Cost
Apart from the obvious, think about something like replacement. If your climate control or stereo buttons fail, it’s a cheap replacement. But the same cannot be said for the enormous infotainment system that is in these cars. A large sheet of glass tacked at the centre of the interior of a car is much easier to accidentally break than buttons and dials that they replace.
Once the infotainment breaks, many of the car controls are now inaccessible, so an immediate replacement is needed. And this replacement comes at a price, a high price at that! It almost seems like large infotainment systems are becoming a business strategy to make people pay more visits to the service centres, and buy their newer models more often.
Why? Because the very nature of digital technology is that they get updated very quickly. So what might look like cutting edge today will look very old in a few years down the line, such is, the pace of updates. While a smartphone or a laptop might last a maximum of 7 years or so, cars can last a very long time if proper care is taken (even 20-30 years!). It’s easy to make a car feel futuristic or outdated with these infotainment systems. And the bigger they are, the better they kindle this feeling.
