[GLGirty]

That doesn't sound conspiratorial at all. All sorts of features drift from being 'luxury items' to 'no one will buy a car without it.' In my life time time this has happened with air conditioning, power windows, heated seats. To say nothing of mandated safety features.

I think the way auto makers have 'trained' their customers is by removing the granularity of customization. Back in the day, every possible option could be tweaked when you ordered a new car. I knew a family that ordered their van with (standard) upholstery seats in the front, but cheaper vinyl seats in the back (because small kids with drinks).

You can't cherry pick features now, you just get 3 or 4 trim packages: base / standard / luxury / luxury + sport. And base is so punishingly sparse it only exists to lower the 'starting at' price in ads.

And that level of indoctrination is nothing compared to the 60 years long campaign to keep most urban development zoned as car-centric sprawl.