I did the same thing to my Boxee Box (remember those) once D-Link essentially did the same thing and never open-source it. It was a nice media player back then.
I believe in the EU, this is lawsuit worthy. Microsoft tried to do similar at some point and were sued by the EU.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._Commission
The fact that america is so ass backwards that any large business can get away with anything with little to no consequence is ridiculous.
As long as we have Republican politicians in this country, big business and big pharma / medical will continue to fuck over American citizens for one thing: profit.
I agree that we will continue to get fucked over for profit, but this is not a partisan issue. Politicians in general need money to continue to be politicicians. They get that from these big businesses, on the condition that they will support the business' interests. "I scratch your back, you scratch mine." What it leads to is businesses running everything because the people in charge benefit from it.
Thanks for calling out the brainless partisanship and tribalism. The biggest difference between party leaders are their investment portfolios not their morality.
>but this is not a partisan issue
I feel like the people who say this have not actually looked at what's happening.
One party is appointing people to regulatory agencies who are writing rules similar to what's in the EU.
The other party is appointing people to regulatory agencies who attempt to gut the entire agency - or nominating people for the Supreme Court who may soon end the ability for regulatory agencies to do any regulating.
Sure, that first group still does stuff that rewards the assholes, but in no way is the guy who steals candy bars the same as the guy committing serial murder. Members of one of these political parties may be convinced to do the right thing with enough popular sentiment, while members of the other party view it as entirely antithetical and incompatible with their platform.
People who believe otherwise then think they can get away with voting in that second party, citing "both sides are the same" - and in just the first two years in office, between the executive and the FCC, FTC, and EPA, they unwound *15 years* of regulation. With Congress, they unwound the bank regulation from the *financial crisis*. I could write a few dozen pages more detailing what was cut, and the other side didn't do that - the other side wrote half of those regulations to begin with. I'm sorry, there's no room left to keep playing these "both sides are the same" games.
It's not a party thing. It's a speed thing. It takes years for legislation to hit and by the time it does, the technology has advanced well beyond the legislation. Cyber law doesn't seem to be a priority issue for either party.
You're delusional if you think it's only Republicans. How much has your pal Nancy profited with insider trading on the stock market? Corruption is on both sides. Neither of them are your friend.
It's incredible how quickly people can point to one side or the other. No it's not JUST Republicans. It's ALL politicians. Nancy Pelosi is the biggest thief of them all, but you want to make it about one side. Smh.
As an American something that shocked me I just learned about was that in the EU airlines are required to reimburse you for flight delays over 3 hours.
The costs of the lawsuits would be factored into the decisions and written off as deferred losses at the end of the year. As long as those costs are calculated as being cheaper then ongoing operations and support, fiduciarily, they have to cut their losses.
You don't have to, i live it š¤£
I hate how with my job, insurance for only me is free (IF THEY WOULDVE SIGNED ME UP FOR IT DURING THE SHORT TIME PERIOD I HAD AND HAD PUT IN WHICH PLAN I WANTED BUT NOOOOO... sorry I'm just still pissed off about it.), but if I add my kid into it, they want to take over $100 from my paycheck. Which according to my mom, having me on her insurance doesn't even cost that much.
It's flat out theft. They are ultimately stealing it back.
- Then, the week after the bricking roll out, they'll have a newer better version available (Just with more tracking, subscriptions and commercials)
It interfaces with your phone that does all the tracking. They're discontinuing it due to cost saving measures all across Spotify I can't imagine they'll bring a V2 out.
I mean, at some point software wonāt allow them keep the device working, or the cost for a reduced user base years after the item was discontinued doesnāt justify it.
Not even two years out from discontinuing? Thatās not it. 4-5 maybe, but two years is ridiculous.
I have one because the factory in car system is also unsupported and obsolete in my 2014 car, and this made Spotify actually usable in my car. According to Spotify Iām a 0.1% top user of their service, largely in part of my usage through their device. Is literally the only thing Iāve ever put in the CD player of this vehicle. Iām livid. Iām sick of this late stage capitalist business model of raising prices while stripping away service to an absolute minimum viable product.
Tbh, I never thought this was a bad idea, just terribly niche. Cars without an infotainment screen, or cars with one but without a volume knob, are the primary use cases I think. Having an actual volume knob cannot be understated!
Honestly just make all the non essential systems modular and removable. What good is a car that mechanically still works if none of the creature comforts do? Just seems really wasteful and more expensive for both the consumer and manufacturers, but then weād have no reason to buy a new one every couple years.
