Requiring some ongoing subscription service for fundamental features will eventually be the status quo across the entire industry. There's simply too much money on the table to give up.
In this case GM has taken the perplexing case of front loading the requirement at the initial purchase, but I suspect that it was easier and quicker to implement as a pseudo MSRP bait-and-switch increase than to create a more fleshed out scheme like we see with Toyota and BMW.
In this case GM has taken the perplexing case of front loading the requirement at the initial purchase, but I suspect that it was easier and quicker to implement as a pseudo MSRP bait-and-switch increase than to create a more fleshed out scheme like we see with Toyota and BMW.