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Spotify won't open-source Car Thing, but starts refund process

271 points by nickthegreek 2y ago

deleted 2y ago
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dang 2y ago
Recent and related: Spotify Car Thing will be discontinued - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40456644 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40456644 - May 2024 (229 comments)
livinglist 2y ago
Just messaged their support team and was able to get a full refund.
LorenPechtel 2y ago
Thought here: They're bricking rather than simply discontinuing support. Does that perhaps mean there's a problem with the device? Unpatchable security flaw perhaps?
post_break 2y ago
Tried requesting a refund, after an hour of chatting with different reps I got told they would email me at a later date.
RIMR 2y ago
Okay, so they won't open-source their software. Big whoop. Nobody needs that. The Car Thing has already been rooted. It runs Linux. There's a clear path towards a custom firmware: https://oddsolutions.github.io/Spotify-Car-Thing-Root/ https://oddsolutions.github.io/Spotify-Car-Thing-Root/
vletal 2y ago
Wasting perfectly good hardware like that is a shame. I hate that companies are allowed to use just ever so slightly different designs of their products every generation. We are over regulating SW companies, because it feels free, it's just a software. Why can not we force the biggest HW developers to make sure that devices can share spare parts across generations AND preventing them from bricking perfectly good devices?
bluetidepro 2y ago
The title should be updated to say they may refund, it's not official, as stated in the article. A bit misleading. > A Spotify spokesperson declined to confirm to Ars if Spotify would offer full refunds to everyone who showed proof of purchase or if there were further requirements. The representative said that owners should contact Spotify via the above link about refunds. > The email doesn't explicitly guarantee refunds, though...
advael 2y ago
This is really a clear place for robust regulation. No company has a genuine incentive to ever give up proprietary designs in the current environment, even for devices they no longer sell or support. Places that do are going against the grain of investment capital, and their commitments are often broken when they are acquired I think a simple rule could easily suffice here: All firmware and schematics must be made available to regulatory agencies to put a device containing a digital computer on the market at all. That info can be sealed until a device is no longer sold, except for devices that need to meet higher safety standards (cars, medical devices, some kinds of home automation, definitely anything operating heavy machinery or infrastructure), in which case this is made publicly available as soon as the device goes to market Also, repeal DMCA 1201 in its entirety. The government has no obligation to protect business models with the force of the state We already enforce safety and environmental standards on manufactured products. This is a no-brainer
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
dangus 2y ago
I propose that owners of the Car Thing mail it to Spotify headquarters for “recycling.”
kpierce 2y ago
I asked for a refund and they offered 7 months of Spotify. I said no I need a replacement for the screen then they said the refund will be sent to the card I pay for premium in the next 14 days.
cushpush 2y ago
They put a Spotify logo on the thing, and they don't trust any of us to improve the brand image
cushpush 2y ago
@Spotify open source this.
metmac 2y ago
Premium customer since 2013. Spotify would only give a refund in the form of Spotify Premium credits. And ironically canceled my subscription in the process of giving me the credit. SMH. Likely will GitHub Actions export my playlists and let the subscription expire. I feel Spotify is really losing sight of its core competencies and its actual value proposition at this point. Will be interesting to see how this shakes out. Spotify was amazing in recent years for 3 reasons: 1. Early pioneers in good ML based music taste making aided by teams of people who knew the various genres. 2. Spotify’s ability to do this well came from its strong investment in metadata which gave them a corpus of insight into what people listen to and why. Somewhat analogous to the rich tagging TikTok does to its videos on support of FYP. 3. The ubiquitous and continuous client support made it so easy to bring Spotify everywhere, that any alternative was going to mean more friction. In a way Spotify Connect is their iMessage blue bubbles moat. The ubiquitous and branded clients available on tons of hardware and every OS was their social contract. It was cool to use Spotify and not cool to be an Apple Music or Tidal user. The slow but continued atrophy of client support only builds distrust in this narrative. And that gap is closing when compared to other services.
- metmac 2y ago
  3.1 - Car Thing was likely never going to be profitable but it was continued investment in that social contract. You can bring a Spotify UI everywhere. Even places where maybe it wasn’t needed or already served. But kept the mind share of its customer base. I used mine on my desk for example and was asked about it constantly.
stephenlindauer 2y ago
This is why I refuse to buy hardware from software companies. Facebook Portal, I’m looking at you.
pornel 2y ago
They're taking a loss, and a reputational damage from this. This seems irrational. They could have just left the old software to languish. Could there be more to this? Maybe the Car Thing's DRM has been completely broken? Record companies want to license cars/things differently?
djc6 2y ago
I reached out to them to get a refund for my Car Thing - and they actually sent me an email asking for my checking account number and routing number to be sent to them VIA EMAIL. And presumably into their ticket system where future hackers will find a nice collection of financial info. I wonder if their CISO or security team is aware of this, I reached out to address found in https://www.spotify.com/.well-known/security.txt https://www.spotify.com/.well-known/security.txt Here is response I received: Hello there, Thanks for reaching out to us via messaging. Your case has been escalated to the highest tier of Customer Support here in Spotify. All communication within this email thread will be from the Escalation team from now on. We can see that you've already sent a proof of purchase via chat. About refunding, please share the following details with us: - Bank name - Bank Location - Account Holder Name - Routing & Account no - SWIFT - A screenshot of the required bank details on your online banking or bank letter (if it's possible). Make sure to hide any sensitive payment information like your full card number for your security. We'll keep an eye out for your response so we could sort this out. Kind regards, XXXX Escalations Team - Spotify Customer Support
- kuschku 2y ago
  > they actually sent me an email asking for my checking account number and routing number to be sent to them VIA EMAIL Is that an actual issue with US accounts? Over in EU it's common to publish your account number (IBAN) and routing code (BIC) on your website, letterhead, and obviously on bills you send to customers so they can pay you. They should only be able to send you money, not use it to request money, right?
  - hamandcheese 2y ago
