The Car You Buy Is No Longer the Car You Own: Software, Subscriptions, and the Slow Death of Real Ownership

For more than a century, the idea of car ownership was built on a simple, almost sacred assumption: when you paid for a car, you owned the machine in its entirety. You were not licensing it. You were not renting its capabilities. You were not negotiating with the manufacturer for continued access to its functions. You bought a physical object, and everything it could do belonged to you by default. This mental model shaped not only how people thought about cars, but how laws, markets, resale systems, and even personal identity were constructed around them.

Over the last fifteen years, this assumption has been quietly dismantled—not by a single radical decision, but by a long chain of technological, economic, and strategic shifts that most consumers barely noticed while they were happening. Cars did not suddenly become “software products.” They gradually stopped being purely mechanical objects and turned into rolling computer systems connected permanently to their manufacturers. This transformation did not just change dashboards and add touchscreens. It changed the power relationship between the buyer and the maker.

What most people still do not fully grasp is that software does not merely add features to a product. Software changes the nature of ownership itself. It allows control to remain with the producer long after the sale is complete. It allows features to be added, restricted, priced, repriced, or removed without touching the physical object. This is the same structural shift that turned phones, televisions, printers, and even household appliances into subscription-driven ecosystems over the last two decades *1, *2.

The car industry is now completing this same transition. And because cars are the most expensive consumer products most people will ever buy, the consequences are far more serious, far more permanent, and far more difficult to escape.



1. How Cars Quietly Became Software Products

To understand what is really happening, you first have to abandon the outdated idea that a modern car is primarily a mechanical object with some electronics added. In reality, a modern vehicle is closer to a distributed computing system that happens to move. Dozens of electronic control units communicate constantly. Millions of lines of code govern everything from throttle response to braking behavior to battery management and driver assistance *4. Even basic actions like pressing the accelerator are now interpreted, filtered, and decided by software before anything mechanical happens.

This matters because software is not like metal. You cannot see it. You cannot touch it. And most importantly, you do not fully control it—even if you own the hardware that runs it. Once a product becomes software-defined, the manufacturer gains the ability to shape the behavior of that product long after it leaves the factory. They can change it through updates. They can limit it through permissions. They can segment it through digital locks.

From an industrial point of view, this shift is extremely attractive. Instead of building many different physical versions of the same car, manufacturers can increasingly build one hardware platform and sell different versions of it through software. This simplifies production, reduces supply-chain complexity, and makes it possible to sell features long after the car has already been delivered.

But from a consumer point of view, something subtle and dangerous happens: the car stops being a finished product.



2. The BMW Heated Seats Incident Was Not an Accident

When BMW introduced a subscription fee for heated seats, public debate focused on whether the company had gone “too far.” That was the wrong question. The real question was: why was this even technically possible?
The seats were already there. The heating elements were already installed. The wiring was already in place. The only thing preventing the owner from using them was software *6.

That means the physical product was deliberately shipped in a partially disabled state.

BMW later retreated from this specific implementation in some markets, but that retreat should not be interpreted as a philosophical reversal. It was a tactical response to public outrage, not a rejection of the underlying model. The same company — and many others — continue to push software-based monetization in less visible ways.

Tesla sells performance as downloadable upgrades *7. Mercedes sells power and handling features as digital “extras” *8. Toyota experiments with subscriptions for basic functionality like remote start *9.

The pattern is always the same: the hardware exists, but the right to use it is rented, not owned.

Once this model exists, there is no natural limit to how far it can go.

3. Why Subscriptions Are Economically Inevitable (And Structurally Hostile to Buyers)

From the perspective of a modern corporation, one-time sales are a fragile way to survive. They are cyclical, unpredictable, and capital-intensive. Software and subscriptions, on the other hand, create stable, forecastable, continuously growing revenue streams. This is why nearly every industry that can possibly move in this direction has already done so *11.

The car industry is under enormous pressure. Electric vehicles are reducing mechanical complexity and making cars more standardized *10. Competition is increasing. Margins on hardware are under constant stress. In this environment, software is not just attractive — it is strategically irresistible.

But what makes sense for corporate balance sheets does not necessarily make sense for human beings.

Subscriptions destroy the psychological finality of purchase. There is no moment when the product is “fully yours.” There is only a continuing obligation.

