Why does it not present hell in any other use case, such as computers, phones and games consoles, or actual cars on sale today? Why aren't Tesla or Rivian owners collectively going crazy - there are over 1 million Teslas receiving updates approximately every two weeks? These arguments do not appear to be borne by any evidence in reality.
It's not like physical car repair places have some amazing flawless track record either... Physical access and the servicing of electrical devices do not need to always go hand in hand in 2022.
> Why does it not present hell in any other use case, such as computers, phones
It absolutely causes problems on computers and phones. Windows updates are famous for interrupting/losing work at this point. MacOS upgrades are less aggressive but far more likely to break formerly functional software (and stomp custom configs). Phone security is always an issue if not an outright disaster in dozens of ways. Look up the Qualcomm / MediaTek audio decoder issues from just this year.
Somebody can spy on you and steal sensitive data w/ access to your computer or phone. What can they do with a car?
Have you read the Wired article from 2015 about hackers remotely killing a jeep on the highway?
Some levels of computer security rely on avoiding connecting to public networks. Or any network.
> Why aren't Tesla or Rivian owners collectively going crazy
Just last year there were over the air updates on Teslas where owners reported vehicles stopping without warning. They fixed that promptly with another emergency OTA update, but not exactly a shining example.
Just last month someone I know told me that the performance profile of his Tesla was weird since a recent update.
These are the realities. There's a ton of evidence.
I'm not arguing things don't fail. Entirely non-connected cars fail for all kinds of hardware/software related reasons too.
One simply can't ignore the fact that today, including outside my own home, millions of cars update software just fine every few weeks, without issue. The number of phones or computers managing it is in the billions.
It was several years before I was completely comfortable upgrading my iPhone without backing it up first, and Apple had decades of system software experience and complete control over the hardware.
Auto manufacturers are much, much worse than Apple at software, and I suspect they have less confidence all of their embedded electronics work correctly under all circumstances, although that’s just speculation on my part. From what I’ve heard about canbus, it’s a bit of a mess.
Anyway, I can completely understand why traditional auto makers are less comfortable allowing a car to be updated anywhere at any time, and why they might be less competent at securing the update mechanism.
It's not like physical car repair places have some amazing flawless track record either... Physical access and the servicing of electrical devices do not need to always go hand in hand in 2022.