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- Hacker News
- Don’t worry, with the progress in AI we will build BR (for blocked reality) goggles which will obscure anything you have considered possibly objectionable from your environment and replaced it with something innocuous.by mosura
- Will they detect BLIT patterns and other cognitohazards?by inigyou
- Remember, folks: it's not illegal to remove ads from your car. And it's not illegal to open a business where people can bring their cars and you'll remove ads from them for money. And it's not illegal to wire the seat heaters to a switch on the dashboard.by inigyou
- Google thought "Oh let's bundle a movie ad in an OS update": https://www.androidauthority.com/google-pixel-theme-packs-la...by netsharc
- I am pretty sure it is a separate app that you have to install?by microtonal
- Also bad: On Volvos†, you are now prohibited from uninstalling the YouTube app.
I don't want to watch videos while I'm driving.
In the previous software, you could at least move it somewhere unobtrusive; but the latest version only displays icons alphabetically. No re-ordering anymore.
† Volvos have "Google Built-In," the bastard stepbrother of Android Auto, which also has an app in the car so you can have the worst of both worlds.
by reaperducer - All automakers are bad. Hope you like biking a lot. Reports are from 2023 but assume it's gotten even worse.
https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/privacynotincluded/cate...
by hollow-moe - I like biking ok, but where I live it is too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter for it to be a good mode of transportation. Even if the roads were better designed for bikers, everything was close enough, etc.by thayne
- I've driven several BMW's starting in the mid 90's. I recently picked up a used 2017 sight unseen from a dealer pretty far away. It was the only one available I could find that met my criteria.
The car was in superb shape and I'm happy with it, but I knew immediately after driving it that it would be the last BMW I ever purchased. This just seals the deal.
by seemaze - > I knew immediately after driving it that it would be the last BMW I ever purchased
Why?
by lostlogin - BMW: The Ultimate Advertising Machineby dessimus
- Bayerische Mobile Werbung :)by sixtyj
- 13 hours ago: "BMW Spider-Man in-car advertising" (consumerrights.wiki)
211 points | 148 comments
by WalterGR - I am a good bot: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49130756by root-parent
- This upsets me so deeply in my core that so many companies do this instead of creating anything new for a customer to buy. I can't even process that someone would be mentally disturbed enough to even think of this, and not feel any shame.by ocd
- Making things is hard. Making actual objects for people to buy is even harder.
That’s why they say not to “buy things and spend money on experiences instead ” and enshittify everything instead of creating new things. It’s not because an “experience” is actually better it’s because it’s easier to make one than make a useful or novel object.
Why make a new thing when you can just extract more money from people with less effort and there isn’t really anything to “make”.
The incentives are all wrong.
- Most people working at the top of these large organizations don’t know how to make anything net new anymore. They pushed all the people that do out when padding their nests.by i386
- I have seen the bar at the top appear with "BMW has a surprise for you" or something, but I always use Android Auto which starts a second later so I have never seen what this was. Still unacceptable.by PeterStuer
- I have been recently looking at new cars in Europe and there is s massive difference in quality at all price tiers between Chinese and non Chinese cars.
Mind you, Chinese cars are often assembled in Europe and have to comply with all the safety laws etc, but at any price tier it feels you're getting a car that is 10k+ more expensive than it is.
And that's despite EU putting (non sense) sanctions on Chinese cars and components.
If Chinese were free to compete square and fair they would've long swallowed the European industry.
Like look at Volkswagen and what you get at 40k. A non base Golf, maybe?
It also grinds my nerves that European cars are less expensive anywhere but in Europe.
You go to US and they are like 15/20% less expensive.
by epolanski - It's like the entire western world has forgotten how to make things. And I don't blame the individual workers who are having to beg the billionaire capitalists for scraps to avoid going homeless or hungry. It's obviously been a high-level policy decision that we should forget how to make things.
For consolation, China will probably suffer the same effect, in about 20 years when it has its own billionaire capitalists who control it (currently it has some but they don't control it, also they are first-generation billionaires who are stuck to the productive activity that made them wealthy)
by inigyou - Like look at Volkswagen and what you get at 40k. A non base Golf, maybe?
