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DRM on Motorcycles

posted by chromas on Saturday November 13 2021, @06:13AM   
from the You-don't-own-what-you-own dept.

mhajicek writes:

Zero Motorcycles announced their groundbreaking new battery "technology", in which they sell you a large capacity battery in a motorcycle with powerful motors and advanced traction control systems, and then lock all that away behind a software paywall that you can unlock (for a fee) in their app.

https://newatlas.com/motorcycles/zero-motorcycles-2022-battery-paid-upgrades/

Zero is not the first vehicle company to do this sort of thing. Notably, Tesla sells vehicles with capabilities that can be unlocked via software "upgrades". This strategy is also common in the CNC machine tool industry; it's long frustrated machinists that they can buy a machine with all the hardware, but then have a sizable portion of memory, advanced motion smoothing, and other functions locked behind activation keys, which often cost several thousand dollars. In that industry at least, if you know the right people and have a machine with a common control, you can get what you need to unlock it through other sources.

I anticipate a similar approach in the vehicle market, which has long sold "tuner" chips and has a great deal of modding enthusiasts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIJiXNzpRMY

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Original Submission

• Re:How else do you want to do it? Re:How else do you want to do it? (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 13 2021, @07:09PM (2 children)

  by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 13 2021, @07:09PM (#1195969)

  Gee, and all along I thought "rent seeking" just meant hooking customers/consumers on subscription plans, "some dollars per month" -- just like rent or the ISP bill, or going back to my '60s childhood, the "Book of the Month Club". Current examples are SAAS - MS-Office 360 for $xx/month, etc.

  Huge, un-earned profit margins are sometimes called "profiteering".

  Parent

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• Re:How else do you want to do it? Re:How else do you want to do it? (Score: 4, Interesting) by Booga1 on Saturday November 13 2021, @09:53PM (1 child)

  by Booga1 (6333) on Saturday November 13 2021, @09:53PM (#1195980)

  "Rent seeking" also encompasses things like:

  • Car manufacturers forcing customers to use the dealer's repair shop for warranty work.
  • RIAA trying to collect royalties for non-members.
  • ASCAP forcing bars that don't even play music to pay compulsory licensing in case they might put on some music someday.
  • Printer companies that make inkjet printers that refuse to print. This category has a high number of of rent-seeking techniques.
  • ISP's trying to force Netflix and others to pay again for the bandwidth the ISP's own customers already paid for.

  The list of rent seeking behavior is quite extensive and not related exclusively to "subscriptions." The worst forms of rent seeking happen at the legislative level, not the consumer level.

  Parent

  • Re:How else do you want to do it? (Score: 5, Informative) by MIRV888 on Sunday November 14 2021, @02:48AM

    by MIRV888 (11376) on Sunday November 14 2021, @02:48AM (#1196016)

    'Printer companies that make inkjet printers that refuse to print. This category has a high number of of rent-seeking techniques.'
    Kill the printer because it has been used through it's 'service life'? (Read: You used it too much.)
    I wouldn't know personally, but I hear this can be sidestepped with easily purchased software. You can also get large ink reservoir mod kits to end the ink cartridge gouging (I'm told).

    Parent