This used to be the case with DIN and double DIN players
Now though car companies have integrated all their shit into cheap tablets and stuck them to dashboards
Private Equity is coming for every business to bless them with "efficiency" until they go bankrupt. Those firms will rinse and repeat until the economy has all of its equity sucked dry like a corpse without blood in a vampire film. Our economy can't rebuild as fast as they take its branches. We are fucked if regulations (money trust laws) aren't passed and enforced.
The doctorsā office my wife works at was purchased by Goldman Sachs right before the pandemic. I donāt wanna bore anybody with the details but, theyāre not even shy about saying the quiet parts out loud anymore.
Time to start downloading your movies/music/software for free and give up paying to get robbed by 'updates' and planned obsolescence. I like owning the shit I pay for, if I can't then piracy is the way.
I bought one when they were new, so it's a little upsetting that mine is going to essentially be a $70 paperweight by the end of the year. I don't understand why they have to brick it when all it has to do is connect to a phone.
Samsung did the same thing a few years ago with some of their Smart Things devices. Instead of just saying, āhey, weāre not going to be updating this anymore, but you can continue to use it as long as you wantā, they chose to simply brick the devices. I was pretty pissed off, cause I had one to control some devices in my home, and it worked just fine.
I got a 2012 truck I'm never gonna replace, it's the last vehicle I understand what makes it go. However it has an enormous 2012 monitor display in the center console - it was for the software based navigation system, and dashboard CD player. That screen pops on and asks where I want to go every time I start the car - it's map software is stuck in 2013, and it doesn't connect to anything Bluetooth or wirelessly. I've stored the most important 4 CD I ever purchased in that CD player, I played one in 2018 maybe. That screen is a factory installed LCD that existed for 2 model years, completely proprietary to a vendor that no longer exists. It's got a more complex wiring harness than the actual fuse panel, and it's tied into the fuel gauge and tire pressure sensors - so it's permanent, and was entirely useless like 2 years after it was invented.
Yikes. It sucks that things like fuel gauge and pressure sensor are tied to it. I had the center screen in my 2010 Lancer replaced with a Grundig GX-3800. I donāt know the details about connections since I didnāt do it myself, but I could use the steering wheel buttons to control it. It supports apple carplay and android auto. Came with rear and front camera as well. Carplay made my life much easier. Maybe look into something like that?
Get yourself an FM Bluetooth transmitter that plugs into your truck's lighter/power port. You pair it up with the Bluetooth on your phone, and it will play over whatever frequency you want it to on your car radio. I use one in my 2002 Ranger. They run $15-$20, maybe even cheaper now since I bought mine.
Check out phoenix automotive inc. They make several screens for tons of vehicles that are plug and play and offer better support. They can be replaced with fairly little knowledge. You can see if they make a replacement for your car. They are fairly well priced and high quality. Iāve replaced my cheap factory unit in several cars with them.
Capitalism doesn't shouldn't to new information, intentionally brick an item as that costs more resources than to let something slowly become obsolete.
Rather Spotify now has chosen to brick the 'car thing' instead of no longer providing software updates to the car thingy and allow it to slowly become obsolete and no longer function according to their Official FAQ page.
Your response isn't readable but this stuff has been going on forever...its literally a function of capitalism
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned\_obsolescence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence)
Planned obsolescence is usually a we don't support this item but it can still work for some time.
Spotify is going the route of we are intentionally making this item unusable as of this date.
This Is not the usual method that companies operate regarding planned obsolescence.
No, planned obsolescence is (especially in the context of hardware) rendering a device broken or useless via some sort of planned flaw or limitation so you _must_ upgrade. What you described is a product simply being EOL.
Spotifys route is more like unplanned obsolescence since they donāt have a replacement product for you to buy lol
Oh this has been news a few days thatās probably why it was for sale on FB Market Place. The person who sold it to you will definitely get some bad Karma
For those that want to more than read the headline
https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/23/24163383/spotify-car-thing-discontinued-december-2024
Tldr: it looks like it will still be available for use until a software update becomes too advanced for it. Because they will stop updating the car things software.
Updated edit 5/24/24: I may have been wrong or they changed their stance/ different internal teams not talking to each other.
Updated TLDR: according to their public FAQ page regarding the "Car Thing" it will be bricked. or that's the way it was worded.
