Yep, I just picked the Prius because I posted stats about it <somewhere, maybe HN?> a few months back and got railed because "the Trans Am is cooler, man!" so I had the stats handy.
So your point is that the author's proposed enshitification has been recent and brief? I'll happily concede that cars getting larger and heavier is a blight, but that's been going on (in the U.S.) for at least twenty years, while many of the other points the author makes (and which I am dubious of) are just in the past 5 years or so. As one example, I'll happily take the pain of pairing over bluetooth over having to plug in to USB any day, and let's not even start comparing that to e.g. the cassette-simulator connectors of thirty years ago. :-)
It has been a process, and I don't know that it's an obvious line. Bluetooth is great, but cars dating back to 2012 had it. Funny enough, most cars with CarPlay aren't yet wireless, requiring USB connections.
If there's anything I'd point to as an obvious tipping point, I'd say it's switches and knobs that have been converted to touch controls. (for example, on my EV6, I have to use a touch control to toggle between radio controls and climate controls on the strip where you'd normally see them)
So your point is that the author's proposed enshitification has been recent and brief? I'll happily concede that cars getting larger and heavier is a blight, but that's been going on (in the U.S.) for at least twenty years, while many of the other points the author makes (and which I am dubious of) are just in the past 5 years or so. As one example, I'll happily take the pain of pairing over bluetooth over having to plug in to USB any day, and let's not even start comparing that to e.g. the cassette-simulator connectors of thirty years ago. :-)