AlexandrB
> Thank you for being on this journey with us, safe travels.

I miss the era when I was a customer paying for a product. Now I'm apparently some kind of traveller that's on a journey with dozens of companies as they try to find local maxima of profit.

mkopec
I firmly believe that permanent key fusing to lock bootloaders should be outlawed. At the very least the keys (and schematics) should be released once the device reaches EOL.

Otherwise we're just manufacturing e-waste.

smallerfish
If anybody at Spotify with the influence to make it happen is reading this: please publish an open source firmware loader (or specs to build one, or similar) to allow community driven projects to be developed on this hardware. You'd gain a lot of good will by doing this.
probably_wrong
> What should I do with the device?

> We recommend resetting your Car Thing to factory settings and safely disposing of your device following local electronic waste guidelines.

It's not everyday that the manufacturer of a working product tells you "throw it in the trash". I wish someone would force them to make a recall instead.

ryukoposting
It would be easy to flip a couple GitHub repos to "public" and call it a day.

It would be easy to wipe proprietary IP from the latest version, shove whatever's left in a ZIP file, and upload it somewhere online.

It would be easy to do literally nothing except publish instructions on how to wipe the flash. That alone would be enough to allow some clever people online to get a normal Android installation onto these things.

Somehow, all of these options are too much for Spotify to stomach. Shameful.

Honestly, I forgot Car Thing even existed. I hardly remembered it at all. Given how my car is over 20 years old and I make extensive use of Spotify while driving, I imagine I was probably the target audience for Car Thing. Makes me wonder if Car Thing's biggest problem was marketing.

Raed667
Spotify stopped making Car Thing around July 2022 [0] But the device has also been jailbroken for a couple of years now [1] It even runs Debian [2]

[0] https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/27/23280357/spotify-stops-ma...

[1] https://github.com/err4o4/spotify-car-thing-reverse-engineer...

[2] https://github.com/bishopdynamics/superbird-debian-kiosk

big_dinghy
Spotify only offers chat support via its website. Attempts to receive a refund have been met with request for customer location and receipt. Support mentions the backend team will reach out by email, "after a few hours." No followup has been sent after 24 hours and requests for update.

As a decade-long Spotify premium user, I am disappointed by this poor experience and wastefulness. Over the course of using their product, there have been few new, impactful features. I do not believe the company can offer a compelling service at their pricepoint and will seek alternatives.

392
I was suspicious when they advertised on sale for $30 last year. Maybe Lina Khan will peruse the emails that lead to that clearance.

Though it's no surprise Spotify failed at hardware given their general software competency. Broke the Chromecast app for years after the big mobile redesign. Not sure how it's possible to have such bugs in an app that shows three buttons, a progress bar, and a picture, but 2,000 engineers will find a way. Liked page on the phone app doesn't even load with bad service, which is like your umbrella not opening in the rain.

Anyone know of alternatives, even alternative clients?

mkeedlinger
There are so many examples of this. It's been hard to express and advocate for my severe distrust of proprietary garbage (my choice of words isn't hyperbole in this case) to others around me. But with so much of this race to the bottom, I can't help but wonder: how much will consumers take?

I'll admit, my FOSS prefering, DIY leaning use of tech is tedious, but is it worse than dealing with the churn companies force you (and your wallet) to deal with?

collinmcnulty
Don’t worry, by breaking your device, we’re allowing us to focus on what we want to do.
rightbyte
How can such an expensive thing be deprecrated in two years? It seems malicious. IoT devices need to come with some sort of "works until" or something.
rkangel
This largely feels like a failure of consumer protection. Perhaps my understanding of the legal situation is wrong but as a UK resident - regardless of additional warranties provided or not provided by the vendor - products should work for a "reasonable" length of time and you are entitled to replacement or refund if they fail.

Obviously I would expect an electronic device like this to last more than 2 years, so if Spotify is going to cause it to stop working then they'd have to refund me. Having to do that for their entire customer base would probably result in some different decision making!

Obviously this product was only sold in the US (AFAIK), which has much less in the way of consumer protection, which allows for this crappy treatment of consumers.

djc6
I've really enjoyed using the Car Thing in my 14 year old Mazda CX9. My car shows no signs of failing, so I don't anticipate replacing it anytime soon for one with Carplay.

