Mentions Spotify

Owners of Spotify's soon-to-be-bricked Car Thing device are begging the company to open-source the gadgets to save some the landfill. Spotify hasn't responded to pleas to salvage the hardware, which was originally intended to connect to car dashboards and auxiliary outlets to enable drivers to listen to and navigate Spotify.

[…]

Car Thing came out to limited subscribers in October 2021 before releasing to the general public in February 2022.

In its Q2 2022 earnings report released in July, Spotify revealed that it stopped making Car Things. In a chat with TechCrunch, it cited "several factors, including product demand and supply chain issues." A Spotify rep also told the publication that the devices would continue to “perform as intended,” but that was apparently a temporary situation.

[…] 

Spotify's announcement has sent some Car Thing owners to online forums to share their disappointment with Spotify and beg the company to open-source the device instead of dooming it for recycling centers at best. As of this writing, there are over 50 posts on the Spotify Community forums showing concern about the discontinuation, with many demanding a refund and/or calling for open-sourcing. There are similar discussions happening elsewhere online, like on Reddit, where users have used phrases like "entirely unnacceptable" to describe the news.

A Spotify Community member going by AaronMickDee, for example, said:

"I'd rather not just dispose of the device. I think there is a community that would love the idea of having a device we can customize and use for other uses other than a song playback device.

"Would Spotify be willing to maybe unlock the system and allow users to write/flash 3rd party firmware to the device?"

A Spotify spokesperson declined to answer Ars' questions about why Car Thing isn't being open-sourced and concerns around e-waste and wasted money.