If you have to pay people to use your product, is it any good?

Soon, DIMO will require a $100/yr or $10/mo subscription per car for most users. With that, the R1 is now only $100 and comes w/ 6 months free.

Here's why it’s happening and why it’s a good thing 👇

Not only has the product improved to the point where it's worth paying for, but we've also seen enough evidence that users with no skin in the game are far less engaged, more likely to churn, and more likely to be extractive.

This change doesn't affect weekly baseline rewards directly, those continue.

Also, we advertised the AutoPi, R1, and Macaron as having 1, 2, and 3 yrs of free connectivity respectively. Anyone who purchased before today will get the free connectivity period they were promised.

AutoPi users likely noticed we never started charging them once they hit 12 months...

In the past, DIMO was challenging to use. Using a crypto wallet was difficult, installing the device was a pain, and the product experience once you did connect was limited.

Now the app is butter and installing an R1 takes 2 minutes.

We’re also rapidly adding new features and 3rd party apps that give users savings, safety, car longevity and more.

We do more than comparable apps that sell tens of thousands of similarly priced subs each month.

✅AI powered active monitoring
✅Teslas get up to $700 cash back on charging (other EV's soon)
✅Track location, tires, charging, speed, fuel, distance
✅Earn rewards
🔜 Savings on fuel, tires, maintenance
🔜 Alerts on fuel, tires, accidents, speeding

Other details about the subscription:
1. It's per car
2. Access to the DIMO Mobile app is included
3. The subscription is applied to devices supported by Digital Infrastructure Inc.

In other words, if our company is paying the SIM, providing support, and enabling the integration, we're charging for it.

Because DIMO is an open protocol, other companies (e.g., Kaufmann in South America) can create and sell devices with lower or free subscriptions.

Think of us like a cellular carrier like Verizon or AT&T and the R1 as a phone that we sell.

What else did we learn? Users with low-quality data and who did not have to pay had very high churn, did not engage, and really just siphoned rewards away from users who were engaged.

Also, we're adding upgraded ways to connect newer cars (2020+ that have built-in connectivity) without needing a dongle, but this will often cost us $5+ per car per month.

We learned that high-frequency, high-quality data is essential for nearly all DIMO apps. We can't provide a good experience on low-frequency feeds.