A woman spent over €6,000 (~ KES 908,000) on an electric wheelchair only to discover it could go faster, but only if she paid an extra €99 (~ KES 15,000) to unlock the speed that was already built into the hardware. The restriction was purely software-based, despite the wheelchair being physically capable of faster speeds.
This situation is all too familiar in today’s tech world, where consumers pay for products that are artificially limited by software, even though the hardware can perform better. For the woman, a person with multiple sclerosis who relies on her wheelchair for daily mobility, this limitation meant losing valuable time just to catch a bus. The “premium” feature, which would allow the wheelchair to go 8.5 km/h instead of 6 km/h, could be unlocked for a mere €99 (~ KES 15,000), a small cost for enhanced independence.
This concept isn’t limited to wheelchairs; it’s also present in the automotive industry. For example, Volkswagen introduced a car with 201 horsepower instead of its potential 228, simply because the extra horsepower was disabled via software. Consumers can pay a monthly or annual fee to unlock the full power, despite the hardware already being capable of it. Similarly, Mercedes-Benz has introduced a subscription model for “Acceleration Increase” in its EQ models, while BMW faced backlash for attempting to charge customers for heated seats.
The concept of paywalls in products is becoming more common. In the case of the wheelchair, the same model was available for €8,000 (~ KES 1.2 million) with all features unlocked, demonstrating that the only difference between the two versions is the software. The same is true for cars like the Volkswagen ID.3, where consumers pay for the privilege of accessing features that already exist in the hardware.
The bigger issue at hand is not just the inconvenience and frustration of paying extra for features already present but the very idea of ownership. In many cases, consumers may technically own the hardware, but the software that controls it belongs to the manufacturer. This raises important questions about whether we truly own the products we purchase, or if we’re simply licensing them with restrictions placed by the manufacturer.
In the US, laws like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) prevent owners from bypassing these digital locks, even if the product is their own. While the intention is to protect intellectual property, the real-world impact is that consumers cannot freely modify or enhance the functionality of the products they’ve bought. Automakers, for example, are actively arguing that customers don’t fully own their vehicles because of the software licenses they include with the cars. This reflects a broader trend where software is used to extract recurring payments, turning ownership into a conditional arrangement.
Right-to-repair advocates are pushing for reform to prevent these restrictions, especially in essential products like medical devices. The goal is to restore true ownership to consumers and prevent manufacturers from remotely disabling features after purchase. With paywalls already spreading across various industries, the question isn’t whether they will become more common—it’s whether anyone will take action to stop them before they become the norm.
In a world where essential features are locked behind digital paywalls, the true cost isn’t just monetary; it’s about access to the basic functionality of the products you’ve purchased. Whether it’s a wheelchair or a car, the question remains: when do we stop paying for features we already own?