    Nope. My utility company and also Verizon withdraw from my checking account, and all they needed was the account number, routing number, and my name. No further verification. For that reason, I have two checking accounts, and don't keep large sums of money in the account I use for payments.
    - alvarlagerlof 2y ago
nickthegreek 2y ago
I used the support link provided. They tried to give me 3 months of premium instead of a refund. I declined. They replied: >Thank you for waiting! As I can only suggest you for free Premium in your account. The actual Car Thing refund is done by the specialty advisors, so I'll create a case related to your issue and transfer it and the right team will get back to you through email. Sounds good? So I am now waiting for an email.
- dylan604 2y ago
  This sounds like you're using a support chatbot. Of course they're not going to allow the chatbot to authorize refunds.
  - nerdawson 2y ago
    The slightly clumsy wording would indicate to me that it's a real person rather than a chatbot.
    - dylan604 2y ago
      That slightly clumsy wording is what made me think it was a chatbot
      - Gasp0de 2y ago
        We live in a time where AI chatbots speak way better english than outsourced support workers in 3rd world countries.
        mgkimsal 2y ago
        unless the bots have been trained on outsourced support worker chat threads?
        jakjak123 2y ago
        I dont like this timeline
giancarlostoro 2y ago
I wonder if there's licensing issues with them doing so? Like I assume they didn't make all the hardware and firmware involved. Kind of a shame when companies do this. I also wonder how long till the hacker community starts hacking these things any way? Seems like a worthy device to hack, though I can't imagine there's millions of these out there. I'd love to buy a 2nd hand one and install custom software on it if someone builds said firmware. Hell, if Spotify had open sourced this and still sold them, I might have bought a first hand one. I would just be streaming my Apple music to it instead. ;)
- 2f0ja 2y ago
  fairly certain they used this: https://w.dspconcepts.com/ https://w.dspconcepts.com/, they used to have Spotify listed a a client. I'm guessing they cannot open source for this reason (it's not their code to open source)
- dylan604 2y ago
  The count down to an HN post of Car Thing runs Doom has now started
  - ihuman 2y ago
    Someone already did that https://x.com/justmaku/status/1584442208203087872 https://x.com/justmaku/status/1584442208203087872
    - zztop44 2y ago
      There must be a rule of that. If you think someone will probably make it run DOOM someday, someone already has.
    - dylan604 2y ago
      ...and of course they did! I didn't actually expect it to be playable with the knob control like that, so I'm actually even more impressed. I was just expecting it to compile and run, but not necessarily play.
- 2y ago
Philip-J-Fry 2y ago
Are they just banking on people not caring enough or knowing about the refund process? Clearly it can't be better off for them to refund hundreds of thousands maybe even 1m+ people. We need laws that step in to make this impossible. Hardware should be designed so that it can be reused. Make it so that people can just reflash the memory at a minimum. There's no reason for something like this to become e-waste. And the excuse being Spotify wanting to protect their brand should not stand.
- marcosdumay 2y ago
  It's a face saving move. They decided to just kill the thing less than 2 years after the launching. But people got angry, and having regulators look at them is way more expensive than refunding their customers. That said, yes, they will probably also make the process as hard as they can get away with it. Anyway, have some popcorn, this one got quite interesting.
- sgerenser 2y ago
  Did they actually sell 1m+ of these things? I think the reason they’re killing it is they hardly sold any.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago
  > Make it so that people can just reflash the memory at a minimum Letting the 0.1% of geeks who know how to and are interested in spending time on it reflash their hardware doesn't actually solve the problem in any meaningful way.
- complaintdept 2y ago
  Write your elected representatives, preferably by snail mail (they take it more seriously that way). With Right to Repair being talked about so much right now, the time could be right to get this into the public mind. Car Thing could be what nucleates anti bricking legislation.
  - bravetraveler 2y ago
    Conversely, stop voting for people that need coerced to their job. I know this is reductive - save your fingers. Write, but do the not-vote-thing if they don't listen. The desire to not be hoodwinked has already been expressed. Just not this specific way. Or, expressed more positively I guess, vote for those who don't need goaded to do the obviously good thing.
dylan604 2y ago
"Some remain frustrated by the scheduled obsolescence of hardware that was only released to the general public in February 2022. Car Thing first released to a limited number of subscribers in October 2021." What is the purpose of this device in the first place? In 2021/2022, smart phones with bluetooth or usb/audio cables were in full effect which is how I'm assuming >99.999% of users use Spotify. Were there Spotify users that had cars during the recent 3 years that had cars with radios that were incompatible with bluetooth or aux inputs that made this device desirable?
- murillians 2y ago
  Car Thing was only a remote for your phone's Spotify app. It was targeted towards people that had bluetooth or aux inputs to their car's stereo, but not Apple CarPlay or Android Auto that allowed you to control Spotify directly through the radio.
  - m-p-3 2y ago
    I don't have Android Auto but I can at least control my phone media playback through the head unit and the steering wheel controls over bluetooth. I suspect this was mainly for people who only have the ability to send audio to their head unit without actual controls in some older cars.
    - bonestamp2 2y ago
      That's one use case. The other use case is people who want a dedicated Spotify display in their car. It's especially nice in a new car because you can have your Nav or something else on your car screen and have a second display for your music. Yes, you can also use your phone for that, this is just another option.
    - nemothekid 2y ago
      I think it was more so for people who want a dedicated spotify app - as in they want to go through their likes, playlists and radios without using their phone.
  - 2y ago
Ekaros 2y ago
I have to admit at least Google handled the Stadia well in this regard. The money just got refunded to me without me taking any action at all.
- ActionHank 2y ago
  Both were pretty lame tbh. What would be ideal is to open up devices to be flashed with custom FW or OS installs and some rudimentary docs on doing so. That would be enough for the community to run with it if there is sufficient demand and value.
  - eurleif 2y ago
    Stadia controllers got to be reflashed as standard Bluetooth controllers. I still use mine.
    - mystcb 2y ago
      Refreshed before typing this because I realised someone might have beaten me to it! - But that's a big difference here - even though the service is gone, you got the refund and still a usable device as a controller out of it... Spotify has taken something that could be used generically too, and just decided to brick it. Insert something about product and consumers and how its all just some big money game or something somewhere :D