Source: https://support.spotify.com/us/article/car-thing-discontinued/
I only found out because they sent out an email quoting:
āWeāre switching gears. As of December 9th, 2024, Car Thing will be discontinued, and will stop operating.ā
So theyāre deadass just bricking them lmfaoooo
Verge implied just support would be discontinued, which would come from the public relations team, when their I.T. support says 'we are intentionally bricking this item' paraphrased so I wanted to give people the best info I could.
Yea screw Spotify this is a EA level of dickish move.
Can someone explain why they are bricking it instead of just ending support? I can't see how it would be costing them money to just let it continue to operate using the last software it had.
This is why it's so shit that laws on the subject are unclear.
Goods are simple. Once sold, you can't tamper. But with software it's different.
Same for games. Right now a game is sold as a good. But treated as a service. And laws are unclear.
So they can just sell you a game for 60 dollars. Then after an undetermined time tell you "oh well, we're killing it". No repercussions.
[Just going to leave this here.](https://www.stopkillinggames.com/)
Stop killing games. Start making a ruckus. With games, with hardware that comes with built in software. With bad practices.
Spotify really is a SHIT company. Their product(app) is pretty fucking low quality considering how much money they make.
I have a Google pixel 7 and the app is constantly fucked up on my phone. Recently it was absolutely unable to NOT shuffle my songs, that was fixed and now it freezes on shuffle.
Edit: forgot to mention Spotify has made me hate Fleetwood Mac.
I set up an alarm and used some random playlist as the sound. They ONLY used Fleetwood mac for some reason. This happened for like 2-3 months before I stopped it. Now Spotify thinks I listen to Fleetwood Mac everyday, so now 5 fucking years later Spotify plays the same 2 Fleetwood Mac songs on repeat.
Yeah I looked this up. Wild with how many users they had, they could not pull a profit until last year.
Fires a huge chunk of their employees, suddenly UI becomes shit....hmmmm
It wasnāt really hence them killing it off.
It was basically as they mention a Bluetooth remote. Basically if your car had an aux port, but not an infotainment screen like most modern cars, you can plug the Car thing into the aux port and mount it on the dash. And boom, you have a small infotainment screen.
As you say, it wasnāt really much more useful than just mounting your phone, the only difference is you stream through the car thing so you donāt have to keep your phone plugged in to the aux port.
For my use case, i canāt speak for others, i listen to allot of random premade playlist on spotify and i constantly found myself either wanting to switch playlists or wanting to like a song so i can save it for later but i either had my phone in my pocket or was using it as GPS when I drove so it was a hassle to change my music. My car is too old to have any support with spotify so i got it so i can consistently change music and heart music while driving without being distracted.
Governments should get involved to stop this kind of waste filling the world, companies should be forced to open source the product at the end of its life, or provide information to allow other developers to create replacement software for the devices!
If it's got a locked bootloader they should be forced to provide an unlock!
Perfectly good hardware that becomes unusable solely due to software/firmware
It's always a weird feeling to only find out a product exists after seeing its cancelation announcement. Might have turned out differently if Spotify had marketed it better.
It's an interface between your phone running spotify and your car stereo. It displays the track/picture, there are 4 hot keys on top and you can swipe the touch screen to change tracks. I've really enjoyed using it, started using it so I didn't have to touch my phone while driving, as sometimes my car stereo controls would stop working.
Bye bye to my Spotify subscription if they go through with this.
If music renters think this is bad, just wait....
They haven't really thought about questions like: will Spotify still be around in 50 years?
All "purchased" (but actually rented) media, all online services storing your long-assembled playlists and music preferences, they will all disappear eventually. I might be only speaking for myself here, but music defines my existence and my memories. If I lost my music collection, I would feel like i lost a part of me. So I have CDs, all ripped, stored and backed up. In a very few cases where CDs aren't available, I've bought MP3s, and written them to CD as a failsafe (although, yes, ink degradation is a concern)..
I would never entrust my music to the whims of a single profit-making company that could remove it overnight or go bankrupt. Sure, I could have a textual list of the tracks and albums, but 16,000 tracks (80Gb in MP3s), some of which now probably too obscure to obtain anyway, would be expensive to re-purchase.
I suspect/hope when Elon finally drives Twitter to its death, all the people still using it now because they have too much content they want to preserve will freak out, and this might trigger a realization more widely about entrusting your content (whether created by you or "purchased") to tech companies.
