It's not your phone, it's not your car.
Eventually, wealth won't be reflected by what you own, but by the nature of the agreements that you can afford.
Not saying that Tesla is out to take our freedom. Just that they way of things (like this one) are leading to end of ownership. But even there, I don't think Tesla is so much worried about ride-sharing regulations as they are about it happening exclusively on their network:"Please note also that using a self-driving Tesla for car sharing and ride hailing for friends and family is fine, but doing so for revenue purposes will only be permissible on the Tesla Network, details of which will be released next year."
I'm not you have the right sense of Tesla as a company. They don't entrench. They don't defend. Their only defense is simply that they innovate and iterate faster than anyone else in their industry. They don't want to lock people into their network. The network is a means to an end: get more people to see electric cars as "cars" and not as "electric, limited use, limited range, cars". The Tesla Network simply gets more people into their cars, which gets more people to buy their cars. It also helps people see Tesla as a utility, and not as an exotic car like a Lamborghini. Tesla is out to break expectations for "what companies do", and draw a new profile for what a successful company can be like. But they have to operate within the existing legal frameworks, one of which is that licenses for commercial activities come with an enormous amount of additional rules and regulations that someone has to sign on to. You can drive your ratrod on the road for personal conveyance. You cannot use your ratrod as a taxi. Same thing here with Tesla's licensing. It's not about what Tesla wants. It's about the regulatory framework that Tesla is trying to dismantle, piece by piece.
Yeah, I just don't agree. The definition of ownership has been steadily shifting but the notion that the physical good is yours, the software that runs it ain't is hardly new. This is Tesla saying they don't extend a commercial license to their autonomy software and guaranteed - everyone else will do the same as soon as they decide they're willing to release it. The fact that Tesla jumped the gun on "self-driving" pretty much guarantees that they jump the gun on licensing. You aren't allowed to make money with an academic version of Photoshop, either. Never have been. You want to use it to make money, you buy a different license. Same same.
I'm wondering if the network and the car will be separable. If so, then it might become like Apple and MIcrosoft where the software is integrated in the hardware for one version and the other version has the hardware interchangeable but the software is fixed.
Almost certainly. You don't have a EULA with your car, but you definitely have a EULA with your nav software. This is basically Tesla saying "we are not assuming liability in which you are acting as a third party broker for the commercial use of our vehicles." There's a long-ass precedent on that one. Buy a DVD and enjoy it at home no problem. Buy a DVD and screen it for $1 a seat and feel the hot wrath of Warner Brothers.
Sure. Who cares? The licensing terms for private use have always been different than the licensing terms for commercial use. Tesla is basically saying "if you want to rideshare with your Tesla, you get to rideshare for Tesla." Nobody is forcing you to buy a tesla, nobody is forcing you to drive for Tesla. Know those boxes of granola bars you buy at the grocery store? Ever notice how each and every one of them says "not labeled for retail sale?" If you want to sell granola bars to somebody else, you need to buy different granola bars. That's not new. Realistically speaking? If you want to drive a car for money, you need a CDL and a livery permit. This is how it has always been. People skip right the fuck over this because it's confusing AND THEY'RE STUPID: by driving for Uber, YOU ARE VIOLATING THE LAW. Fact of the matter is, it's a law that clearly impedes progress and Uber et. al. bet they could violate the fuck out of that law and get away with it. They were right. But those laws haven't been struck down. And you, as a tiny little company of one, freelancing for Uber, have very little exposure for violating that law. You might get a ticket (but probably won't). But the attorney general can decide that Tesla is guilty of 35,000 counts of violating that law and come after Tesla with a special investigation unit and a dedicated office to exact billions in penalties. Tesla is a dumbass if they don't protect themselves from this.
The author of this take down of Elon Musk has some far out readings of history and historical events, and I haven't bothered to follow up to "fact check" :) but it's definitely an amusing read. More seriously, Wendy Brown's penetrating critique in Undoing the Demos of neo-liberalism is a must read: or degrading democracy, that political institutions and outcomes are increasingly dominated by finance and corporate capital, or that democracy is being replaced by plutocracy -- rule by and for the rich. Rather, neoliberal reason, ubiquitous today in statecraft and the workplace, in jurisprudence, education, culture, and a vast range of quotidian activity, is converting the distinctly political character, meaning, and operation of democracy's constituent elements into economic ones. Liberal democratic institutions, practices, and habits may not survive this conversion. Radical democratic dreams may not either. My argument is not merely that markets and money are corrupting
Leasing is good from most manufacturers because they can charge full price and markup on leases. Consumers suck at negotiating lease rates because the math is a bit tricky and that adds additional profit points. Tesla doesn't discount yet so it's not such a big deal for them yet but the additional interest on the lease adds additional profit
Yeah. But at the same time, if the contracts say I can't repair it except by the manufacturer, can't modify it in anyway, and dictates how, where, and when I can use the product, etc., there's no point in owning it. If there's no point in owning it, leasing is the way to go.
That's almost never what they say. Generally the laws say that if you open it up you violate your warranty and that if you violate the terms of the software your license to operate that software is revoked. Hardware can't be "licensed" because it's a physical good, not an intellectual concept. Software that runs on hardware can't be owned unless it's as part of the whole - if you owned the software on your phone, you would be okay under the law to duplicate it and resell it. Theoretically software could be a co-op- everyone who runs it "owns" 1/n of the overall, made up of n shares - but realistically speaking it's more convenient to license the use of software. Cars are so expensive that few people are incentivized to violate their warranties. In general, the maintenance of vehicles is part and parcel of the ownership experience. It's pretty clear that as our technology becomes more complex, that maintenance must necessarily become more sophisticated and sophisticated maintenance requires sophisticated contracts. The way to look at it is as a financial transaction. The question is who wishes to undertake the inconvenience of resale, and who wishes to undertake the inconvenience of depreciation. One of the wisest parables I've read this year came from a book on telecom, actually - the author asserted that there's really only one product, the only difference is how you pay for it.
I'm on lunch and I'm about to clock back in, but there have been a few articles about car manufacturers wanting to lock up their cars when it comes to repairs and modifications, just like John Deere is doing. http://www.autoblog.com/2015/10/27/copyright-dmca-gearheads-can-repair-modify-cars/ GM. Ford. Toyota. Honda. They all seem to want to head in that direction.
That's an example in my favor, not yours. That's the USPTO arguing that a ruling entirely about Hollywood does not bear any weight on vehicle ownership. Make no mistake: the DMCA is going to die. It's going to die horribly. It might be replaced by something worse, but it'll certainly be replaced by something different. Do you really think that SEMA will allow the companies they support legislate them out of existence? It would be a PR disaster of the highest order. It makes perfect sense for car manufacturers to argue that they have every right to shit all over anyone who does anything they didn't think about and zero sense for them to do so and your linked article basically says "car manufacturers can't even do that."
Usually its because you have no choice. The manufacturer offloads the inventory holding cost to you and then gets to charge you a defacto lease. Look at software, everyone is going to the software as a service model because there is more profit in it and there is no alternative. As an added bonus Its a lot easier to upsell the moonroof, and nicer speakers when you say its only costing you $20 a month instead of the 3500it costs as a package.