      - ActionHank 2y ago
        Spotify should have the ewaste generated by this decision accounted for when considering any ESG benefits or grants.
    - ActionHank 2y ago
      My bad, that's pretty legit on Google's part!
    - jsheard 2y ago
      It's worth noting that for some reason there's a deadline for flashing the generic Bluetooth firmware onto a Stadia controller though, you have to get it done before the end of this year if you have one gathering dust. https://stadia.google.com/controller/index_en_GB.html https://stadia.google.com/controller/index_en_GB.html
internet2000 2y ago
[flagged]
- crazygringo 2y ago
  Besides the EU having zero jurisdiction over it, the word you're looking for is "deafening".
- popey 2y ago
  Probably because the Car Thing was never made available outside the US.
- addandsubtract 2y ago
  It was never sold in the EU...?
newzisforsukas 2y ago
https://old.reddit.com/r/carthinghax/ https://old.reddit.com/r/carthinghax/
n3xus_ 2y ago
[flagged]
- sarchertech 2y ago
  It’s better than the what most marketing departments put out. Would you prefer “Spotify Edge HD by Spotify”.
  - Apocryphon 2y ago
    It's possible for there to be different categories of bad tech names.
- 1f60c 2y ago
  It is a ridiculous name, but I think it's intriguing without being overpromising and that's why they went with it.
ChildOfChaos 2y ago
I'm out of luck. I bought the car thing via a third party as I'm in the UK where it was never sold. I get that is the risk of such things, i.e if the device malfunctioned I wouldn't be able to do anything, but it's still Spotify's decision that has hurt me, what's worse is this was a gift.
throwaway48476 2y ago
If every customer is entitled to a refund then why isn't it automatic and automated? There needs to be a term for this kind of malicious refund policy that does everything possible to prevent you from claiming it.
- cududa 2y ago
  Small anecdote: I've had Spotify premium for 12 years now. Back in 2020 I got a rather large prepaid debit card. I put a couple low dollar subscriptions on there. Spotify being one of them. Card ran out of money. So Spotify instantly shifts me down to the free plan, after 1 failed payment, and deletes all the songs I synced to my phone until I update my card on file. Which was supremely obnoxious on mobile (but that's because I signed up for Spotify with Facebook, and 8 years after breaking FB SSO OTP code generation on mobile they still haven't fixed it) No grace period, no warning that my payment failed and I was being downgraded. Just a big old full screen pop-up warning me that if I continue into the free version, it would immediately delete all my playlists. Paying customer for 12+ years, with 12+ years of playlists. Had I not read the small print and just clicked "continue" it would've deleted ALL of that. Even after updating my payment method, and not having pressed "continue" (to the free plan) I had to re-sync all the songs I'd already downloaded. They're a very user hostile company, and I've never had the slightest bit of sympathy in their fight with Apple, and this is a pretty good reinforcement.
- elaus 2y ago
  The account in another comments makes it clear why it's done like that: To get a refund you not only have to talk to support (i.e. spending quite some time in some chat interface), then escalate the issue (talking to another support agent once more) and THEN you might get your money. I guess only a very small fraction of people will do this, making it a very cheap way for Spotify to stop any negative press regarding this issue.
  - strunz 2y ago
    I didn't have to escalate anything, just provided my receipt
  - 2y ago
milankragujevic 2y ago
https://oddsolutions.github.io/Spotify-Car-Thing-Root/ https://oddsolutions.github.io/Spotify-Car-Thing-Root/ https://github.com/err4o4/spotify-car-thing-reverse-engineering https://github.com/err4o4/spotify-car-thing-reverse-engineer...
- kennydude 2y ago
  This would be great if it were easier to do as it would make for quite a nifty, if not very weird Android device by the looks of things!
standardly 2y ago
spotify is a garbage software, for android it auto-plays in the car and there is nothing you can do to stop it except uninstalling the app
barbariangrunge 2y ago
If you sign up for the ad free tier, you’ll still get spammed by ads injected during podcasts, much more than if you use a free podcast app Also, there are privacy issues: https://mashable.com/article/spotify-user-privacy-settings https://mashable.com/article/spotify-user-privacy-settings
jdoss 2y ago
I am pretty bummed that they are discontinuing it and not open sourcing the hardware. I use mine at my desk every day to control my desktop Spotify and it is pretty nice having hardware controls for my music. Shame on Spotify.
- tra3 2y ago
  I’ve been trying to buy one for months. Glad I didn’t. I was going to use it for the same purpose as you. I just love that knob. Wonder if I there’s something open source out there.
  - jonah 2y ago
    I missed buying one for $30 when they were clearing them out a while ago and recently decided I wanted one for my car so started looking on eBay - they're going for at or more than the full, original price! Maybe with this EOL announcement, the prices will drop and I can pick one up cheap to repurpose for something else.
    - tra3 2y ago
      well I was going to use it for Spotify, but without official support it's going to be a pain. Unless someone's already hacked it.
      - einsteinx2 2y ago
        It’s already rooted. Here’s the GitHub repo if you’re interested in rooting yours: “frederic/superbird-bulkcmd” It looks like it might be difficult to write custom applications for it though based on this info in the GitHub readme: “At this point we had full u-boot access, as well as persistent ADB (root) access, we initially wanted to try to bring-up Android Automotive on the device, but 500 MB of RAM made Android near-impossible to port. We also tried to get other GUI applications cough maybe doom cough running, but this device utilizes a QT feature called EGLFS, which doesn't have a window management system like X11 or Wayland, so it is hard to get additional applications running on the device, but hey, maybe someone in the community can get it working using the access we're providing!”
sentrysapper 2y ago
As someone that doesn't own, but rents cars for errands, the Car Thing made perfect sense. Instead of spending several minutes trying to find a good station or pair my phone, which wasn't always an option, I could pop that in a vent and start jamming.
honeybadger1 2y ago
I am going to make it political because I have never liked companies that peacock, appealing to social justice causes, but this is a staple case of why I feel this way. Companies, like Spotify only do these types of things to soften their dominant business tactics, just like Google, just like Amazon, etc. They appeal to emotion just like politicians appeal to emotion with religion or social justice causes in their speeches to soften their image so they get away with the decisions based on who they actually are and how they really feel later or when rubber meets actual road. Spotify is just a business interested in doing things that make them the most money possible and they have a history, like others, to appeal to people with social peacocking to soften their image while being so dominant in the market.
qwerty456127 2y ago
Looks a nice gadget to have jailbroken - I would rather try this rather than refund.