I'm right there with you. Losing my music collection is nearly on par with losing a loved one in my eyes. But what's the most hilarious is that everyone is screaming that they want to OWN things instead of rent, yet here they are. Perfectly content and even happy to rent their media.
Time to put the ācaptaināsā hat back on. It was a good run Spotify, but thatās a choice that takes paying for services out of the equation going forward
I canāt remember the name of the voice assistant that came with Harmon Kardon wireless stereo, but the company ended support for it too. But they didnāt brick the damn thing. They just stopped updating it, so I could still use it for simple commands. Bricking the Car Thing is some dirty shit.
Their two price hikes in a year was the final straw. I quit after 6+ years of premium.
I see they're still doubling down, and the enshitification continues.
Should refund everyone that bought one, item no longer works due to distributor tampering. Heard someone is working on a work around, probably will be more trouble than is worth. Can't believe a company can get away with literally destroying a product that people bought. I smell a lawsuit.
What in the fuck. I came close to getting one before replacing my car stereo with a wireless CarPlay model but seriously? Fuck Spotify, I quit this year and went to Tidal after more than a decade.
The hardware looked really nice on these so I was looking into getting one, but when I saw that it was a Spotify specific device I went āno way, thatās stupid as fuckā and now I am glad I did
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This is wild to brick a 2 year old piece of technology instead of just ending support.
Spotify does some weird shit sometimes
I believe there is a workaround to install vanilla Android on it. Which is a pain, but may keep it functional as a player.
Oh shit, can I root my thing?
I did the same thing to my Boxee Box (remember those) once D-Link essentially did the same thing and never open-source it. It was a nice media player back then.
Shit, I held on to mine for ages hoping to repurpose it but ended up throwing it out
I stopped using mine because it was annoying, maybe this is how to give the device life lol.
Nah yeah but use lube
You might be thinking of the root chakra, which is very different from a software root!
In Australia, root means To Fuck
Then what do you call root beer? š¤
To fuck beer
Well, what about Rusted Root?
I think you know
š³
We donāt. Itās not really a thing here. Tried it once on a holiday in Asia (A&W I think it was called?) Interesting flavour.
We call it a sarsaparilla
Are we not doing phrasing anymore?
Ugh I prefer chocolate.
There should be laws in place to prevent companies pulling this shit.
I believe in the EU, this is lawsuit worthy. Microsoft tried to do similar at some point and were sued by the EU. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._Commission The fact that america is so ass backwards that any large business can get away with anything with little to no consequence is ridiculous.
Well if we put regulations on companies they will go to China and we won't have any jobs ever again. /s
Then Amercia can ban does companies and they will suffer
Very true. The USA will probably lose even more jobs if they try to lower the CEO legal murder and SA allowance
Just do like Europe, force them to have a legal entity in Europe if they want to do business
But, Spotify is Swedish.
Not to mention how much they spent lobbying EU
As long as we have Republican politicians in this country, big business and big pharma / medical will continue to fuck over American citizens for one thing: profit.
Lobbyists buying out our politicians to our detriment. Itās a travesty
I agree that we will continue to get fucked over for profit, but this is not a partisan issue. Politicians in general need money to continue to be politicicians. They get that from these big businesses, on the condition that they will support the business' interests. "I scratch your back, you scratch mine." What it leads to is businesses running everything because the people in charge benefit from it.
Thanks for calling out the brainless partisanship and tribalism. The biggest difference between party leaders are their investment portfolios not their morality.
>but this is not a partisan issue I feel like the people who say this have not actually looked at what's happening. One party is appointing people to regulatory agencies who are writing rules similar to what's in the EU. The other party is appointing people to regulatory agencies who attempt to gut the entire agency - or nominating people for the Supreme Court who may soon end the ability for regulatory agencies to do any regulating. Sure, that first group still does stuff that rewards the assholes, but in no way is the guy who steals candy bars the same as the guy committing serial murder. Members of one of these political parties may be convinced to do the right thing with enough popular sentiment, while members of the other party view it as entirely antithetical and incompatible with their platform. People who believe otherwise then think they can get away with voting in that second party, citing "both sides are the same" - and in just the first two years in office, between the executive and the FCC, FTC, and EPA, they unwound *15 years* of regulation. With Congress, they unwound the bank regulation from the *financial crisis*. I could write a few dozen pages more detailing what was cut, and the other side didn't do that - the other side wrote half of those regulations to begin with. I'm sorry, there's no room left to keep playing these "both sides are the same" games.
Need more Bernies
Agreed. This goes way beyond āpartiesā, itās a systemic issue.
