Lemdro.id

1 point

5 months ago

I can recognize that the driving experience of a Tesla is very nice, from the one or two times I’ve test driven one. It’s the other things aside from that experience that I take issue with though. Things like their subscription model to unlock certain features (which other car brands also employ, and turn me away from those brands as well), and, yes, the leadership decisions and actions made by Elon Musk. Both are valid reasons to not buy a particular product in my opinion.

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EatATaco@lemm.ee

1 point

5 months ago

Any reason is a valid reason to not buy a car; I’m not saying anyone should buy a Tesla. I’m challenging the claim that owning a Tesla is a miserable experience akin to owning some of these printers.

Owner satisfaction surveys definitely cast a ton of doubt on the general opinion here that owning a Tesla sucks.

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1 point

5 months ago

I think you might be splitting hairs a little bit though, and maybe not properly taking the audience on Lemmy into account. For a largely left-leaning tech-knowledgeable audience, it is miserable owning a car that requires a subscription and collects your data, no matter how well it drives. That probably doesn’t reflect on consumer reports because the audience on Lemmy is small, but the concentration of people that have similar opinions here is relatively high.

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EatATaco@lemm.ee

1 point

5 months ago

I did a quick search and it looks like you are neither required to have a subscription nor share data with them. Can you point me to what proves this is untrue?

I guess privacy concerns and subscriptions are not the first thing that jump to my mind when I think about printer sucking…you do? I also question this because none of the top comments above mine reference either of these.

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0 points

5 months ago

I did a quick search and it looks like you are neither required to have a subscription nor share data with them.

My bad, I wasn’t clear. You are required to pay a subscription to enable certain features of a Tesla, like autopilot/FSD. Those are simply software updates though, they’re not adding new hardware. I don’t like that. If I buy a car, I want all of the features of the car to come with that initial price. Buying a car and then learning I have to spend more money for a particular feature already built into the car is not a satisfactory experience.

privacy concerns and subscriptions are not the first thing that jump to my mind when I think about printer sucking…you do?

Absolutely. Some of the main gripes I and others on Lemmy have with modern printers are things like:

vendor lock in with microchipped ink cartridges - if a 3rd party has made better/cheaper ink compliant with my printer, who is HP/Brother/etc to say I can’t use it?
ink subscription programs - a lot of new printers nowadays aggressively advertise ink subscription programs. But I have enough subscriptions to track, and I don’t go through ink fast enough to warrant having it sent to me monthly or whatever. However, buying ink outside of their subscription costs nearly as much as the original printer itself.
Internet-connected printers that collect info - I don’t need HP/Brother/etc remotely running diagnostics, checking my ink levels, making sure I’m using the “right” ink, or locking me out of my device if I’m not using it “correctly”. It’s my device, I paid for it, I’ll use it how I see fit.

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EatATaco@lemm.ee

-1 points

5 months ago

Buying a car and then learning I have to spend more money for a particular feature already built into the car is not a satisfactory experience.

Sure, but this seems like an unfair criticism for something that is currently under development still. It’s not like they are asking you to pay a subscription for heated seats, which are there and don’t need any updates or maintenance. But self driving is something currently under active development and will always need updates. So a subscription there makes sense, unless you are expecting to get no updates on it.

main gripes I and others

Speak for yourself for, as I pointed out, all of the gripes here don’t reference privacy or subscriptions at all. And I like how having the option of getting a subscription is a drawback for you.

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0 points

5 months ago

Sure, but this seems like an unfair criticism for something that is currently under development still.

Why is it fair to charge people a subscription for an unfinished product*?

Speak for yourself for, as I pointed out, all of the gripes here don’t reference privacy or subscriptions at all.

I’m speaking from my own personal experiences and what I’ve personally seen here on Lemmy. Take that with a grain of salt obviously, and make of it what you will. I’m just trying to add my perspectives and experiences to the conversation.

And I like how having the option of getting a subscription is a drawback for you.

It’s absolutely a drawback when the non-subscription option is an order of magnitude more expensive, I thought that was pretty clear. And it’s obvious that it’s priced that way to drive people to the subscription model.

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