> In 2020, someone bought a used Tesla advertised with autopilot and full self-driving features, which at the time cost $8,000 for the previous owner to unlock and enjoy. Unfortunately, the new owner didn’t get those features, as Tesla disabled them once it changed hands.
Note that this is not exclusive to cars. Presonus did this to me when I purchased a StudioLive rack mixer. The previous owner had access to the “free” DSP programs it has built-in to do various effects like compression in the device itself. When he switched the registration to me, those were disabled and I’d have to pay to unlock them, because as Presonus said, they were only free as a promo offer to the initial purchaser and non-transferable, despite other parts of the licensed software being transferable. To add insult, that pack of DSP plugins that run in this thing are the ONLY available plugins, so it’s not like I can get some open-source or third-party ones.
I dislike them so much after this whole interaction that I won’t ever buy their stuff again and will repeat this story to anyone who will listen. I didn’t pay for the plug-in pack a second time, because I refuse to give them more money. I just got an external compressor instead.
Anyway, total BS IMO for manufacturers to disable functionality that the hardware had when new when it changes hands.
Note that this is not exclusive to cars. Presonus did this to me when I purchased a StudioLive rack mixer. The previous owner had access to the “free” DSP programs it has built-in to do various effects like compression in the device itself. When he switched the registration to me, those were disabled and I’d have to pay to unlock them, because as Presonus said, they were only free as a promo offer to the initial purchaser and non-transferable, despite other parts of the licensed software being transferable. To add insult, that pack of DSP plugins that run in this thing are the ONLY available plugins, so it’s not like I can get some open-source or third-party ones.
I dislike them so much after this whole interaction that I won’t ever buy their stuff again and will repeat this story to anyone who will listen. I didn’t pay for the plug-in pack a second time, because I refuse to give them more money. I just got an external compressor instead.
Anyway, total BS IMO for manufacturers to disable functionality that the hardware had when new when it changes hands.