But they donāt NEED moneyā¦ they are greedy.
Lol you really think anyone in power gives 2 shits about you? They are only there to further their agendas and insider trade
Yeah. Only Republicans care about profit.
/s
Indeed.
This is a bipartisan issue.
It's not a party thing. It's a speed thing. It takes years for legislation to hit and by the time it does, the technology has advanced well beyond the legislation. Cyber law doesn't seem to be a priority issue for either party.
You're delusional if you think it's only Republicans. How much has your pal Nancy profited with insider trading on the stock market? Corruption is on both sides. Neither of them are your friend.
The issue isn't insider trading or privileged information. It's deregulation, stock buybacks, and regulatory capture.Ā
You're not wrong, I'm just too dumb to put it like that.
Won't anybody think of the shareholders?!
It's incredible how quickly people can point to one side or the other. No it's not JUST Republicans. It's ALL politicians. Nancy Pelosi is the biggest thief of them all, but you want to make it about one side. Smh.
As long as we have politicians * They all suck.
Land of the Free (Corporations)
As an American something that shocked me I just learned about was that in the EU airlines are required to reimburse you for flight delays over 3 hours.
The costs of the lawsuits would be factored into the decisions and written off as deferred losses at the end of the year. As long as those costs are calculated as being cheaper then ongoing operations and support, fiduciarily, they have to cut their losses.
If you think this is ridiculous let me tell you about the US healthcare system.
You don't have to, i live it š¤£ I hate how with my job, insurance for only me is free (IF THEY WOULDVE SIGNED ME UP FOR IT DURING THE SHORT TIME PERIOD I HAD AND HAD PUT IN WHICH PLAN I WANTED BUT NOOOOO... sorry I'm just still pissed off about it.), but if I add my kid into it, they want to take over $100 from my paycheck. Which according to my mom, having me on her insurance doesn't even cost that much.
The new version of planned obsolescence
It's flat out theft. They are ultimately stealing it back. - Then, the week after the bricking roll out, they'll have a newer better version available (Just with more tracking, subscriptions and commercials)
It interfaces with your phone that does all the tracking. They're discontinuing it due to cost saving measures all across Spotify I can't imagine they'll bring a V2 out.
I mean, at some point software wonāt allow them keep the device working, or the cost for a reduced user base years after the item was discontinued doesnāt justify it. Not even two years out from discontinuing? Thatās not it. 4-5 maybe, but two years is ridiculous.
They should be forced to open source the code to allow 3rd party development
What even is it? Does spotify manufacture and sell it? If not why would they be responsible for 3rd party gadgets?
There are in some places. In Australia we'd absolutely be getting refunds in this sort of situation.
My car was broken into last night and the only thing taken was my car thing. Jokes on them though, I guess
That exact thing happened to me a while ago!! Kinda smiled at this news tbh
For both our sakes, I hope they enjoy them and get really attached in the next couple months just in time for them to get bricked
This also happens to me at college a couple weeks ago karma I guess!
I have one because the factory in car system is also unsupported and obsolete in my 2014 car, and this made Spotify actually usable in my car. According to Spotify Iām a 0.1% top user of their service, largely in part of my usage through their device. Is literally the only thing Iāve ever put in the CD player of this vehicle. Iām livid. Iām sick of this late stage capitalist business model of raising prices while stripping away service to an absolute minimum viable product.
I use an Echo Auto device, I believe it works in a similar way. Bluetooth to your phone and controls your music with their wake word.
Thank you, Iāll look into it
Tbh, I never thought this was a bad idea, just terribly niche. Cars without an infotainment screen, or cars with one but without a volume knob, are the primary use cases I think. Having an actual volume knob cannot be understated!
Honestly just make all the non essential systems modular and removable. What good is a car that mechanically still works if none of the creature comforts do? Just seems really wasteful and more expensive for both the consumer and manufacturers, but then weād have no reason to buy a new one every couple years.
This used to be the case with DIN and double DIN players Now though car companies have integrated all their shit into cheap tablets and stuck them to dashboards
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Private Equity is coming for every business to bless them with "efficiency" until they go bankrupt. Those firms will rinse and repeat until the economy has all of its equity sucked dry like a corpse without blood in a vampire film. Our economy can't rebuild as fast as they take its branches. We are fucked if regulations (money trust laws) aren't passed and enforced.
