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Spotify Car Thing will be discontinued

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Re: Spotify Car Thing will be discontinued

#171

Post by the_snooze »

rkangel wrote: post #127
Aardwolf wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just stop this nonsense of needing updates to keep things working, which then allows updates that break things. Have proper standards how music is transmitted. Have devices support those standards. Have those standards be long-running.

Any connected device NEEDS continual updates in order to continue to be secure. This is particularly true of internet connected devices, but is also true for IOT devices that only connect to the internet indirectly. Security holes get found, if you can't patch and update devices in the field then you are leaving your customers unprotected.

It's not just security, but simple functionality too. Connected devices rely on remote services, by definition. Those services' APIs will change and get deprecated over time. At the very least, you need to keep clients up-to-date to conform to those API changes.

Re: Spotify Car Thing will be discontinued

#172

Post by hulitu »

binkethy wrote: post #86

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!

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

I don't know about you, but my whole life is in the cloud these days. /s

Re: Spotify Car Thing will be discontinued

#173

Post by Galatians4_16 »

mindslight wrote: post #151
Galatians4_16 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU legislation on power chords gave us micro-USB phones, when USB-C could have been a better option, but a real solution would be let consumers decide inputs/outputs.

A regulation requiring companies to "let consumers decide inputs/outputs" would be much more burdensome than merely standardizing one specific connector per ~decade. With the compactness of modern devices, they'd basically have to spin a new board for every connector type a consumer might what. But you're right - it would be kind of neat if I could have Google make me a new Pixel 8 with the bespoke data connector fro…

Yup, or alternately mandate a standard and incorporate the charging port into an open-source case, or some such.

Re: Spotify Car Thing will be discontinued

#174

Post by Aaargh20318 »

bmelton wrote: post #119
Aaargh20318 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like a very US-centric view or the world. If you make a decent amount of money you have to spend it on a car? Lots of people don’t care about cars and/or don’t spend a enough time in them to justify spending a lot on it.

What a weird critique. American or not, if you don't have a car you're probably not in the target market for a CarThing I purchased mine without any intent on using it in a car, and in fact I never did, but it was clear that I was engaging in out-of-bounds behavior in doing so.

> What a weird critique. American or not, if you don't have a car you're probably not in the target market for a CarThing

It wasn't about having a car or not. It was the assumption that if you have a higher income you are automatically willing to spend a sizeable chunk on it on a car. Not all people are as obsessed with cars as the average American.

I do pretty well for myself and I can think of a thousand things I'd rather spend my money on than on a car.

Re: Spotify Car Thing will be discontinued

#175

Post by Anthony-G »

sseagull wrote: post #142
Galatians4_16 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU legislation on power chords gave us micro-USB phones, when USB-C could have been a better option, but a real solution would be let consumers decide inputs/outputs.

> EU legislation on power chords Regular major and minor chords were unaffected though :) (I actually started reading this comment as a pun, as in "The EU can regulate music streaming - they already regulated power chords", and that made me smile)

I thought the same thing and was going to reply before I saw your comment. I wonder if there’s a term for typos/mis-spellings that form an unintended word or phrase that still makes sense for that particular context.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_chord

Re: Spotify Car Thing will be discontinued

#176

Post by rkangel »

the_snooze wrote: post #171
rkangel wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any connected device NEEDS continual updates in order to continue to be secure. This is particularly true of internet connected devices, but is also true for IOT devices that only connect to the internet indirectly. Security holes get found, if you can't patch and update devices in the field then you are leaving your customers unprotected.

It's not just security, but simple functionality too. Connected devices rely on remote services, by definition. Those services' APIs will change and get deprecated over time. At the very least, you need to keep clients up-to-date to conform to those API changes.

I would argue that connected devices should only rely on your services - otherwise how do you know that they're not going away?

And if they're your services then you can maintain their stability.

Re: Spotify Car Thing will be discontinued

#177

Post by the_snooze »

rkangel wrote: post #176
the_snooze wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just security, but simple functionality too. Connected devices rely on remote services, by definition. Those services' APIs will change and get deprecated over time. At the very least, you need to keep clients up-to-date to conform to those API changes.

I would argue that connected devices should only rely on your services - otherwise how do you know that they're not going away? And if they're your services then you can maintain their stability.

"Your services" aren't entirely yours. Practically speaking, no one builds systems entirely from scratch. A service likely has remote dependencies too, some of which will trickle down to the clients of your service. For Spotify specifically, they rely on SSO providers and third-party payments services; if those APIs change, then the client will likely require updates even though Spotify didn't change anything in their own core functionality.

Re: Spotify Car Thing will be discontinued

#178

Post by skhameneh »

solarkraft wrote: post #90
pjerem wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they had done this, like, giving 1 year of subscription for free, that would have been an ethical and environmental scandal but the fact they did nothing is just insulting their customers. I'm nearly a day one subscriber but i'm currently exploring my options to leave.

Tidal is alright. They're mostly fine with doing their job instead of bombarding you with new pointless crap all the time. They haven't made a car thing. They aren't doing podcasts. They aren't reshuffling their UI every week. Basically they're (mostly, could be even better) just shutting the fuck up and it's definitely nicer than using Spotify was.

I subscribed to Tidal relatively early and could tell the difference in audio quality with some songs. I stuck with Spotify because I couldn't justify paying more for a smaller catalog.

I've been slowly frustrated with the changes Spotify keeps introducing... breaking my "Starred" songs by replacing it with "Liked" songs, tampering with song shuffle, and routinely switching me to "Autoplay". Some of the curated playlists have gone down in quality as well, they'll start off great and halfway through I'm wondering why the playlist changed so drastically.

I can't say for certain the discontinuation of Car Thing will have me end my subscription, but I will say this is the start of a wake up call for how Spotify treats their most loyal customers.

Re: Spotify Car Thing will be discontinued

#179

Post by BizarroLand »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #28
djc6 wrote: post #8

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 fo…

You can probably get a really nice wireless CarPlay compatible head unit installed by a local shop for less than $1.5k to $2k. https://www.crutchfield.com/g_300/All-Car-Stereos.html

The people who are unhappy about only getting 2 years of service out of an $80 investment are probably not the people who are giddy about only spending $2,000 on a new radio for their car which will be practically worthless once it is installed.

Re: Spotify Car Thing will be discontinued

#180

Post by raverbashing »

rhplus wrote: post #152
raverbashing wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the real question is why brick it? What requires so much maintenance?

DevOps, monitoring, support costs, ongoing security burden. You can’t just ship a device specific API anymore and call it done. Those services will have at least monthly security updates, plus all the shimming and API back-compact work that has to be done as the backend Spotify services change.

I understand, at the same time the api shouldn't be too different to what is used by other devices (otherwise they would be just shooting themselves in the foot)
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