The Car Thing is so much more convenient than unlocking iPhone with my face, opening spotify, futzing around on the phone to change songs or playlists or whatever. And its easily accessible to my passenger. Its a far better interface than phone for use in the car! Its one of the main reasons I haven't switched to Apple Music which is bundled with my cell phone plan. I guess Spotify just wants me to got to Apple Music.

ClarityJones
It's one thing to discontinue selling the product.

It's another to discontinue service (i.e. Music) to the product.

Did the hardware generate a lot of support requests?

Does it require too much engineering to keep secure with updates, etc.?

squarefoot
Incidentally, I just installed Navidrome on my Alpine Linux server for test, and it's currently scanning all my local music library. The heck if I'm going to depend to any proprietary device/format that is going to become a brick, then e-waste, as soon as the company behind it makes it obsolete. Happened a million times and will happen again.

https://www.navidrome.org/

Yes, I would totally push for legislation forcing manufacturers to unlock bootloaders and release tech info when they stop selling devices, so that hardware can be repurposed; landfills are already full of perfectly functioning stuff that could be put again in operation if manufacturers weren't so stubbornly hostile to anything Open Source.

Aeolun
I think at some point we’re going to have to start regulating this. You can’t just sell people some piece of hardware and then make it unuseable a few years later.
luxuryballs
I like how they don’t actually answer the “why” question, “streamlining” is not an answer. They basically said because we’re changing things and this is one of the things we’re changing. Not being snarky but imo it would have been better PR copy to just not have the question at all.
dgellow
Off topic, but I cannot resist to comment on that line under the headline:

> By Chris Welch, a reviewer specializing in personal audio and home theater. Since 2011, he has published nearly 6,000 articles, from breaking news and reviews to useful how-tos

So 13 years, that’s around 460 publications per year. That sounds pretty high, you would have to be writing non stop for more than a decade. I know nothing about the tech new industry but is that realistic or just a fantasy?

Always42
Rant: I have all my shitify notifications turned off in the app. But, I still get those obnoxious "concert near you" banner that pushes the display down (changing all the button locations that I have memorized) and doesn't disapeered ubtil you click the tiny x.

It drives me bonkers.

I pay for family and am considering moving everyone to deezer out of spite

skhameneh
I don't have one of these and and this irritates me as a Spotify subscriber.

The least they could do is credit accounts with Spotify Premium, for those that bought these devices.

client4
I was always surprised car thing didn't have an aux out, it would have made it so much more useful for older cars.
joshl32532
And EU is totally fine with this?

Should force them to open source it.

djc6
Here is a poll on Spotify's community asking to open source it - already almost 800 "signatures":

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/Car-Thing-Develo...

snapcaster
What are the actual practical nuts and bolts problems with making bricking devices like this illegal? Someone in comments mentioned licensing contracts and things that might require them to but that seems resolvable. This seems so anti-social, anti-environment and not even benefitting them selfishly. Just a waste
micromacrofoot
It seemed clear they were at end of life when they started selling them for next to nothing last year.

We really need legislation to unlock devices like this when they reach EOL, the hardware here is very simple and could easily be reused.

peterallport
I have never had confidence in Spotify's roadmap.
Nextgrid
What's most disgusting is the tone and wording of the e-mail linked in the Reddit post. It reads like they're outright delighted to be breaking your 90-dollar piece of hardware. Not even a fake apology. Tech bros are getting more and more brazen.

That email would be fine if they were just discontinuing a feature of their ongoing service - it's disappointing, but you got value out of it while you were paying for it and now we're stopping and won't charge you any further.

But this is a stand-alone piece of hardware that they sold without an explicit expiry date, in a product category (car audio) that generally lasts decades (as they are solid-state devices with no moving parts) and now they're outright making it useless 2 years later without any refunds.

throwaway4220
It’s ok because they “deeply appreciate” our “support” (money).

What the hell does this even mean?

I was happy with this on my old civic. Now I’m switching to tidal.

sbarre
What I always find so disappointing in these scenarios is when companies are too chicken-shit to just give a reasonable honest explanation to requests like open sourcing this to avoid them all turning into e-waste.

It feels like adding insult to injury for everyone who put faith in the product/company.

I've been a long-time premium subscriber of Spotify, but I've already decided I will never buy a hardware device from them (even before Car Thing came out) or do something like pay annually for their services, because I don't trust their commitment to anything for more than 30 days at a time at this point.

efilife
> We're discontinuing Car Thing as part of our ongoing efforts to streamline our product offerings. We understand it may be disappointing, but this decision allows us to focus on developing new features and enhancements that will ultimately provide a better experience to all Spotify users.

