BMW - what a joke! What a bunch of profiteering louts.
I have always had a strong dislike of BMW's automotive offerings. It's not just that I really
dislike their cars, never seen anything nice about them, but there's a saying which I've often
heard being bandied about:
BMW: built by Germans, driven by wankers
Yes, there's something about BMWs which seems to turn their drivers into complete and utter,
offensive and rude idiots. As we know, BMWs are exempt from rules of the road, permitting them,
for example, to park anywhere they like.
We, as photographers, are now becoming used to the subscription model, which was first
introduced by Adobe. I'm paying ten quid a month for Lightroom and Photoshop, but if you
needed any more of Adobe's products you'll pay more accordingly, anything up to £52 a
month. Many other software application producers have jumped onto this bandwagon. Capture One
is £24 a month, or £179 a year. That's a lot. Perhaps we begin to understand piracy?
A very quick look round reveals that Adobe products, and Capture One, and all of the rest,
are quickly and readily pirated, for free. I feel like an idiot for actually paying for the products.
Why discuss software subscriptions? Because BMW have jumped onto this bandwagon. Incredibly,
and unbelievably, these buffoons have decided that if you want one of their heaps of crap you
don't automatically get all the features it was built with. No. If, for example, you want
heated seats you have to pay BMW £15 quid a month. A heated steering wheel costs £10
a month. Cruise control - surely a fundamental necessity in all modern cars - is £35 a month and
high beam assist (whatever that is - I simply can't be bothered to find out) is £10 a month.
This is disturbing. You buy a car; it has heated seats and a heated steering wheel, but the
features are locked, and only by paying well over £300 a year can you use them. Bloody ridiculous.
What next? Yes you can have four doors, but if you want to be able to open the rear doors
that'll be £40 a month please. Aircon? Oh right, that will be £50 a month. Soon
every imaginable extra will be on the subscription model. Spare wheel? £35 a month if
you please.
This is a disturbing trend, which I hope other car manufacturers don't copy. It has been
criticised by many. Someone on Twitter said:
Subscriptions for software is one thing, no-one is going to subscribe for heated seats or whatever,
if I own the car I own everything in it.
The Verge said:
In the case of heated seats, for example, BMW owners already have all the necessary components,
but BMW has simply placed a software block on their functionality that buyers then have to pay to remove
I hate the software subscription model. It just seems like a way to get more income and profit.
But now we're seeing it in cars. How far will it go?
It's ridiculous and disturbing, and makes me hate BMW even more.
