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It’s May 9, 2026, and I’m tired of the word “feature.” In a recent car ad, a father took his hands off the wheel and smiled while the narrator called hands-free driving the vehicle’s newest feature. It got me thinking: most features today are expensive, unrepairable distractions.
Walk through any store and you’ll see what I mean. A refrigerator shows a live view of its contents on a screen, which is also an ad display when you’re not standing in front of it. A phone pushes AI tools that can insert you into group photos you never attended. A bicycle ships with electronic wireless shifting that needs firmware updates, charging cables, and a diagnostic app.
Then there’s every “AI assistant” that substitutes for actual thought. These are not features; they are upgrades to someone else’s revenue model.
I like simpler alternatives. I write in a paper notebook. I play an acoustic guitar that is basically a piece of wood with strings on it. And last week, I replaced a too-clever daily driver with a first-generation Honda CR-V: five-speed manual, all-wheel drive, and the best feature I have found in any car in years.
A table.
The rear seats fold down into a bed, a drawer under the passenger seat fits my wife’s knitting, and a cooler slides out from beneath the table when it’s not folded flat. Let me say that again, because car ads will never advertise this: this car came from the factory with a table. Not software. Not a subscription. A physical table.
That is the kind of feature I want to see return. A table is tangible. It is repairable. If a hinge breaks, you can buy a replacement at a hardware store and screw it back in. It does not have an update cycle. It does not track the food I’m eating. It brings me a small amount of joy every time I use it, and it will still be useful long after the car itself is gone.
The rest of the CR-V fits that same philosophy. Cruise control is conventional; the radio is an early-2000s Pioneer that is missing a knob, but the air conditioning is cold and the tires are new. None of it is flashy. All of it is understandable.
That matters because every feature is also a point of failure. If an autonomous-driving controller fails, you can’t fix it in the driveway. Even a competent mechanic often has to buy a replacement computer and pay for proprietary software. If my CR-V’s suspension needs a bushing, I can replace it with normal hand tools. If a steel bike fork cracks, I can either buy another for a reasonable price or have a friend weld it. Steel is real. Algorithms, on the other hand, are not.
Before you call me an anti-tech Luddite, I own an EV as well. But it is a bare-bones EV, not a smartphone on wheels. It has no app, no internet map, no subscription theater. It does have an “iPod mode.” I dug out the 2008 iPod I bought in high school, and it still works. A device that does one job and does it reliably is a feature too.
The broader market is finally catching up. Right-to-repair laws are now in effect or on the books in states including New York, Minnesota, Colorado, California, and Oregon. The EU is implementing its repair directive, which aims to make repairing goods easier and cheaper than replacing them. Repairability scores are being published for phones, laptops, washing machines, and even appliances. And according to the United Nations Global E-waste Monitor, worldwide e-waste hit 62 million tonnes in 2022 and is projected to reach 82 million tonnes by 2030. The fastest way to cut that number is to make products that can be opened, understood, and repaired.
Manufacturers will resist, because a table doesn’t generate recurring revenue. A hardware feature is sold once. A software feature can be updated, monitored, or monetized repeatedly. Planned obsolescence is not a bug in the current business model; it is the business model. That is exactly why consumers need to reward the old Honda approach.
For now, when the digital noise gets too loud, I drive to a quiet lookout, unfold the table from the back of my CR-V and watch the sun go down. No login. No update. No subscription. A flat piece of plastic doing exactly what it was designed to do. That’s the only feature that matters.