Worse, subscription pricing hides true costs. Ten dollars per month feels trivial. But over ten years, it becomes a thousand dollars. And that is for a feature that was already physically in your car.

This is not innovation. It is financialization of ownership.


4. The Used Car Market Time Bomb Nobody Is Preparing For

Used car markets are built on a simple assumption: that a car’s capabilities are inherent to the machine. Software destroys this assumption.

Two cars can be physically identical and yet legally and functionally different. One may have access to certain features. The other may not. One may lose features when ownership changes. The other may keep them. Some features may be region-locked. Others may be tied to an account that no longer exists.

Tesla has already demonstrated this future by remotely removing software features from used cars after resale *3.

This means a car can depreciate digitally without changing physically.

In markets like the UAE — where cars are imported, exported, flipped, and resold at high volume — this creates a perfect storm of confusion, disputes, and hidden losses.


5. When the Manufacturer Can Change Your Car After You Buy It

Historically, once a product left the factory, the manufacturer lost control over it. Software reverses that.

Manufacturers can now:

- Modify behavior

- Restrict functionality

- Remove features

- Or change pricing structures remotely

This is a fundamental break with the entire history of consumer goods.

When Tesla removed Autopilot features from a used car after sale, it exposed the true nature of modern car ownership: you own the metal, but someone else owns the behavior *3.

That should make every buyer deeply uncomfortable.


6. The Right-to-Repair War Is the Same Conflict Under Another Name

John Deere tractors, smartphones, laptops, and medical equipment are already battlegrounds in the same war: who controls the software controls the product *12.

Manufacturers argue that you buy the hardware but license the software. Without the software, the hardware is useless.

Cars are now crossing the same line.

Once that line is crossed, ownership becomes conditional.


7. The Behavioral Economics Trap of Micro-Payments

Human beings are not good at understanding long-term cumulative costs. We are good at understanding small monthly pain.

Subscriptions exploit this weakness perfectly.

A car that costs $40,000 suddenly has $200 per year in “optional” features, $300 per year in connectivity, $500 per year in performance packages — and none of it feels expensive individually.

But over a decade, you have quietly paid for another car.

8. Why This Will Hit the Middle East Harder Than Europe or the US


High resale turnover, high import volumes, cross-border trade, and price-sensitive buyers make the Middle East uniquely vulnerable to software-based ownership confusion.

Two “identical” cars will no longer be equal assets.

This will not show in photos. It will not show in inspections. It will only show after ownership changes.



9. The Endgame: Cars as Services, Not Products

The strategic destination is obvious:

- Base car = platform
- Everything else = paid layers
- Features = dynamic, revocable, updateable


This is not a conspiracy. It is pure economic logic *11.

But it also means the death of the finished product.

10. The Only Rational Response: Buyers Must Become More Technical, More Suspicious, More Informed



In the software era, you do not just inspect metal. You inspect permissions.

If you do not understand:

- What is locked
- What is rented
- What is permanent
- What is transferable

Then you do not understand what you are buying.

The Real Conclusion

You are no longer buying a car.
You are entering a long-term relationship with a company that can change the rules later.

That should fundamentally change how much you trust, how much you pay, and how carefully you choose.

References (APA)

*1 Statista. (2023). Subscription economy market size worldwide. https://www.statista.com

*2 McKinsey & Company. (2021). Monetizing car software. https://www.mckinsey.com

*3 Hawkins, A. J. (2020). Tesla remotely disables Autopilot. The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/6/21126763/tesla-used-car-software-disabled-autopilot-full-self-driving

*4 Green Car Congress. (2022). Software complexity in vehicles. https://www.greencarcongress.com

*5 Boston Consulting Group. (2022). Automotive software future. https://www.bcg.com

*6 Vincent, J. (2022). BMW heated seats subscription. The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/12/23205087/bmw-heated-seats-subscription-feature

*7 Tesla. (2024). Acceleration Boost. https://www.tesla.com/support/acceleration-boost

*8 Mercedes-Benz. (2023). Digital Extras. https://www.mercedes-benz.com

*9 Consumer Reports. (2022). Toyota subscriptions. https://www.consumerreports.org

*10 International Energy Agency. (2023). Global EV Outlook. https://www.iea.org

*11 Zuora. (2022). Subscription Economy Index. https://www.zuora.com

*12 Wiens, K. (2021). John Deere and right to repair. Wired. https://www.wired.com/story/john-deere-right-to-repair/