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Steep assumption?

I am talking about features that require a cellular phone or data subscription. This is often something people skip due to them being older, and essentially better replaced by the modern smartphone they are already paying for.

Very true. I dumped the subscription based services since a phone does everything except perhaps detect a crash.

Why pay for a cellular service for your car, when it is limited to being used in only that vehicle, and, when the features can essentially be outpaced by a modern (as compared to the older car) smartphone?

There really isn't in most cases. There was a time when car manufacturers thought in car WiFi would be the driver of entertainment systems but with unlimited data plans that is no longer needed.

Even with that, some of us older car owners do enjoy updating these features and do pay for data plans to keep features alive though I am confident we are in the minority. For most, it's far easier to stick a phone holder to the dash / windshield and just use a smartphone.

For many uses, yes. But not all.

Sadly in the case of my 2016 Audi, Google already pulled the plug on Google Earth when the car was ~4 years old anyway. Have totally learned that relying on 3rd party services is a bad idea overall. Especially when the provider is google. :( .

Google Earth's demise doesn't limit the car's ability to function as a transportation device; however I agree with your concern over 3rd party services. CarPlay is becoming more of a standard item in many cars; what happens if Apple decides stop supporting it in an iOS update? You're likely to still have a radio, but all of a sudden you are now dependent on the manufacturers navigation solution, which may be outdated and require expensive updates periodically to stay current. Forget about an aftermarket unit since since systems in new cars are tightly integrated into the vehicle's electronics; unless you want to completely bypass that and run new wiring etc. In that scenario, you still have a functioning, if less convenient, vehicle.

Sometimes the technology quirks are strange; I have a vintage BMW that uses a small current to test whether a bulb is burned out, if I put in LED bulbs the system thinks my taillights are burned out because they have insufficient resistance.

For me, the crux of the issue is how technology will potentially obsolete a car that has a lot of service life left.

But what happens when the manufacturer EOLs a car? If you have to rely on their software, either via a plug or OTA, you may be in a situation where a repair is not possible if you have to register new components. At least with older cars today there is always a salvage yard option in most cases. Going to the salvage yard and pulling parts may be a thing of the past, if "for safety reasons" manufacturers prevent activation of used parts. They could also stop supporting diagnostic software or ditch slower OTA technologies so even if you get a new part you can't make it work.

There are a lot of people who enjoy old cars for a variety of reasons - it was a dream car growing up, they like the looks, it's quirky, etc.; probably as many reasons as there are enthusiasts.

It will be interesting to see how that evolves as cars become more and more technology dependent.
 
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Not really. Lots of old tech and IOT stuff should go to 5G.

The real waste will be if they update them to 4G
im kinda confuse , did some company push iot with gsm modem ? It kinda a bit high price to maintain data unless 3 or 4 years iot should at least have 4g . Or maybe a lot of cut cost and no maintenance after 3 years ?

those iot should use custom wifi band instead lol .
 
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