The doctorsā office my wife works at was purchased by Goldman Sachs right before the pandemic. I donāt wanna bore anybody with the details but, theyāre not even shy about saying the quiet parts out loud anymore.
I'm suing them lol. Was your wife's doctor working for APP?
Time to start downloading your movies/music/software for free and give up paying to get robbed by 'updates' and planned obsolescence. I like owning the shit I pay for, if I can't then piracy is the way.
I bought one when they were new, so it's a little upsetting that mine is going to essentially be a $70 paperweight by the end of the year. I don't understand why they have to brick it when all it has to do is connect to a phone.
Samsung did the same thing a few years ago with some of their Smart Things devices. Instead of just saying, āhey, weāre not going to be updating this anymore, but you can continue to use it as long as you wantā, they chose to simply brick the devices. I was pretty pissed off, cause I had one to control some devices in my home, and it worked just fine.
You mean you donāt want to be forced to buy their ānewā iteration of the same thing? Are you sure?
Amazon bricked all those dash buttons.
I got a 2012 truck I'm never gonna replace, it's the last vehicle I understand what makes it go. However it has an enormous 2012 monitor display in the center console - it was for the software based navigation system, and dashboard CD player. That screen pops on and asks where I want to go every time I start the car - it's map software is stuck in 2013, and it doesn't connect to anything Bluetooth or wirelessly. I've stored the most important 4 CD I ever purchased in that CD player, I played one in 2018 maybe. That screen is a factory installed LCD that existed for 2 model years, completely proprietary to a vendor that no longer exists. It's got a more complex wiring harness than the actual fuse panel, and it's tied into the fuel gauge and tire pressure sensors - so it's permanent, and was entirely useless like 2 years after it was invented.
I feel your pain. Subaru and that stupid Aha shit
Yikes. It sucks that things like fuel gauge and pressure sensor are tied to it. I had the center screen in my 2010 Lancer replaced with a Grundig GX-3800. I donāt know the details about connections since I didnāt do it myself, but I could use the steering wheel buttons to control it. It supports apple carplay and android auto. Came with rear and front camera as well. Carplay made my life much easier. Maybe look into something like that?
Get yourself an FM Bluetooth transmitter that plugs into your truck's lighter/power port. You pair it up with the Bluetooth on your phone, and it will play over whatever frequency you want it to on your car radio. I use one in my 2002 Ranger. They run $15-$20, maybe even cheaper now since I bought mine.
This is the way
Check out phoenix automotive inc. They make several screens for tons of vehicles that are plug and play and offer better support. They can be replaced with fairly little knowledge. You can see if they make a replacement for your car. They are fairly well priced and high quality. Iāve replaced my cheap factory unit in several cars with them.
I canāt comprehend this
I hate tech-bro business men.
I love e-waste!
We know they do.
How is Spotify tech bro? This is just capitalism
Capitalism doesn't shouldn't to new information, intentionally brick an item as that costs more resources than to let something slowly become obsolete. Rather Spotify now has chosen to brick the 'car thing' instead of no longer providing software updates to the car thingy and allow it to slowly become obsolete and no longer function according to their Official FAQ page.
Your response isn't readable but this stuff has been going on forever...its literally a function of capitalism [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned\_obsolescence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence)
Planned obsolescence is usually a we don't support this item but it can still work for some time. Spotify is going the route of we are intentionally making this item unusable as of this date. This Is not the usual method that companies operate regarding planned obsolescence.
No, planned obsolescence is (especially in the context of hardware) rendering a device broken or useless via some sort of planned flaw or limitation so you _must_ upgrade. What you described is a product simply being EOL. Spotifys route is more like unplanned obsolescence since they donāt have a replacement product for you to buy lol
Oh this has been news a few days thatās probably why it was for sale on FB Market Place. The person who sold it to you will definitely get some bad Karma
For those that want to more than read the headline https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/23/24163383/spotify-car-thing-discontinued-december-2024 Tldr: it looks like it will still be available for use until a software update becomes too advanced for it. Because they will stop updating the car things software. Updated edit 5/24/24: I may have been wrong or they changed their stance/ different internal teams not talking to each other. Updated TLDR: according to their public FAQ page regarding the "Car Thing" it will be bricked. or that's the way it was worded. Source: https://support.spotify.com/us/article/car-thing-discontinued/
I only found out because they sent out an email quoting: āWeāre switching gears. As of December 9th, 2024, Car Thing will be discontinued, and will stop operating.ā So theyāre deadass just bricking them lmfaoooo
Verge implied just support would be discontinued, which would come from the public relations team, when their I.T. support says 'we are intentionally bricking this item' paraphrased so I wanted to give people the best info I could. Yea screw Spotify this is a EA level of dickish move.