haraldchristoph 2y ago
[dead]
jmull 2y ago
The title seems a little misleading… the article is largely about how unclear the refund process is to customers. Clearly Spotify sees Car Thing as a mistake. That’s ok, mistakes happen. But they should really be working to make sure customers aren’t paying the price for their mistake (as much as is feasible, anyway). It sure doesn’t sound like they are doing that. BTW, there could be code in there they don’t have the right to open source, so I don’t know whether to judge them on that aspect of it or not.
- xp84 2y ago
  [edited to add] it seems to me from other posts seen here that (A) the firmware is floating around already and (B) at 500MB of RAM, underpowered CPU, and considering the other serious limitations of the device, I don't even know if it is likely to be worth somebody's time to put in the work to make a CFW. Personally it seems much more fun to use an off-the-shelf SBC to build a cool project than to try to shoehorn something into this awful little computer. But maybe that's just me. -- Following is my original comment written before I knew much -- It seems to me like the bare minimum would be enough to take the heat off: Publish a quick and dirty flashing tool, and leave the binary of the firmware available. If people want to disassemble the firmware they have plausible deniability to the patent holders involved, and if nerds want to devote time to reverse engineer it and make a custom firmware image, they can figure it out themselves. After all, part of the fun of such a project is the challenge.
zackmorris 2y ago
A slightly different take: https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/30/spotify-begins-offering-car-thing-refunds-as-it-faces-lawsuit-over-bricking-the-streaming-device/ https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/30/spotify-begins-offering-ca... Context: https://fortune.com/europe/2023/12/04/daniel-ek-to-slash-bloated-spotify-headcount-by-17-after-blasting-staff-for-doing-work-around-the-work/ https://fortune.com/europe/2023/12/04/daniel-ek-to-slash-blo... https://thehill.com/homenews/media/4444678-joe-rogan-deal-spotify-youtube/ https://thehill.com/homenews/media/4444678-joe-rogan-deal-sp... https://fortune.com/europe/2024/04/29/daniel-ek-salary-spotify-ceo-178-million-shares-2024/ https://fortune.com/europe/2024/04/29/daniel-ek-salary-spoti... https://musictech.com/news/industry/spotify-ceo-daniel-ek-compares-low-royalty-payouts-to-professional-sportss/ https://musictech.com/news/industry/spotify-ceo-daniel-ek-co... Spotify is under constant fire due to its low royalty payout rates. Ditto reports that an artist receives $0.003 – $0.005 per stream on average, with 30 per cent of those royalties going to Spotify. Spotify paid out $48 billion to the music industry, paid out $250 million to Joe Rogan and Spotify CEO Daniel Ek cashed out $118.9 million in shares - which combined with the rest of the Spotify executives totaled $250 million in stock sales. Whereas: https://www.wired.com/story/what-soundcloud-created-can-never-die/ https://www.wired.com/story/what-soundcloud-created-can-neve... If Spotify is happy to brick hardware that customers paid good money for, then is it valid to ask if Spotify should be bricked? Is Spotify doing good by its streamers? Is Spotify a positive force for new music discovery and promoting promising talent, or is it embracing long tail effects to maximize its own profits and those of its cronies in the music industry? How does the situation change if everyone cancels their Spotify membership in protest, or sells short the SPOT stock? How does the situation change if the majority of shareholders and paying customers demand that the entire Spotify board is thrown out so that Spotify can be restructured in favor of streamers, employees and listeners? Could a few hackers and makers, perhaps with the help of some benefactors who won the internet lottery, throw together a p2p app that negates the need for Spotify's existence? Are any of these questions unreasonable, given the recent behavior of Spotify? The predictable nature of all of this makes me wonder why the disruption model stops at a handful of people getting morbidly rich at everyone else's expense.
jhp123 2y ago
I wonder if this is connected to the layoffs they've had. Cancelling marginal product lines and focusing on core competencies sounds great in theory, but the actual process can be messy and generate ill will. An "overstaffed" company is surely more likely to "go the extra mile" in a way that customers will often remember (e.g. by assigning a skeleton crew to maintain this thing or open source it).
- stevenae 2y ago
  Imagining some parallel to the adage, "the only people who will remember how late you worked are your family". Something like, "the only people who will remember the products you cut are your customers"?
Bluestein 2y ago
"Bricking" should be a crime.-
neilv 2y ago
Doesn't Spotify already know which Car Thing devices have been used, by which people, and the contact/billing info of most of those people? If so, then why making people contact them? And also bumping people away from normal customer support, to "specialty advisors"? This isn't looking like good faith. Is Spotify's market position now strong enough that they don't have to care what people think of them?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
Anthony-G 2y ago
When I read stories about companies like Spotify creating e-waste like this, I think it’s worth pointing out that commercial companies don’t have to behave this way. As a counter-point, back around 2008, I purchased two Squeezebox music players from Logitech (digital music players that Logitech had acquired from Slim Devices: high quality DACs that supported every audio format, gap-less playback, synchronised playing on multiple devices, and were very configurable). They discontinued these products four years later (2012) but kept their mysqueezebox.com online service running up until the start of this year (2024). They kept the user forums running and archived the knowledge-base wiki. Most importantly, they open-sourced the stand-alone server software for running a local Squeezebox server and continued to pay the main developer to maintain the project for more than a decade after they discontinued the products. He’s still the lead developer and project maintainer of the server software, now called Lyrion Music Server: https://lyrion.org/ https://lyrion.org/ Correction: the stand-alone server software was always open source, specifically GPLv2. In addition to the audio quality and features, that was one of the selling points for me. It being written in Perl, meant that it was both cross-platform and easy to run on a GNU/Linux system.
- semi-extrinsic 2y ago
  Logitech seem to be crazy about user support somehow. I had one of their old Harmony IR remote controls, and when they discontinued the software used for programming the older generations of remotes, they sent me a brand new remote free of charge.
  - zelo 2y ago
    I put my Logitech MX keyboard in the bag with few other things and one of the keycap broke off. Completely my fault. Since the key mechanism was intact I have told their support what happened and asked if they sell replacement keycaps and got completely new keyboard for free. Great support but I was left with mixed feelings since I still had almost completely working keyboard and I think the experience would be better if they would send me just the keycap.
    - deleted 2y ago

