You are correct, Genesis says "the fruit". However, the joke only works when you say apple. It's like the wisemen story. It never says there were 3, it only mentions 3 gifts. 5 of them could have brought a total of 3 different gifts. Conversely, two could have brought 3 gifts.
I'm partially with you on the heated seats thing. Or even battery range, when a 150kwh batter pack is in the vehicle but is software limited to 100. You know that part of the price of the vehicle up front has to cover those hardware costs, as they aren't going to sell the cars at a loss hoping people will pay for the upgrades. But it is still wishy washy. And FSD is another animal entirely, that is a software product, it isn't different than using a stolen copy of "fill in the name of some expensive software package" like the adobe suite or microsoft office.
There are only 10 kinds of wise men in the bible...
Cracking open a software feature is cut-and-dry illegal, but software-enablement of hardware is admittedly more of a grey area. To be clear, one could violate the DMCA without it rising to the level of "stealing". For instance, it's a DMCA violation to remove copy-protection from digital media that you purchased, even if you never illegally redistribute it.
I have several Apple devices. If I want garage band, I have to pay. Just because I could pirate a copy (pre-license control) wouldn’t make it moral or legal. It is a well-accepted hardware/software business model. Tesla is spending billions developing the software, any unlicensed use is theft from the shareholders.
Let’s not forget, what we are talking about here is, someone wants something, and they don’t want to pay for it.
The weird thing about the BMW heated-seats fee is that it's a monthly charge instead of a one-time purchase. It's feels odd to rent part of something that you own.
For real? Not even remotely the same thing. I can pay a 3rd party to put in accessories, like heated seats or even ventilated seats. But why when the hardware is already there? This isn't me running/bypassing Tesla's software.
That's BMW testing the waters on the future and I think that's the direction all manufacturers want to go. What do you think the future looks like in 10-20 years? What's the end of life for Tesla's software. They're not going to support older models at some point and so, what will that look like? Someone buys a 20 year old model 3 and Tesla says the software is too old to maintain unless you pay them $20/month. That may not happen, but I can see it happening. A lot of people seem to be struggling with what ownership looks like and obviously, I'm in the camp that the hardware (car) that I purchased is mine. Every physical part of it.
It doesn’t prevent people from “truly owning their own devices” because really what is happening is more complicated. If it were equally costly for companies to make base models, mid models, luxury models, they would just do that. Then when you bought the base or mid grade model, you would have the FULL functionality of that device. However, due to manufacturing processes it happens to be much simpler to have the same PCU, engine, etc “tuned” differently to fit the base, mid, lux versions. So if you would rather pay more for the base, mid, lux versions to force the company to make truly different versions, go ahead and lobby for that. I’d be happier to pay less and choose the options I’d like knowing the programming is a little different.
Please don't confuse "illegal" with my opinions on integrity. I hold a high standard for my principles. My comments that you quoted are not about legality, but rather "what kind of person do you want to be?" And if you bought the laptop with only 4gig of RAM, then that's what you paid for. Can you enable the second slot? I don't care, that's not the question. Would you get caught? Still not the issue. It's a question of your integrity and how you want to live your life. As for me, I'll either pay for it, or go without. I'm not a cheap cheater, nor a liar, nor a thief. My word is my bond, and I stand by what I say. Whether I sign something or not, if I say yes, you can take that to the bank. I don't use someone else's netflix login, if I want it bad enough, I'll pay for it myself. The law has nothing to do with my views on integrity and morality. Please know I'm not directing this at you, personally. Just the scenario you described.
Rationalize it all you want but it’s stealing.
Let me ask a related question of 'integrity' (not legality)
