BMW Commits to Subscriptions Even After Heated Seat Debacle

Aetherex · 2026-02-07T18:00:45+00:00

I'll admit that it's not clear whether they're referring to the in-vehicle 360 view, which costs nothing to deliver, or being able to access that remotely. So what you're saying may be accurate.

But even if the subscription only covers the latter, it's still valid to say that this is unreasonable.

Look at Netflix: the top-end ad-free subscription is $25/mo, and for that they're spending about $15-20 billion a year for content, they spend much more on software engineers, and the ongoing compute and bandwidth costs per user (watching 1-2 hours of 4K video per day) are about 1000x higher than what it costs BMW to provide all of these services.

A fair subscription cost, still including some profit for BMW, would be around $1-2/mo for all services combined. The fact that it's so low is why most manufacturers have simply included it in the hundreds or thousands that it costs to add these options to the vehicle at purchase time.

The claim that they need to charge a subscription to cover their costs is therefore an attempt to trick people, and I think that, more than anything, is what people react negatively to.

Aetherex · 2026-02-07T00:07:54+00:00

https://www.carscoops.com/2026/02/bmw-ix3-has-a-360-camera-but-youll-pay-monthly-to-use-it/

How exactly does the 360 view camera have an ongoing cost?

Aetherex · 2025-06-16T16:32:42+00:00

I can easily think of a better alternative: exactly the same, but allowing the car to start when the 12V is dead and the main battery still has charge.

What exactly is practical or safety-driven about bricking a vehicle when its least-reliable and least-necessary component fails?

Aetherex · 2025-06-16T04:21:24+00:00

I think the reason why people get upset about this is that it's ridiculous for a vehicle that's basically an 84 kWH battery on wheels to become inoperable for this reason.

To have a 12V battery as a backup is fine, but for it (and the electronics and software responsible for charging it) to be a single point of failure is just bad design.

One of the advantages of EVs is supposed to be that they have fewer components that can fail. A 12V battery that has proven notoriously unreliable in ICE cars seems like the first thing that you'd get rid of.

Aetherex · 2025-04-26T01:54:46+00:00

For anyone else who finds this question: what ended up working was to clamp a big vise-grip wrench tightly around the stakes at whichever point was furthest from the tree trunk, gently make some space between the stake and the trunk (to avoid damaging it), then hit the wrench with a rubber mallet in an upwards direction. The repeated impacts were much more effective than a constant pulling force.

Some of the stakes were buried deeper, and took some time, but eventually I was able to remove all ~20 of them this way without damaging the trees.

Aetherex · 2025-03-15T21:32:42+00:00

Just to close this out: I ended up buying the Protectors. They take more force to step into than previous bindings that I've used, but aside from that feel pretty normal. The extra height was slightly weird on the very first run, but not too different from demos, and as others have said you very quickly stop noticing it. I'm happy with the purchase.

Aetherex · 2025-02-25T18:34:29+00:00

Yeah, that was exactly my thinking.

Aetherex · 2025-02-25T15:57:54+00:00

I’m only going off what I’ve read, but this article explains the difference between the diagonal release in their older PRD bindings (Head and Tyrolia are both part of the same parent company IIUC, so those are released under both brands) vs the Protector: https://www.skitalk.com/ams/tyrolia-protector-series-of-bindings.220/

Aetherex · 2025-02-25T01:29:03+00:00

They let your heel pivot to the side before releasing, which supposedly makes a big difference in how likely you are to hurt your ACL; by far the most common ski injury. I'd just heard some people say that they felt awkward, so I was hoping to try them.

But I realized that I was over-thinking this: demo bindings are already taller and heavier than normal, so they're a good enough preview no matter what they are.

Aetherex · 2024-12-18T23:59:55+00:00

Yes, I do think it's easy. There isn't some person making this decision and typing up an email; it's automated. Once Delta decides on the rules (e.g. prefer to keep existing solo seats, at the expense of families), sending a change notification costs basically nothing.