271 points by nickthegreek 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

dang 2y ago

Recent and related: Spotify Car Thing will be discontinued - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40456644 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40456644 - May 2024 (229 comments)

livinglist 2y ago

Just messaged their support team and was able to get a full refund.

LorenPechtel 2y ago

Thought here: They're bricking rather than simply discontinuing support. Does that perhaps mean there's a problem with the device? Unpatchable security flaw perhaps?

post_break 2y ago

Tried requesting a refund, after an hour of chatting with different reps I got told they would email me at a later date.

RIMR 2y ago

Okay, so they won't open-source their software. Big whoop. Nobody needs that. The Car Thing has already been rooted. It runs Linux. There's a clear path towards a custom firmware: https://oddsolutions.github.io/Spotify-Car-Thing-Root/ https://oddsolutions.github.io/Spotify-Car-Thing-Root/

vletal 2y ago

Wasting perfectly good hardware like that is a shame. I hate that companies are allowed to use just ever so slightly different designs of their products every generation. We are over regulating SW companies, because it feels free, it's just a software. Why can not we force the biggest HW developers to make sure that devices can share spare parts across generations AND preventing them from bricking perfectly good devices?

bluetidepro 2y ago

The title should be updated to say they may refund, it's not official, as stated in the article. A bit misleading. > A Spotify spokesperson declined to confirm to Ars if Spotify would offer full refunds to everyone who showed proof of purchase or if there were further requirements. The representative said that owners should contact Spotify via the above link about refunds. > The email doesn't explicitly guarantee refunds, though...

advael 2y ago

This is really a clear place for robust regulation. No company has a genuine incentive to ever give up proprietary designs in the current environment, even for devices they no longer sell or support. Places that do are going against the grain of investment capital, and their commitments are often broken when they are acquired I think a simple rule could easily suffice here: All firmware and schematics must be made available to regulatory agencies to put a device containing a digital computer on the market at all. That info can be sealed until a device is no longer sold, except for devices that need to meet higher safety standards (cars, medical devices, some kinds of home automation, definitely anything operating heavy machinery or infrastructure), in which case this is made publicly available as soon as the device goes to market Also, repeal DMCA 1201 in its entirety. The government has no obligation to protect business models with the force of the state We already enforce safety and environmental standards on manufactured products. This is a no-brainer

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

dangus 2y ago

I propose that owners of the Car Thing mail it to Spotify headquarters for “recycling.”

kpierce 2y ago

I asked for a refund and they offered 7 months of Spotify. I said no I need a replacement for the screen then they said the refund will be sent to the card I pay for premium in the next 14 days.

cushpush 2y ago

They put a Spotify logo on the thing, and they don't trust any of us to improve the brand image

cushpush 2y ago

@Spotify open source this.

metmac 2y ago

Premium customer since 2013. Spotify would only give a refund in the form of Spotify Premium credits. And ironically canceled my subscription in the process of giving me the credit. SMH. Likely will GitHub Actions export my playlists and let the subscription expire. I feel Spotify is really losing sight of its core competencies and its actual value proposition at this point. Will be interesting to see how this shakes out. Spotify was amazing in recent years for 3 reasons: 1. Early pioneers in good ML based music taste making aided by teams of people who knew the various genres. 2. Spotify’s ability to do this well came from its strong investment in metadata which gave them a corpus of insight into what people listen to and why. Somewhat analogous to the rich tagging TikTok does to its videos on support of FYP. 3. The ubiquitous and continuous client support made it so easy to bring Spotify everywhere, that any alternative was going to mean more friction. In a way Spotify Connect is their iMessage blue bubbles moat. The ubiquitous and branded clients available on tons of hardware and every OS was their social contract. It was cool to use Spotify and not cool to be an Apple Music or Tidal user. The slow but continued atrophy of client support only builds distrust in this narrative. And that gap is closing when compared to other services.

metmac 2y ago
3.1 - Car Thing was likely never going to be profitable but it was continued investment in that social contract. You can bring a Spotify UI everywhere. Even places where maybe it wasn’t needed or already served. But kept the mind share of its customer base. I used mine on my desk for example and was asked about it constantly.

stephenlindauer 2y ago

This is why I refuse to buy hardware from software companies. Facebook Portal, I’m looking at you.

pornel 2y ago

They're taking a loss, and a reputational damage from this. This seems irrational. They could have just left the old software to languish. Could there be more to this? Maybe the Car Thing's DRM has been completely broken? Record companies want to license cars/things differently?

djc6 2y ago

I reached out to them to get a refund for my Car Thing - and they actually sent me an email asking for my checking account number and routing number to be sent to them VIA EMAIL. And presumably into their ticket system where future hackers will find a nice collection of financial info. I wonder if their CISO or security team is aware of this, I reached out to address found in https://www.spotify.com/.well-known/security.txt https://www.spotify.com/.well-known/security.txt Here is response I received: Hello there, Thanks for reaching out to us via messaging. Your case has been escalated to the highest tier of Customer Support here in Spotify. All communication within this email thread will be from the Escalation team from now on. We can see that you've already sent a proof of purchase via chat. About refunding, please share the following details with us: - Bank name - Bank Location - Account Holder Name - Routing & Account no - SWIFT - A screenshot of the required bank details on your online banking or bank letter (if it's possible). Make sure to hide any sensitive payment information like your full card number for your security. We'll keep an eye out for your response so we could sort this out. Kind regards, XXXX Escalations Team - Spotify Customer Support

kuschku 2y ago
> they actually sent me an email asking for my checking account number and routing number to be sent to them VIA EMAIL Is that an actual issue with US accounts? Over in EU it's common to publish your account number (IBAN) and routing code (BIC) on your website, letterhead, and obviously on bills you send to customers so they can pay you. They should only be able to send you money, not use it to request money, right?
- hamandcheese 2y ago
  Nope. My utility company and also Verizon withdraw from my checking account, and all they needed was the account number, routing number, and my name. No further verification. For that reason, I have two checking accounts, and don't keep large sums of money in the account I use for payments.
  - alvarlagerlof 2y ago

nickthegreek 2y ago

I used the support link provided. They tried to give me 3 months of premium instead of a refund. I declined. They replied: >Thank you for waiting! As I can only suggest you for free Premium in your account. The actual Car Thing refund is done by the specialty advisors, so I'll create a case related to your issue and transfer it and the right team will get back to you through email. Sounds good? So I am now waiting for an email.

