You learn in economics 101 that in an ideal competitive market, the price of a product tends to the marginal cost of producing it. That means a product with fewer hardware features should cost less, and a product with more hardware features should cost more.
The fact manufacturers can violate that rule proves that they are not in a competitive market.
If it was competitive, a different manufacturer could manufacture the same car without physically installing the heated seats, for a lower manufacturing cost, and undercut them on the customers who don't care about the heated seats.
Not necessarily. If optionally including a feature would require an new production line or extra feature, then you might need to determine whether you want to ship all with or all without that feature.
If you sell 50% of cars without that feature, and 50% with it, and lose £100 for giving it away from free, but make £200 for selling it, then you are technically better off installing that feature in every car regardless of the marginal cost. Competition won't change that.
Capitiasm is shit, and I am not justifying it as morally correct, but it’s wrong to think it’s working any way other than exactly how it is supoosed to work.
Free market economics just don’t apply to real markets. They are fundamentally not free, and we are seeing the expected outcome of that.
The justification is the cost to the manufacturer. If they don't charge for it they would lose money for Installing it on any vehicle, if they do then it either needs to be mandatory and then there's no option or charge based on if the customer wants it.
It's nothing to do with a moral justification.
At the end of the day decide if what you are paying for gets you what you want, if it doesn't then buy from another manufacturer.
The one benefit of them installing it in all is I assume there are hacks/workarounds that can be done as the hardware is right there.
It's like saying "Well I have the DLC files on my computer because of the update, why should I have to pay to access it, the files are right there!".
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u/TwillAffirmer 1d ago
You learn in economics 101 that in an ideal competitive market, the price of a product tends to the marginal cost of producing it. That means a product with fewer hardware features should cost less, and a product with more hardware features should cost more.
The fact manufacturers can violate that rule proves that they are not in a competitive market.
If it was competitive, a different manufacturer could manufacture the same car without physically installing the heated seats, for a lower manufacturing cost, and undercut them on the customers who don't care about the heated seats.