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Tweet: Okay I thought this one straight up has to be hyperbole, there's no way they'd make an airbag that checks your subscription status or it doesn't go off, but it's fucking TRUE: "Without the subscription service from In&Motion, the airbag system is non-operational."
Quoted tweet: Reminder that Klim makes a motorcycle airbag vest that has a subscription service and if you don't pay and get in a wreck it just doesn't go off
Google results screenshot: Ai-1 Airbag Vest (Klim) - Choose from $12/month or $120/year subscription options, which include...
Original tweet dated 30th April 2021
It doesn't cost them nothing. If they left it on without payment, then people would just buy the subsidized one and never pay the sub. The company can't afford to sell all the vests at half price. Then they couldn't afford to offer the subscription option anymore. Without a method to enforce payment, the only option is to price poor people out entirely. That's worse, not better.
It just does not occur to you that people shouldn't have to pay out the ass or be subject to all this arbitrary subscription bullshit for safety equipment, does it? "Oh no what about their profit motive" I don't give a fuck. If this equipment really is a huge improvement for the safety of motorcyclists then maybe it should be nationalized and subsidized so it can be affordable for anyone who rides a motorcycle and so people's lives aren't dictated by a handful of rich fucks who only care about their bottom line.
Of course it occurred to me, which is why I framed it the way I did. I don't disagree, obviously it should be easily available. However, villainizing this specific company for finding a way to make it more easily available than their counterparts who price poor people out entirely is a step backwards. Villainize the government and the system for putting us here. Villainizing a company that found a way to work within the stupid framework we're stuck in to do something, even if it's less than perfect, to make it more affordable, for taking basic steps to make sure they don't go out of business for it, is nuts.
Oh shit, I didn't know they were doing this out of the goodness of their hearts! You should have told me this to begin with!
They did it this way because they thought it would earn them the most profit. If you think it's for any other reason than that, then you don't really understand how capitalism works.
Capitalists finding a way to tap into the market of "people who can't afford motorcycle air bag vests" means poor people have access to it when they previously didn't. Is it worse than a world where anyone could get one for free from the DMV or take it out from a library or something? Yes, absolutely. That's easily preferable to this. Is it better than a world where poor people had no way to access it? I would say so.
Don't simp for capitalist pigs because they throw you a crumb every once in a while, it's a bad look. Take back the fucking bakery.
fuck me.. i wish i could pull my head through my asshole and back out again and still be able to walk upright.. what a neat party trick
Just sell the vest at the subsidized price then. I promise you they aren't doing this out of some desperate need to hold onto razor thin margins, the upfront payment probably already nets them a tidy profit they're just trying to milk people who don't have as much upfront cash by rent seeking.
Really we should just abolish capitalism.
No arguments here