I feel like that’s a different situation, though.

Let’s be very clear: Onstar in 1996 only around 16% of Americans owned a cellphone of any kind. Connectivity of any kind was a high-end luxury product, and it was self-obvious a service like Onstar required some kind of revenue stream to continue functioning.

From there, consumer expectations that this was a paid service were set in stone. So of course no one has really questioned why the service that’s been subscription based before some of the people reading this were even born….is still not free. Apple should never have offered this service for free for so long if they expect to make money off of it.

Not today, when emergency connectivity is largely assumed on devices capable of it. Particularly on smartphones, where it’s actually mandated by law regardless of whether you have an active plan in a ton of western countries.

Combine this with the reality that news travels far faster and easier than in the 90s and early 00s, and that Apple is (so far as any of this mega-companies are) already known for high-quality safety features in their products…..it all makes gating the service behind a paywall seem a deeply penny-wise and pound-foolish idea.

It’s anyone’s guess whether a viral story around someone dying after their trial on this ends pops up, and the PR and goodwill from keeping this service free more than likely makes up for the operating costs unless it’s truly an absurd amount of money being lost by the company(in which case I doubt they’d be extending it like this anyway).

It’s a worthwhile loss-leader, imo, in a way Onstar in the late 1990s never possibly could have been.