Well said. This will happen soon.
Recently I Came across some Honda car ad that mentioned "free subscription to blahblah app for xyz years". That's the step-1 towards conditioning us into accepting that "car features will stop working in xyz years"
The car manufacturers do it by stopping selling parts. That's OK when it's easy for a 3rd party to fill in the gaps but I do wonder how this will pan out with modern EV's.
Given the strength of the second-hand car market and aftermarket repairs, this will most likely turn into a prolonged legal war. Not sure which side will win, but I'm hoping it won't be the car manufacturers.
Yeah, parts don't work for that reason. But cars are increasingly dependent on software, and they can use that. John Deere and farmers wanting but unable to repair their own tractors have been mentioned on HN a couple of times.
Obviously they can't turn the car off while you're driving, so they'll perform these checks either when you stop the car or when you start it. The solution then is to never ever stop the car. And you may also need to fool the onboard gps and vision systems into believing the car is moving.
So in the future, a crappy old car will need to be left running 24 hours a day, in an augmented reality garage that fools the car into thinking it is on a long journey.
I would like to write a science fiction story from the point of view of a sentient car in that situation. But I have to write my code instead.
>>Sir, you are no longer allowed to use your car
>But I paid for it! It's my car!
>>Our aging servers had to be retired
>Can't you just turn off the checking so it won't cost you anything and I can keep using my car?
>>No sir, without the checking people would start pirating the car
> But you don't even sell this car anymore! So much so you don't even want to keep the servers online!
>>I'm sure you'll love the new model we are selling
> I don't need a new car! I already have one, fuck off! I'm just gonna use a crack
>> Sir it's illegal to run unauthorized software on your car