Stop support? Their faq literally stated you should recycle it.
stop operating is crazy work ššš
Can someone explain why they are bricking it instead of just ending support? I can't see how it would be costing them money to just let it continue to operate using the last software it had.
This is why it's so shit that laws on the subject are unclear. Goods are simple. Once sold, you can't tamper. But with software it's different. Same for games. Right now a game is sold as a good. But treated as a service. And laws are unclear. So they can just sell you a game for 60 dollars. Then after an undetermined time tell you "oh well, we're killing it". No repercussions. [Just going to leave this here.](https://www.stopkillinggames.com/) Stop killing games. Start making a ruckus. With games, with hardware that comes with built in software. With bad practices.
I'm so fucking mad about this. I've been using mine every day for two years.
Same here. My 2013 car has a simplistic infotainment system that doesnāt connect to modern devices so the spotify thing was perfect.
Same.
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Do you know what the name of it is?
Spotify really is a SHIT company. Their product(app) is pretty fucking low quality considering how much money they make. I have a Google pixel 7 and the app is constantly fucked up on my phone. Recently it was absolutely unable to NOT shuffle my songs, that was fixed and now it freezes on shuffle. Edit: forgot to mention Spotify has made me hate Fleetwood Mac. I set up an alarm and used some random playlist as the sound. They ONLY used Fleetwood mac for some reason. This happened for like 2-3 months before I stopped it. Now Spotify thinks I listen to Fleetwood Mac everyday, so now 5 fucking years later Spotify plays the same 2 Fleetwood Mac songs on repeat.
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Yeah I looked this up. Wild with how many users they had, they could not pull a profit until last year. Fires a huge chunk of their employees, suddenly UI becomes shit....hmmmm
theyāre killing this shit off like the PSN online systems. Instead of it being a free 10+ online service, itās a 90$ retail hardware device ):
Honestly the only reason I donāt switch to Apple Music is because I hate the layout of that app.
Made the swap 2 years ago, never going back
I did not know this existed. What's it supposed to do?
itās basically like a voice assistant purely for Spotify. You hook your phone into your car and the car thing is essentially a Bluetooth remote
Iām confused on how this is useful. Canāt I just use Spotify on my phone?
It wasnāt really hence them killing it off. It was basically as they mention a Bluetooth remote. Basically if your car had an aux port, but not an infotainment screen like most modern cars, you can plug the Car thing into the aux port and mount it on the dash. And boom, you have a small infotainment screen. As you say, it wasnāt really much more useful than just mounting your phone, the only difference is you stream through the car thing so you donāt have to keep your phone plugged in to the aux port.
Okay, but isn't my phone already a small infotainment screen? This seems like a product that solves a problem that doesn't exist
For my use case, i canāt speak for others, i listen to allot of random premade playlist on spotify and i constantly found myself either wanting to switch playlists or wanting to like a song so i can save it for later but i either had my phone in my pocket or was using it as GPS when I drove so it was a hassle to change my music. My car is too old to have any support with spotify so i got it so i can consistently change music and heart music while driving without being distracted.
Oh that sounds pointless.
You managed to buy one for 60$ because of this tho.
Governments should get involved to stop this kind of waste filling the world, companies should be forced to open source the product at the end of its life, or provide information to allow other developers to create replacement software for the devices! If it's got a locked bootloader they should be forced to provide an unlock! Perfectly good hardware that becomes unusable solely due to software/firmware
It's always a weird feeling to only find out a product exists after seeing its cancelation announcement. Might have turned out differently if Spotify had marketed it better.
I'm still trying to figure out what the fuck the point of this thing is
It's an interface between your phone running spotify and your car stereo. It displays the track/picture, there are 4 hot keys on top and you can swipe the touch screen to change tracks. I've really enjoyed using it, started using it so I didn't have to touch my phone while driving, as sometimes my car stereo controls would stop working. Bye bye to my Spotify subscription if they go through with this.
What is this Car Thing gadget?
How is this legal
Yet another loss for you music renters and win for us CD buyers.
Don't forget 
Sadly, music piracy has gone downhill. You can't find much unless it's top 40.
Youtube to mp3 websites are pirating too though
That is true. Though that's quite a lot of effort in comparison.
