Second is "I pay $50 once to unlock heated seats in my car forever. This car now has heated seats and anyone that I sell it to also gets heated seats"

Third is "I pay $5/month for heated seats for the entire time I own the car. Anyone that I sell the car to would also have to pay $5/month for heated seats."

Edit: The other version of the third option (your BMW account is not tied to this vin) is something like "I pay $50 once for heated seats in my car. If I sell it to someone, they also have to pay $50 to unlock the heated seats"

Third seems slightly better, cause at least the secondary buyer clearly knows it's $5/mo instead of having to make sure the one-time payment sticks.

In fairness, the second method should probably be implemented with an e-fuse. That way once it's paid, there's no taking it away.

Yeah, otherwise I don't trust it.

Probably the same sentiment between DLC vs Expansions in gaming.

But fundamentally no difference because you are getting a discounted price in exchange for the soft locked feature. So 2 and 3 are the same imo.

I'm not asking what's the conceptual difference, I just don't get what the two options are. Is #2 one-time purchase and #3 subscription?