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Comment by Someone1234 | Hacker News Reader

The way I read Toyota's response wasn't "we're going to provide this functionality for free going forward" it was "we're going to strip this functionality from future RF remotes, and make it an app exclusive." They literally said that triple click for remote start is unintended and undocumented.

Existing vehicles may get it re-enabled for free, but next major vehicle refresh I suspect we'll see the RF remotes dumbed-down as hard as possible that you'll pay them a monthly fee to regain the functionality.

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> [...] triple click for remote start is unintended and undocumented.

I have a hard time understanding how a feature like this may be "unintended". Someone needs to add this functionality to the car, it's not like it's an undefined behavior of the circuitry, akin to a C compiler. If they wanted to remove it, they should've just removed it.

I'm sure those of us that have worked for big companies know that there's no way a feature like this got added unintentionally. It takes hours of meetings, reviews, documentation, QA, and sign offs before functionality like this reaches the buyer. They're making it sound like a crafty programmer right out of college snuck it in somehow.

It didn't get added unintentionally, it was left enabled unintentionally.

Obviously remote start can't be unintentional, but this is the kind of thing that's usually a simple config change away from working. Likely 3rd parties would have RE'd how to enable it in the aftermarket like they have for other cars too.

I think that's what is written between the lines here - they will.

I think they saw an easy way to monetize something most might not realize they already have (share holders love recurring revenue).

The backlash now leading to a poor back-pedaling, with the final act being to remove the included non-centralized feature. Overall just an early introduction to the app that will take precedence, leading to the desired subscription income.

They could have taken the route of, 'sorry for not documenting this better' - and keep remote start separate, and actually mention it in the manuals.

Instead they nearly shame users for learning about having the feature and being upset.

It doesn't require a top-quality businessman to instantly recognize this type of subscription approach is supposed to come from those lacking the acumen to provide lasting value.

Hasn't Toyota differentiated itself in the past specifically by trying to provide lasting value?

With thousands of workers marching toward that goal for years?

What happened?

Even the less savvy consumers say WTF, so you can only imagine the cluelessness of the actual "businessmen" involved.

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