If I recalled correctly, we got a higher-specced Id.3 for around that price (yes new). It's a great car.
But I am grumpy now, because they added Play Integrity (strong) to their app (which is handy for monitoring charging, etc.) and now I cannot run it on GrapheneOS. They also cut API access for Home Assistant users. I think we are probably an invisible blip on the radar, but our next car probably won't be VW.
by microtonal - Chinese cars built in Europe are not taxed/sanctioned.
I think the base golf is around 30k.
(Renault, fiat and Citroen are better priced than German cars if you don't mind staying in the low-end. You still have park assist, Google/Apple carplay and they are still good on the road, but they feel less luxurious.)
by orwin - The argument (which has its own pros and cons) is that the Chinese vendors are not competing fair and square.
The governmental/industrial coordination in China is quite literally un comparable to Western style industries so the western governments feel they have to protect their local industries.
This definitely hurts consumers in the short term, so the whole argument is about long term impacts.
by kasey_junk - At least in the USA, a new BMW is a high-end car. Not a supercar, but beyond the reach of most of the car-buying public. I'm surprised that the generally quite wealthy owners of those cars would tolerate that.by SoftTalker
- Wow $50k for a base 3 series now? That feels like a rip off. Especially if you're getting ads!by bix6
- If you are looking for luxury performance and can’t afford a Porsche or Ferrari but don’t want to look on a budget driving an Atlas or a Genesis then you only have BMW, Audi and Benz. The latter usually doesn’t appeal to under 60 except for AMG which is out of budget, so your decision always ends between Audi and BMW. They offer a different driving experience IMO, so if you are a beemer guy ads won’t deter you from buying one.by tedggh
- Are they "tolerating" it? They literally have no choice.by strix_varius
- > At least in the USA, a new BMW is a high-end car.
No they most definitely are not.
They're marketed as high end, but their engineering is a tour de force of cost cutting behind the scenes.
I just got rid of my 2024 BMW i4 xdrive40, for an electric awd subaru-toyota-lexus joint effort platform (there are a few variations, all related in engineering) and it's like jumping several years into the future, including efficiency, which is roughly 25% higher in the japanese (more modern) cars, the handling dynamics on the japanese platforms are far more refined, and then vastly less shitty interior materials, except the BMW seating which was good.
I've driven BMW "high end cars" for about 11 years, and emphatically recommend looking at Audi, Mercedes, and Subaru/Toyota joint efforts, as well as Tesla and Rivian, depending on what you seek.
$0.02 from someone who spent a fortune and lived and learned.
by jjtheblunt - It suggests that BMW must be in dire financial straits somehow, and I’ve been trying to decide why. Current theory is that it’s part ‘BMW needs to prop up their share price with a steroid injection of ads into their growth in growth of profit curve’, and part ‘BMW lost the evaporating upper middle class segment and is on the verge of collapse’
It’s such a look of desperation to add advertisements when they didn’t start out as a carnival-barker brand that it’s hard to continue trusting their vehicle manufacturing. Look at how poorly they rank in reliability perception relative to Jaguar and Subaru — and only two steps away from ‘We’re selling your radio data to stay afloat’ GM, too?! https://www.bmwblog.com/2025/06/29/2025-jd-power-initial-qua...
Ugh. I may not personally like their cars but I still hate to see it when notable brands swan-dive into the rocks rather than just wind down gracefully. Hopefully Toyota handles this better, given they’re facing a financial engineering crisis of their own with operating profits down to a mere 2.5% of sales: https://www.toyota-industries.com/investors/item/2025_annual... anyways
> Sato has claimed Toyota is in a “battle for survival” against Chinese automakers. Going forward, the company will have to loosen its infamously strict quality standards to cut costs and increase output.
by altairprime - What a spectacularly efficient means to devalue a once “premium” brand. I guess “good will” didn’t get its own line item on their balance sheet.by voakbasda