So far there’s subscriptions for cruise control, adaptive beams, various navigation options, apple/google integration and my favorite, dual-zone climate.

  • T156@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    However, the sole function of the internet infrastructure of your house is not exclusively for movie distribution. You can use it for other things, and do, so the example doesn’t quite line up.

    Your example might be closer when it comes to rate limiting for ISP services. The network bandwidth that you could get from the actual hardware is often greater than what you paid for, and you only get extra if you pay the ISP more.

    But even then, that analogy falls apart a bit, since there is a scaling cost to the ISP associated with you using the internet more. It actually costs them more to do that, since it puts extra load on their servers/network, which would both put wear on hardware, and require them to purchase more powerful hardware to account for the capacity.

    Not so for Audi. The hardware and software are already in the car. They have no ongoing costs to pay associated with many of those systems, since they’re local to the car itself. Smartphone integration, I could see a case for, if they do it by routing the connection through their own servers, but not a lot of the other things, like the adaptive cruise control, or Carplay/Auto.