dylan604 2y ago
This sounds like you're using a support chatbot. Of course they're not going to allow the chatbot to authorize refunds.
- nerdawson 2y ago
  The slightly clumsy wording would indicate to me that it's a real person rather than a chatbot.
  - dylan604 2y ago
    That slightly clumsy wording is what made me think it was a chatbot
    - Gasp0de 2y ago
      We live in a time where AI chatbots speak way better english than outsourced support workers in 3rd world countries.
      - mgkimsal 2y ago
        unless the bots have been trained on outsourced support worker chat threads?
        jakjak123 2y ago
        I dont like this timeline

giancarlostoro 2y ago

I wonder if there's licensing issues with them doing so? Like I assume they didn't make all the hardware and firmware involved. Kind of a shame when companies do this. I also wonder how long till the hacker community starts hacking these things any way? Seems like a worthy device to hack, though I can't imagine there's millions of these out there. I'd love to buy a 2nd hand one and install custom software on it if someone builds said firmware. Hell, if Spotify had open sourced this and still sold them, I might have bought a first hand one. I would just be streaming my Apple music to it instead. ;)

2f0ja 2y ago
fairly certain they used this: https://w.dspconcepts.com/ https://w.dspconcepts.com/, they used to have Spotify listed a a client. I'm guessing they cannot open source for this reason (it's not their code to open source)
dylan604 2y ago
The count down to an HN post of Car Thing runs Doom has now started
- ihuman 2y ago
  Someone already did that https://x.com/justmaku/status/1584442208203087872 https://x.com/justmaku/status/1584442208203087872
  - zztop44 2y ago
    There must be a rule of that. If you think someone will probably make it run DOOM someday, someone already has.
  - dylan604 2y ago
    ...and of course they did! I didn't actually expect it to be playable with the knob control like that, so I'm actually even more impressed. I was just expecting it to compile and run, but not necessarily play.
2y ago

Philip-J-Fry 2y ago

Are they just banking on people not caring enough or knowing about the refund process? Clearly it can't be better off for them to refund hundreds of thousands maybe even 1m+ people. We need laws that step in to make this impossible. Hardware should be designed so that it can be reused. Make it so that people can just reflash the memory at a minimum. There's no reason for something like this to become e-waste. And the excuse being Spotify wanting to protect their brand should not stand.

marcosdumay 2y ago
It's a face saving move. They decided to just kill the thing less than 2 years after the launching. But people got angry, and having regulators look at them is way more expensive than refunding their customers. That said, yes, they will probably also make the process as hard as they can get away with it. Anyway, have some popcorn, this one got quite interesting.
sgerenser 2y ago
Did they actually sell 1m+ of these things? I think the reason they’re killing it is they hardly sold any.
tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago
> Make it so that people can just reflash the memory at a minimum Letting the 0.1% of geeks who know how to and are interested in spending time on it reflash their hardware doesn't actually solve the problem in any meaningful way.
complaintdept 2y ago
Write your elected representatives, preferably by snail mail (they take it more seriously that way). With Right to Repair being talked about so much right now, the time could be right to get this into the public mind. Car Thing could be what nucleates anti bricking legislation.
- bravetraveler 2y ago
  Conversely, stop voting for people that need coerced to their job. I know this is reductive - save your fingers. Write, but do the not-vote-thing if they don't listen. The desire to not be hoodwinked has already been expressed. Just not this specific way. Or, expressed more positively I guess, vote for those who don't need goaded to do the obviously good thing.

dylan604 2y ago

"Some remain frustrated by the scheduled obsolescence of hardware that was only released to the general public in February 2022. Car Thing first released to a limited number of subscribers in October 2021." What is the purpose of this device in the first place? In 2021/2022, smart phones with bluetooth or usb/audio cables were in full effect which is how I'm assuming >99.999% of users use Spotify. Were there Spotify users that had cars during the recent 3 years that had cars with radios that were incompatible with bluetooth or aux inputs that made this device desirable?

murillians 2y ago
Car Thing was only a remote for your phone's Spotify app. It was targeted towards people that had bluetooth or aux inputs to their car's stereo, but not Apple CarPlay or Android Auto that allowed you to control Spotify directly through the radio.
- m-p-3 2y ago
  I don't have Android Auto but I can at least control my phone media playback through the head unit and the steering wheel controls over bluetooth. I suspect this was mainly for people who only have the ability to send audio to their head unit without actual controls in some older cars.
  - bonestamp2 2y ago
    That's one use case. The other use case is people who want a dedicated Spotify display in their car. It's especially nice in a new car because you can have your Nav or something else on your car screen and have a second display for your music. Yes, you can also use your phone for that, this is just another option.
  - nemothekid 2y ago
    I think it was more so for people who want a dedicated spotify app - as in they want to go through their likes, playlists and radios without using their phone.
- 2y ago

Ekaros 2y ago

I have to admit at least Google handled the Stadia well in this regard. The money just got refunded to me without me taking any action at all.

ActionHank 2y ago
Both were pretty lame tbh. What would be ideal is to open up devices to be flashed with custom FW or OS installs and some rudimentary docs on doing so. That would be enough for the community to run with it if there is sufficient demand and value.
- eurleif 2y ago
  Stadia controllers got to be reflashed as standard Bluetooth controllers. I still use mine.
  - mystcb 2y ago
    Refreshed before typing this because I realised someone might have beaten me to it! - But that's a big difference here - even though the service is gone, you got the refund and still a usable device as a controller out of it... Spotify has taken something that could be used generically too, and just decided to brick it. Insert something about product and consumers and how its all just some big money game or something somewhere :D
    - ActionHank 2y ago
      Spotify should have the ewaste generated by this decision accounted for when considering any ESG benefits or grants.
  - ActionHank 2y ago
    My bad, that's pretty legit on Google's part!
  - jsheard 2y ago
    It's worth noting that for some reason there's a deadline for flashing the generic Bluetooth firmware onto a Stadia controller though, you have to get it done before the end of this year if you have one gathering dust. https://stadia.google.com/controller/index_en_GB.html https://stadia.google.com/controller/index_en_GB.html

internet2000 2y ago

[flagged]

crazygringo 2y ago
Besides the EU having zero jurisdiction over it, the word you're looking for is "deafening".
popey 2y ago
Probably because the Car Thing was never made available outside the US.
addandsubtract 2y ago
It was never sold in the EU...?