But we just don't care. And what are you going to do?

ryanmcbride
apparently they're rootable so maybe some hobbyists will still be able to squeeze something cool out of the hardware (unlikely) but this is so malicious. https://www.xda-developers.com/spotify-car-thing-root/
imzadi
So, how much did people pay for these devices that are now worthless?
joshstrange
I think it’s about time for me to give Apple Music another try. I don’t care for the direction that Spotify has been going over the last few years, especially with podcasts and audiobooks in the app. Spotify is a blight on the podcast ecosystem. I really don’t like Spotify‘s attitude towards Apple and cutting off their own nose to spite their face (See AirPlay 2) and the only reason I was still using Spotify is some of the UI/UX, which has gotten worse and worse over the last few years.

At one point I cared about the ability to integrate nicely with my Amazon echoes (it was much nicer than the Apple Music integration at the time) which I’ve been replacing with Sonos speakers anyways, which support AirPlay 2.

pjfin123
Someone should jailbreak it and publish a method for installing Linux on the hardware
talldayo
Remind me why I shouldn't be able to put my own version of Android on this again?
ejj28
Really upset by this, I love my Car Thing and the voice control Spotify built into it is second to none - it's quick, always hears me perfectly even with noise in the car, and most importantly, it actually plays what I want it to play.

It seems like it's integrated with my music history, so if I ask it to play a song that I listen to a lot but it has a very common name, it'll still get it right - it's like magic.

Google Assistant is absolute trash in comparison, even on the (rare) occasion that it finds the right song, it's super slow and half the time it won't even start the music. And good luck asking it to play a song that shares a name with a movie, it'll think you're trying to play the movie.

Really disappointed that Spotify is going to stop me from using a piece of hardware that I paid for, and by making me switch to Google Assistant is going to make listening to music in the car hell.

matt3210
They cant open source it, I think, because it's filled with stolen open source code.
aworks
I retired my Car Thing three months after purchasing. All of the functionality was better on my phone with the exception of a large, tactile button.

I didn't expect any refund here but it does remind me of when Apple bought lala, the music streamer, for their track upload technology to be added to iTunes. I eventually got a check from Apple refunding the $25 I paid that had enabled the ability to play tracks more than once, in this case, 100 of them. I wasn't expecting anything but it was a nice gesture.

The Spotify experience continues to remind me I miss lala (and rdio).

Exx-on
Yeah this is absolutely sh*t news to be getting in an email from Spotify...

I use my CarThing as dedicated Spotify controller for my desktop PC and they're just straight up making it a paperweight rather than leaving in the current level of support for it so it could still function in the future without the need for constant updates (not that there ever seemed to be any anyway).

I hope they think again and reconsider either making it open source as people have suggested or just leaving the current level of functionality.

They will loose a lot of followers if they go down this road and potentially also get quite a lot of bad press.

rickdeckard
I frankly don't get what's so complicated for Spotify to keep this thing running as-is. CarThing is a web application running on Chrome within a stripped-down Android core with 512MB RAM.

What happened, vulnerabilities which are not disclosed now?

I got one on sale a year ago, it's a really well-built nice device, would be great if they open-source the missing parts of it (the GPL'd kernel was released some time ago, but it's not the latest I think)

charles_f
My favorite part of the announcement

> This decision wasn't made lightly

"We thought long and hard about the money we make and the stuff we sold our customers, and frowned when we realized we prefer the former"

> and we want to assure you that our commitment to providing a superior listening experience remains unchanged

That is: unless you are using car thing, in which case your experience will become much worse

polotics
Are there not already "right to repair" laws that clearly give the user of a legally purchased device that stops functioning because of a defect (even if the defect's origin is that Spotify has defectuous management) the right to repair that device?

I do not see how the right to repair does not mandate that Spotify publish any and all keys and documentation to allow the purchased devices to be repaired.

RIGHT?

adamfeldman
If you paid with PayPal you can still file a dispute there. The seller in the U.S. was called Luzern (working on behalf of Spotify).

