Don’t forget to post this to !newcommunities@lemmy.world

Edit: looks like you beat me to it. 😂

Is this a one-way trip?

Not sure which side of the argument you’re taking. But, to answer your questions…

how much does it cost tesla to provide API access?

Not as much as they would want you to believe. Most APIs are written once, and only updated if a major change in the backend happens. The majority of any operating costs would go into cloud services, if the telemetry from the car is sent to Tesla first. I don’t own a Tesla, so I don’t know for sure. I would imagine it’s, because that would allow Tesla better metrics on app usage.

or we don’t discuss their costs structure and profit margin?

Whose? Tesla or the app developers? I’m not against a business making a profit. It’s kind of the point. They provide some sort of service, and as a customer we pay some sort of fee. The problem as I see it, some companies (like Twitter, Reddit, and Tesla for example) are not balancing the age-old “supply and demand” model of economics. Of course that’s my opinion.

we only do that for the guy doing the actual work

Huh? Please explain.

lol

I don’t get it. Why do people end their otherwise non-funny statements with “lol”?

Yes, I didn’t account for the transaction fees. But I believe my point still stands. If people find enough value in it, they’d probably pay for it; and that’s why Tesla is charging what they are.

I do agree with you about it being batshit crazy. If it were me, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to pay $15/mo for that. But I try to be a cheapskate where I can.

I hate subscription services. And I hate money-grubbing corps. Especially when they try to profit off of your own data.

That said, this is not that as infeasible as it sounds. The dev for Tessie reportedly has 400k users. That’s roughly $12.50/month per user. Modestly speaking, if the dev charged their users $13/mo, he’d profit $2.4 million per year. For $15/mo, he would profit $12 million per year.

That’s probably what Tesla is hoping their devs would do. And I’m sure a lot of Tesla owners could afford the fee.

This should be its own sub to be honest. I bet this would get popular fast.

In the true spirit of UNIX, it’s tar -h