newzisforsukas 2y ago

https://old.reddit.com/r/carthinghax/ https://old.reddit.com/r/carthinghax/

n3xus_ 2y ago

[flagged]

sarchertech 2y ago
It’s better than the what most marketing departments put out. Would you prefer “Spotify Edge HD by Spotify”.
- Apocryphon 2y ago
  It's possible for there to be different categories of bad tech names.
1f60c 2y ago
It is a ridiculous name, but I think it's intriguing without being overpromising and that's why they went with it.

ChildOfChaos 2y ago

I'm out of luck. I bought the car thing via a third party as I'm in the UK where it was never sold. I get that is the risk of such things, i.e if the device malfunctioned I wouldn't be able to do anything, but it's still Spotify's decision that has hurt me, what's worse is this was a gift.

throwaway48476 2y ago

If every customer is entitled to a refund then why isn't it automatic and automated? There needs to be a term for this kind of malicious refund policy that does everything possible to prevent you from claiming it.

cududa 2y ago
Small anecdote: I've had Spotify premium for 12 years now. Back in 2020 I got a rather large prepaid debit card. I put a couple low dollar subscriptions on there. Spotify being one of them. Card ran out of money. So Spotify instantly shifts me down to the free plan, after 1 failed payment, and deletes all the songs I synced to my phone until I update my card on file. Which was supremely obnoxious on mobile (but that's because I signed up for Spotify with Facebook, and 8 years after breaking FB SSO OTP code generation on mobile they still haven't fixed it) No grace period, no warning that my payment failed and I was being downgraded. Just a big old full screen pop-up warning me that if I continue into the free version, it would immediately delete all my playlists. Paying customer for 12+ years, with 12+ years of playlists. Had I not read the small print and just clicked "continue" it would've deleted ALL of that. Even after updating my payment method, and not having pressed "continue" (to the free plan) I had to re-sync all the songs I'd already downloaded. They're a very user hostile company, and I've never had the slightest bit of sympathy in their fight with Apple, and this is a pretty good reinforcement.
elaus 2y ago
The account in another comments makes it clear why it's done like that: To get a refund you not only have to talk to support (i.e. spending quite some time in some chat interface), then escalate the issue (talking to another support agent once more) and THEN you might get your money. I guess only a very small fraction of people will do this, making it a very cheap way for Spotify to stop any negative press regarding this issue.
- strunz 2y ago
  I didn't have to escalate anything, just provided my receipt
- 2y ago

milankragujevic 2y ago

https://oddsolutions.github.io/Spotify-Car-Thing-Root/ https://oddsolutions.github.io/Spotify-Car-Thing-Root/ https://github.com/err4o4/spotify-car-thing-reverse-engineering https://github.com/err4o4/spotify-car-thing-reverse-engineer...

kennydude 2y ago
This would be great if it were easier to do as it would make for quite a nifty, if not very weird Android device by the looks of things!

standardly 2y ago

spotify is a garbage software, for android it auto-plays in the car and there is nothing you can do to stop it except uninstalling the app

barbariangrunge 2y ago

If you sign up for the ad free tier, you’ll still get spammed by ads injected during podcasts, much more than if you use a free podcast app Also, there are privacy issues: https://mashable.com/article/spotify-user-privacy-settings https://mashable.com/article/spotify-user-privacy-settings

jdoss 2y ago

I am pretty bummed that they are discontinuing it and not open sourcing the hardware. I use mine at my desk every day to control my desktop Spotify and it is pretty nice having hardware controls for my music. Shame on Spotify.

tra3 2y ago
I’ve been trying to buy one for months. Glad I didn’t. I was going to use it for the same purpose as you. I just love that knob. Wonder if I there’s something open source out there.
- jonah 2y ago
  I missed buying one for $30 when they were clearing them out a while ago and recently decided I wanted one for my car so started looking on eBay - they're going for at or more than the full, original price! Maybe with this EOL announcement, the prices will drop and I can pick one up cheap to repurpose for something else.
  - tra3 2y ago
    well I was going to use it for Spotify, but without official support it's going to be a pain. Unless someone's already hacked it.
    - einsteinx2 2y ago
      It’s already rooted. Here’s the GitHub repo if you’re interested in rooting yours: “frederic/superbird-bulkcmd” It looks like it might be difficult to write custom applications for it though based on this info in the GitHub readme: “At this point we had full u-boot access, as well as persistent ADB (root) access, we initially wanted to try to bring-up Android Automotive on the device, but 500 MB of RAM made Android near-impossible to port. We also tried to get other GUI applications cough maybe doom cough running, but this device utilizes a QT feature called EGLFS, which doesn't have a window management system like X11 or Wayland, so it is hard to get additional applications running on the device, but hey, maybe someone in the community can get it working using the access we're providing!”

sentrysapper 2y ago

As someone that doesn't own, but rents cars for errands, the Car Thing made perfect sense. Instead of spending several minutes trying to find a good station or pair my phone, which wasn't always an option, I could pop that in a vent and start jamming.

honeybadger1 2y ago

I am going to make it political because I have never liked companies that peacock, appealing to social justice causes, but this is a staple case of why I feel this way. Companies, like Spotify only do these types of things to soften their dominant business tactics, just like Google, just like Amazon, etc. They appeal to emotion just like politicians appeal to emotion with religion or social justice causes in their speeches to soften their image so they get away with the decisions based on who they actually are and how they really feel later or when rubber meets actual road. Spotify is just a business interested in doing things that make them the most money possible and they have a history, like others, to appeal to people with social peacocking to soften their image while being so dominant in the market.

qwerty456127 2y ago

Looks a nice gadget to have jailbroken - I would rather try this rather than refund.

