toll road or highway so you have no upfront it's not a a line or an option on your order form but you're moving you're moving along in the highway and your prompt comes up this is still distracting to me i still would rather just have it but now you see what's going on and and you can imagine how attractive that would be to people who didn't pay for it up front but let's say we get to full autonomy where you can take a nap and the prompt comes on and it goes fancy and would you fancy a nap right now yeah for the next 50 miles a quick would you would you like to have a 15 minute nap right now yeah give me it i'll take it whatever you're paying you're paying in that moment first class it's gonna be really interesting to see this entire transition from as cars become complete technology products and all the ways in which they can interact and interface with us and do preemptive things and what we're willing to accept from this standpoint from a user experience are you you're also terrified i think that there's also going to be people who are going to hack it mm-hmm you know oh for sure you're going to just pull your car into a shop but then you won't be able to get the the next updates and those companies have incredible programmers as well and you got people on the street running old tesla software on purpose and then cars crash and then you're held liable it seems it's not like hacking something that doesn't doesn't like rooting your energy no this thing rolls around the street and could run into something yeah and it's worth a lot of money so i don't know how many people can be ballsy enough to do that unlock all those things yeah but for sure it'll happen even still