BMW is framing this as a “one-time movie partnership”
What kind of people do you think are eating that up?
“Guys, it’s just this one-time ad, we had no intention of ever doing this again! Just forget about it for a year or so!”
“It is a one time fee that you pay annually.” One of the best Portlandia skits.
I hope people take that as a contract and when they inevitably do it again, sue the hell out of them.
Not that it’ll stop this phenomenon.
Get organised folks, join your local socialist orgs (provided they are sane and not Stalinists and don’t think China is socialist).
I want off this ride, and that’s only gonna happen if we get involved, all over the world.
For people who had forgotten the seat heating subscription
“we are a premium brand”
my ass.
One reason this type of promotion may be becoming more common is that connected cars give automakers a direct path to the driver’s screen.
Once a person purchases a vehicle it should be theirs, not shared access with Automakers and their partners.
It hasn’t been that way for a long time. Every car since 2018 has some sort of black box in it that it records your driving behaviors, and that data gets sent to or sold to insurance companies who then use it to raise your premiums.
How are these black boxes reporting back though? Do all these cars just have a free SIM card built in?
I’m not sure about this black box, but in the EU, the e-call system is mandatory, so all new cars do indeed have a sim. Though it’s most likely not a card, but either a chip (iSIM) or just in software (eSIM).
Typically a soldered on sim chip, or esim software. You can disable it on some cars, for example I was able to bypass it on my 4runner pretty easily. I lost the feature to find my car, lock doors or see its status using the Toyota app though but I am 100% ok with that.
What can I do about it? No point complaining
