Spotify just killed Car Thing with no refunds. Angry customers ask why it can’t be open sourced

What was that thing for anyway?

Spotify announced Thursday it will discontinue Car Thing, a $90 device that allows users to control Spotify through their car speakers. After December 9, 2024, Car Thing will no longer be operational—and Spotify is recommending that users trash it (safely, of course, and following electronic waste guidelines).

It’s one thing to discontinue the device, but another to make it entirely obsolete, although Spotify’s product was seemingly an experiment in data collection. 

“The goal of our Car Thing exploration in the U.S. was to learn more about how people listen in the car,” a Spotify spokesperson tells Fast Company. The company has a lengthy privacy policy that details how customer data is collected and used, including shared with advertising and marketing partners.

Some owners still want to use it

Nick Espinoza, a student at the University of Florida and self-described future tech innovator, was among the customers who received an email from Spotify about the discontinuation—and his frustration lies mostly with Spotify’s refusal to relinquish support to the tech community. 

“Even if Spotify planned to use Car Thing only to gain insight into their user base, they sold a product that people use and more importantly paid for,” Espinoza tells Fast Company. “Spotify has every reason to open-source Car Thing.”

The suggestion to allow open sourcing—which would essentially let customers keep using and maintaining the software for the device—is among the complaints that customers have expressed on social media sites like Reddit and X. Others have expressed frustration about Spotify’s refusal to offer any refunds, though some people said they were able to get a free month of streaming service. 

While customers, especially those with older cars, seemed to be a fan of Car Thing, Spotify approached its foray into hardware by using that word “exploration” a lot. The Stockholm-based company first announced its exploration of a smart player back in April 2021, then began offering it in a limited release in October 2021 to Spotify Premium users before making it widely available in February 2022.

Within a few months, the company had reversed course.

“In July 2022, we announced we’d stop further production and now it’s time to say goodbye to the devices entirely,” Spotify’s spokesperson tells Fast Company.

Car Things are still available on the secondhand market, with some eBay sellers asking for $200 and up for new devices.

Spotify hasn’t publicly responded to customer complaints or a query from Fast Company about the option to open source the device. The company commands more than 31% of the global music streaming market as of 2023, according to Statista. It said it had 615 million monthly active users as of the first quarter, a 19% increase from the same time last year. 

Spotify stock is up more than 63% year to date.

But just as Spotify playfully noted that it’s “switching gears” with Car Thing, some customers have threatened to do the same with their choice of streaming services—opting instead for Apple Music or lesser-known options like Qobuz or Deezer.

https://www.fastcompany.com/91131090/spotify-car-thing-discontinued-customers-angry-refund-open-source?partner=rss&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss+fastcompany&utm_content=rss