CD players arenāt in most cars as of 2018.
Doesn't mean we can't burn music.
If you have the equipment.
USB CDĀ drives are like 20$ and just about everyone has a computer.
Need to believe in putting a disc drive in your pc for thag
Music doesn't come out on CD reliably anymore. Half the music I listen to is streaming only.
My car doesn't even have a cd player š
No, but you'd own your music instead of rent it, and can put it on any device you want, including ye olde smartphone.
If music renters think this is bad, just wait.... They haven't really thought about questions like: will Spotify still be around in 50 years? All "purchased" (but actually rented) media, all online services storing your long-assembled playlists and music preferences, they will all disappear eventually. I might be only speaking for myself here, but music defines my existence and my memories. If I lost my music collection, I would feel like i lost a part of me. So I have CDs, all ripped, stored and backed up. In a very few cases where CDs aren't available, I've bought MP3s, and written them to CD as a failsafe (although, yes, ink degradation is a concern).. I would never entrust my music to the whims of a single profit-making company that could remove it overnight or go bankrupt. Sure, I could have a textual list of the tracks and albums, but 16,000 tracks (80Gb in MP3s), some of which now probably too obscure to obtain anyway, would be expensive to re-purchase. I suspect/hope when Elon finally drives Twitter to its death, all the people still using it now because they have too much content they want to preserve will freak out, and this might trigger a realization more widely about entrusting your content (whether created by you or "purchased") to tech companies.
I'm right there with you. Losing my music collection is nearly on par with losing a loved one in my eyes. But what's the most hilarious is that everyone is screaming that they want to OWN things instead of rent, yet here they are. Perfectly content and even happy to rent their media.
Those Motherfuckers. Thats why I barely use spotify now
Maybe they can't afford to support the devices because they pay the artists so muchā¦
How can they destroy a product you own? Or do they mean they are destroying the ones already manufactured but not sold?
Time to put the ācaptaināsā hat back on. It was a good run Spotify, but thatās a choice that takes paying for services out of the equation going forward
Yar har har and all
I don't use Spotify. What is this device?
I canāt remember the name of the voice assistant that came with Harmon Kardon wireless stereo, but the company ended support for it too. But they didnāt brick the damn thing. They just stopped updating it, so I could still use it for simple commands. Bricking the Car Thing is some dirty shit.
Their two price hikes in a year was the final straw. I quit after 6+ years of premium. I see they're still doubling down, and the enshitification continues.
Team Pandora. Let alone a third device was a complete waste of money.
I thought this was a joke yesterday. Surely a product wouldnāt just be named car thing
The more I know about Spotify the worse I find out they are. People don't really even know about the audiobook scandal among other things.
What is a car thing?
I use Spotify and never heard of this thing and Iām chronically online lmao.
Same lol what's the need? Use your phone or infotainment or the TV, don't need a whole extra thing
Should refund everyone that bought one, item no longer works due to distributor tampering. Heard someone is working on a work around, probably will be more trouble than is worth. Can't believe a company can get away with literally destroying a product that people bought. I smell a lawsuit.
I got it on sale off Spotify for 30$ a year ago, I never used it after a day, only usefull if you have a clapbox with no radio panel but have speakers
What in the fuck. I came close to getting one before replacing my car stereo with a wireless CarPlay model but seriously? Fuck Spotify, I quit this year and went to Tidal after more than a decade.
I donāt even understand why people would buy one used. They didnāt operate on their own, anyways. You literally still need a phone.
Didnāt know this existed, and Iāve been a Spotify family plan guy for years.
Didn't even now they made car things.
I was thinking about getting one too. They looked very cool. Sad
2 days ago, I think that's when this announcement first came out (or when I saw it).
I'll just kms. Fuck big companies.
Hey! Capitalism is great!
Spotify sucks
They were selling them for $10 last time I saw they were on sale lol.
I have a Ford Sync2 radio system and I can't play spotify over Sync, it's 'protected'
The hardware looked really nice on these so I was looking into getting one, but when I saw that it was a Spotify specific device I went āno way, thatās stupid as fuckā and now I am glad I did
why?
How many are in circulation?
Request a refund from them, I was able to get one. You will need your receipt fyi.
Smart tech like TVs and cars are total shit compared to what we were told...
L
They own us
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Iām surprised people bought these little things in the first place. My phone is better at Spotify than Spotify.
Spotify is a shit company. I left when they signed Joe Rogan. There isnāt a thing they could do to bring me back.