EDIT: don't waste your time, PayPal auto-denied it because it's been >180 days since the transaction ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

neilv
"So you're bankrupt and can no longer provide the product you sold? Is this just a legal switcheroo, or is your C-suite team really to the point of personally being out on the street, with their pockets turned out empty?"

"Oh, goodness, no! We're doing great! But we already took that money, and we know our customers are too weak and airheaded to put law enforcement or regulators on us, nor to sue us for more than a free Big Mac coupon settlement received only after several years of foot-dragging. And most all of you pathetic worms will keep paying us money. If you can't hear us laughing at you, that's because you're plugged into one of our other products like a mindless zombie."

elintknower
This was a stupid product to begin with. It solved a non-existent problem and had to... pair to your phone to work anyways which begs the question... why not literally just use the spotify app on your phone?
mvdtnz
How could they discontinue this product due to low demand when it was released to market in February 2022 and discontinued in July 2022? It wasn't on shelves long enough to assess demand.
ProjectArcturis
I guess Spotify has made the strategic decision not to pursue the consumer car market and instead to cede that space to Sirius. Because this absolutely poisons the well against anyone buying hardware from Spotify again.
edude03
I knew this would happen when they had a fire sale on these - but surprised that it won't work at all anymore. Hope they open source the firmware, unlock the boot loader so nerds like us can do something with it
dagurp
Unrelated but what's going on with the cookie prompt on this site. There's a bunch of cookies used for advertising that you cannot say no to. I can't imagine that this is allowed.
tiborsaas
What the hell are they discontinuing? The hardware won't change. Streaming MP3 shouldn't be rocket science that requires 50 engineers.

Even if the internal API-s change, can't they just create mappings the devices need? They are not even willing to put that effort in.

So sad to see software companies treat hardware as a failed hobby project then flat out say customers to bring their devices to an e-waste dump like they do in their FAQ.

csiegert
Mail the device to Spotify’s headquarters. Better, a Swedish artist should build a memorial made of these devices in front of Spotify’s headquarters.
rappatic
How much work could it possibly be to simply deprecate the software, let alone open-source it? Flipping the switch to break every existing device is frankly malicious.
yreg
binkethy
I don't know why folks would grow a dependency upon a middleman between you and your music collection.

What's wrong with a usb pen drive full of tunes?

You get to keep the files!

ChildOfChaos
This is infuriating. I bought the CarThing for a Christmas present for someone just six months ago.

I understand it was no longer supported at the time, but there is no reason why it couldn't still function as a controller, there solution is just to throw it away?

Hate the PR speak here "This decision wasn't made lightly, and we want to assure you that our commitment to providing a superior listening experience remains unchanged."

So what superior listening experience are they committed too exactly? When all they are doing is lowering the experience?

internet101010
Would be nice if they just open sourced it but that would require Spotify to allow playback control outside of their terrible, janky apps.
IronWolve
Any state AG want a class action lawsuit, bricking a device I use seems like a crime of some kind.
wink
At first I thought it was an Onion headline, as if "Car Thing" was a real name...
boesboes
Spotify, another great example of the VC funded tech cancers that came to disrupt and turned out to be even worse then what came before…

We deserve this shit, because we keep buying into it

beardyw
I am not clear where the sound comes from. Does the thing itself have speakers?
yareal
It's surprising to me that people see examples like this and somehow still think, "well, it's one bad apple. One bad decision from one company" rather than a systematic problem with incentive structures.

Capitalism, and particularly capitalism that emphasizes profit, warps incentives away from building things for people.

And we have other functioning models! Open source is about as close to anarchist theory in practice as there is, for example. "Wellbeing for all" isn't some pipe dream we could never achieve, FOSS is built on the principle of "I'll build it, use it if you like. Help me if you can."

phkahler
When IoT means InOperable Technology! :-)
jensenbox
Spotify: the new Sonos
friend_and_foe
Friendly reminder that if a you agree to a terms of service for a hardware device you don't own it.

It's one thing for software to be a service. Hardware? No thanks. I will never, ever "buy "something still controlled by the manufacturer after I take it home, and I discourage everyone from doing so.

whstl
"If purchase isn't ownership, then stealing remotely-brickable devices isn't theft."
rhplus
Not surprising, given the awkward position the product was in, targeting customers who don’t already have CarPlay or Android Auto (lower end of the market), but are also willing to pay for Spotify Premium and a good smartphone data plan (higher end of the market).
meindnoch
[flagged]
dwb
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somnic
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