haraldchristoph 2y ago

[dead]

jmull 2y ago

The title seems a little misleading… the article is largely about how unclear the refund process is to customers. Clearly Spotify sees Car Thing as a mistake. That’s ok, mistakes happen. But they should really be working to make sure customers aren’t paying the price for their mistake (as much as is feasible, anyway). It sure doesn’t sound like they are doing that. BTW, there could be code in there they don’t have the right to open source, so I don’t know whether to judge them on that aspect of it or not.

xp84 2y ago
[edited to add] it seems to me from other posts seen here that (A) the firmware is floating around already and (B) at 500MB of RAM, underpowered CPU, and considering the other serious limitations of the device, I don't even know if it is likely to be worth somebody's time to put in the work to make a CFW. Personally it seems much more fun to use an off-the-shelf SBC to build a cool project than to try to shoehorn something into this awful little computer. But maybe that's just me. -- Following is my original comment written before I knew much -- It seems to me like the bare minimum would be enough to take the heat off: Publish a quick and dirty flashing tool, and leave the binary of the firmware available. If people want to disassemble the firmware they have plausible deniability to the patent holders involved, and if nerds want to devote time to reverse engineer it and make a custom firmware image, they can figure it out themselves. After all, part of the fun of such a project is the challenge.

zackmorris 2y ago

A slightly different take: https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/30/spotify-begins-offering-car-thing-refunds-as-it-faces-lawsuit-over-bricking-the-streaming-device/ https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/30/spotify-begins-offering-ca... Context: https://fortune.com/europe/2023/12/04/daniel-ek-to-slash-bloated-spotify-headcount-by-17-after-blasting-staff-for-doing-work-around-the-work/ https://fortune.com/europe/2023/12/04/daniel-ek-to-slash-blo... https://thehill.com/homenews/media/4444678-joe-rogan-deal-spotify-youtube/ https://thehill.com/homenews/media/4444678-joe-rogan-deal-sp... https://fortune.com/europe/2024/04/29/daniel-ek-salary-spotify-ceo-178-million-shares-2024/ https://fortune.com/europe/2024/04/29/daniel-ek-salary-spoti... https://musictech.com/news/industry/spotify-ceo-daniel-ek-compares-low-royalty-payouts-to-professional-sportss/ https://musictech.com/news/industry/spotify-ceo-daniel-ek-co... Spotify is under constant fire due to its low royalty payout rates. Ditto reports that an artist receives $0.003 – $0.005 per stream on average, with 30 per cent of those royalties going to Spotify. Spotify paid out $48 billion to the music industry, paid out $250 million to Joe Rogan and Spotify CEO Daniel Ek cashed out $118.9 million in shares - which combined with the rest of the Spotify executives totaled $250 million in stock sales. Whereas: https://www.wired.com/story/what-soundcloud-created-can-never-die/ https://www.wired.com/story/what-soundcloud-created-can-neve... If Spotify is happy to brick hardware that customers paid good money for, then is it valid to ask if Spotify should be bricked? Is Spotify doing good by its streamers? Is Spotify a positive force for new music discovery and promoting promising talent, or is it embracing long tail effects to maximize its own profits and those of its cronies in the music industry? How does the situation change if everyone cancels their Spotify membership in protest, or sells short the SPOT stock? How does the situation change if the majority of shareholders and paying customers demand that the entire Spotify board is thrown out so that Spotify can be restructured in favor of streamers, employees and listeners? Could a few hackers and makers, perhaps with the help of some benefactors who won the internet lottery, throw together a p2p app that negates the need for Spotify's existence? Are any of these questions unreasonable, given the recent behavior of Spotify? The predictable nature of all of this makes me wonder why the disruption model stops at a handful of people getting morbidly rich at everyone else's expense.

jhp123 2y ago

I wonder if this is connected to the layoffs they've had. Cancelling marginal product lines and focusing on core competencies sounds great in theory, but the actual process can be messy and generate ill will. An "overstaffed" company is surely more likely to "go the extra mile" in a way that customers will often remember (e.g. by assigning a skeleton crew to maintain this thing or open source it).

stevenae 2y ago
Imagining some parallel to the adage, "the only people who will remember how late you worked are your family". Something like, "the only people who will remember the products you cut are your customers"?

Bluestein 2y ago

"Bricking" should be a crime.-

neilv 2y ago

Doesn't Spotify already know which Car Thing devices have been used, by which people, and the contact/billing info of most of those people? If so, then why making people contact them? And also bumping people away from normal customer support, to "specialty advisors"? This isn't looking like good faith. Is Spotify's market position now strong enough that they don't have to care what people think of them?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

Anthony-G 2y ago

When I read stories about companies like Spotify creating e-waste like this, I think it’s worth pointing out that commercial companies don’t have to behave this way. As a counter-point, back around 2008, I purchased two Squeezebox music players from Logitech (digital music players that Logitech had acquired from Slim Devices: high quality DACs that supported every audio format, gap-less playback, synchronised playing on multiple devices, and were very configurable). They discontinued these products four years later (2012) but kept their mysqueezebox.com online service running up until the start of this year (2024). They kept the user forums running and archived the knowledge-base wiki. Most importantly, they open-sourced the stand-alone server software for running a local Squeezebox server and continued to pay the main developer to maintain the project for more than a decade after they discontinued the products. He’s still the lead developer and project maintainer of the server software, now called Lyrion Music Server: https://lyrion.org/ https://lyrion.org/ Correction: the stand-alone server software was always open source, specifically GPLv2. In addition to the audio quality and features, that was one of the selling points for me. It being written in Perl, meant that it was both cross-platform and easy to run on a GNU/Linux system.

semi-extrinsic 2y ago
Logitech seem to be crazy about user support somehow. I had one of their old Harmony IR remote controls, and when they discontinued the software used for programming the older generations of remotes, they sent me a brand new remote free of charge.
- zelo 2y ago
  I put my Logitech MX keyboard in the bag with few other things and one of the keycap broke off. Completely my fault. Since the key mechanism was intact I have told their support what happened and asked if they sell replacement keycaps and got completely new keyboard for free. Great support but I was left with mixed feelings since I still had almost completely working keyboard and I think the experience would be better if they would send me just the keycap.
  - deleted 2y ago