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Peloton announces $95 “used equipment activation fee” (arstechnica.com)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Peloton is introducing a $95 "used equipment activation fee" for bikes purchased from outside its official channels in the US and Canada, aiming to boost revenue and maintain onboarding quality for new subscribers.
The fee has sparked criticism as it reduces the cost savings typically associated with buying secondhand equipment and diverges from practices in other industries, potentially discouraging used market purchases.
Peloton's hardware sales continue to decline, but subscription revenue has seen slight growth; the company still faces financial struggles despite cost-cutting measures and layoffs.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The tech world has become and endless conveyor belt of stupid greedy miseries.

Simpler. It's easy to create artificial maintenance costs there as needed. That, of course, wouldn't work well without oligopoly.

Government officials are interested in buying such products due to kickbacks, which means that everybody else directly or indirectly needs them for interoperability. Thus oligopoly persists.

It's as if only radical solutions would work, be it radical authoritarian or radical libertarian.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

It’s easy to create artificial maintenance costs there as needed.

That reminds me of the bricked polish trains, not only did they create artificial maintenance cost, they also tried to ensure that only they (and not their competitors) would be able to do that maintenance (unflipping the kill-switch)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrlrbfGZo2k

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

In that particular case it was plain sabotage, I've read that article. They also denied knowledge of that kill-switch.

I meant cases where both the vendor and the buyer know how these are formed, but due to kickbacks are fine with it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

It's the McDonald's ice cream machine fiasco all over again.