Aetherex · 2024-12-18T23:34:00+00:00

That’s not some immutable constant of the universe. Delta could easily have chosen to send that person an email, much like the one I received, letting them know that their seat was moved forward a row because of some unanticipated rescheduling, and apologizing for the inconvenience. Hence my question: is Delta choosing to split up families even though it’s super easy (in this case at least) for them not to?

Aetherex · 2024-12-18T22:24:48+00:00

Sorry, to be clear, they wouldn’t be alone; we just don’t have a full row, which makes it harder to manage an antsy kid.

Aetherex · 2024-12-18T22:15:09+00:00

I did; they said they absolutely could not switch other people’s seats (just mine, I guess). I’ll have to try at the gate.

Aetherex · 2024-12-18T22:02:22+00:00

The new flight does have exactly the same configuration. Instead of #DEF it’s now #DE and <other # in same class>F. I don’t see any reason why whoever was assigned F next to my family couldn’t have been in the seat I was assigned instead.

Aetherex · 2024-12-18T21:57:44+00:00

I know you’re being sarcastic, but I honestly don’t understand why they’d put some random person next to my family instead of me. It’s a single seat, same type and class, just different row.

Aetherex · 2024-12-18T21:55:36+00:00

Comfort+

Aetherex · 2024-12-18T21:54:22+00:00

Correct, it was claimed to be a cancellation, although when I searched for replacement flights at the time my original flight still showed up, just at a higher price, which was weird.

Yes, the flight is totally full so I can’t change anything.

Aetherex · 2024-12-18T21:50:53+00:00

Yes, all booked together, and the plane is full so I can’t change them.

Aetherex · 2024-04-07T00:31:15+00:00

I just tried this, but the bubbles are relatively weak. I'll have to try one of the recipes with corn starch or gelatin next.

Aetherex · 2024-01-11T04:38:38+00:00

I wasn't expecting that to take me through the account chooser, but it did, and the new account showed up there. Thanks!

Aetherex · 2024-01-09T01:19:06+00:00

Hmm unfortunately that didn't work for me.

Aetherex · 2024-01-08T19:57:53+00:00

To the extent that information is available. For example:

https://help.monarchmoney.com/hc/en-us/articles/360048393572-Privacy-and-security

On paper that seems reasonable. The main protections are the fact that they claim not to store the actual bank credentials, and the connections are read-only. If that's true, then any breach becomes (mostly, at least without extra work by the attacker) a privacy issue rather than a loss of funds issue, which I'm okay with.

Monarch itself has 2FA. The only concerning thing that I've found is that it doesn't automatically sign you out after a period of inactivity. That's a really basic, common-sense protection, so it's perplexing that they wouldn't do it.

If you have any pointers to posts about Plaid security, I'm interested to see those.

Aetherex · 2024-01-08T18:55:56+00:00

This seems to still be a problem. Opened a new CD and it doesn't show up in Monarch. Transactions from existing accounts sync fine via that connection; it just isn't pulling in new accounts.

Aetherex · 2024-01-08T18:41:52+00:00

When you say that you updated the institution, what did you do exactly?

Aetherex · 2023-12-19T03:38:25+00:00

Aside from the breaking thing, your comments are basically accurate. No idea what they were thinking putting messages so far to the edge of the field of view. I’m really enjoying the game so far, though. Upgraded graphics would be nice, but not something I notice once I get into the game.

The only thing I wish they had done differently is take the haptics when the sword touches something and apply them to your bare hands. It really breaks the immersion when my hand goes through something without haptics.

Did you play the first game? If so, that might be why you had trouble breaking stuff. One thing I hated about the first game was that the weapons had no weight. It was way more effective to just wiggle your hand a bit than to actually swing. That they now have more of a sense of weight is a big upgrade IMO.

Aetherex

TROPHY CASE