Someone paid €6,000 (~ KES 908,000) for an electric wheelchair and discovered it could go faster, but only if she paid an extra €99 (~ KES 15,000) to unlock the speed her wheelchair already had.
The hardware was sitting there, fully capable, just waiting for a software switch to flip. If she wanted Bluetooth control, she’d have to pay €600 (~ KES 91,000) more, despite requiring zero additional parts.
What’s shocking is that this is not a car with heated seats you can live without. This is a wheelchair. The device a person with multiple sclerosis needs to catch a bus before it leaves.
At the default 6 km/h, getting to the bus stop takes over four minutes. At the “premium” 8.5 km/h speed that’s already built into the hardware, it takes half that time. Independence costs KES 15,000.
The woman, an IT security specialist, reverse-engineered her Albert Emotion M25 wheelchair and found the restrictions laughably simple to bypass.
The security keys were literally QR codes stuck to the wheel hubs. She built an open-source Python toolkit that unlocked everything and gave her more control than the manufacturer’s paid app.
She could have just paid for the upgrades, but why should she? The wheelchair she bought for more than KES 900,000 was artificially crippled by software.
The “premium” model costs €8,000 (~ KES 1.2 million). Same wheelchair. Same motors. Same everything. The difference is which features the software lets you use.
Cars Are Doing the Same Thing
Last year, Auto Express reported that Volkswagen was now selling the ID.3 electric car in the UK with 201 horsepower instead of 228. Not because the car physically has less power, but because VW disabled it in software.
You can pay £16.50 (~ KES 2,900) per month to unlock the full 228 hp, or £165 (~ KES 29,000) per year, or £649 (~ KES 113,000) to unlock it permanently. This is a car that costs more than KES 6 million. The extra horsepower already exists in the hardware you purchased.
Mercedes-Benz pioneered this approach with its “Acceleration Increase” subscription for EQ models, initially charging $1,200 annually. BMW tried charging monthly for heated seats but backed down after customers revolted.
However, the trend is spreading because automakers see millions of drivers as a recurring revenue stream.
The problem isn’t just that it’s annoying. The problem is what it reveals about ownership. You can spend millions of shillings on a vehicle and still not control what it does.
READ: Jeep Owners Furious Over Ads That Appear Everytime Their Car Stops
The hardware is yours, but the software that activates it belongs to someone else, and that software is protected by copyright law.
The Law Protects Paywalls
In the US, circumventing digital locks is illegal under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, even on devices you own. Sharing instructions on how to bypass these locks can result in up to 5 years in prison.
The law doesn’t care if you’re pirating movies or unlocking a wheelchair you need to get to work.
When a developer created integrations connecting Mazda vehicles to Home Assistant, an open-source home automation platform, Mazda sent a cease-and-desist letter claiming copyright infringement. The developer’s code provided similar functionality to Mazda’s official apps, but Mazda argued it violated their copyright ownership.
While the DMCA technically allows owners to modify what they own, distributing tools to do it is illegal if it involves circumventing copyright protections. Modern cars are packed with copyrighted software.
American automakers are actively arguing in court that customers don’t fully own the vehicles they purchased, pointing to software licenses as justification for blocking right-to-repair laws.
You bought the car, but you’re essentially licensing the code that makes it work, and you can’t own someone else’s copyrighted code.
In simpler terms, software has turned ownership into a conditional arrangement. You possess the hardware, but manufacturers retain control over what it can do.
They argue these restrictions protect intellectual property and safety, but the wheelchair already operates safely when features are officially unlocked. Clearly, the limitation isn’t technical but commercial.
If paywalls work on wheelchairs, there’s no reason medical device manufacturers won’t apply them elsewhere. Software becomes a tool for extracting recurring payments from people who often have no alternatives.
For someone who needs a wheelchair, it stops being about convenience and becomes about whether they can catch a bus or cross a street before the light changes.
The same logic applies to cars. As vehicles become more software-dependent, whether electric or gas-powered, ‘paywalling’ features becomes trivial. The horsepower is already there. The heated seats are already installed. The only question is whether the software will let you use what you paid for.
Right-to-repair advocates are pushing to reform DMCA Section 1201 and promote open-source medical devices that can’t be remotely restricted after purchase. This way, they can restore actual ownership and prevent software from overriding basic functionality.
For anyone who gives a hoot, the question now isn’t whether digital paywalls will spread to more products. They already are. The question is whether anyone will stop them before paying extra becomes standard for essential features you already own.
