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

arstechnica.com

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

#181

Post by oceanplexian »

Retric wrote: post #37
hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not go even farther than that? Admit political knowledge is virtually impossible, and just stop engaging in the political process at all. Save your time and energy for something easier, like cutting edge theoretical physics or becoming a billionaire. Such is the point argued by Dr. Mike Huemer in his essay In Praise of Passivity [1], and to this date I've never found a clearer piece of writing on the matter. [1]:…

What passivity ignores is non voters get screwed over by politicians. In California in 2022 voting by age breaks down: 29% or 900,000 18-24 year olds 43% or 1,970,000 25-34 year olds 51% or 2,132,000 35-44 year olds 56% or 4,343,000 45-54 year olds 66% or 3,699,000 65+ year olds So it’s obvious what kinds of things to focus on. Other states get even more extreme only 14% of 18-24 year olds voted in WV. https://www.kf…

I don’t really see a problem with that. People get wiser as they get older and more mature.

This has been proven by insurance companies, who charge higher rates for younger drivers since they’re more likely to be reckless and get into an accident. Not the kind of person you would want to encourage to vote, unless you have ulterior motives to manipulate impressionable young people.

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

#182

Post by Retric »

oceanplexian wrote: post #181
Retric wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What passivity ignores is non voters get screwed over by politicians. In California in 2022 voting by age breaks down: 29% or 900,000 18-24 year olds 43% or 1,970,000 25-34 year olds 51% or 2,132,000 35-44 year olds 56% or 4,343,000 45-54 year olds 66% or 3,699,000 65+ year olds So it’s obvious what kinds of things to focus on. Other states get even more extreme only 14% of 18-24 year olds voted in WV. https://www.kf…

I don’t really see a problem with that. People get wiser as they get older and more mature. This has been proven by insurance companies, who charge higher rates for younger drivers since they’re more likely to be reckless and get into an accident. Not the kind of person you would want to encourage to vote, unless you have ulterior motives to manipulate impressionable young people.

It’s easy to make the opposite argument around declining mental facilities and less education for the oldest Americans who are the most likely to vote yet have increased insurance costs despite driving less.

Whites also vote more than Hispanics, are suggesting ignoring their issues is a good thing as well?

In the end, having out groups is inherently a bad thing no matter who makes them up.

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

#183

Post by vletal »

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?

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

#184

Post by bluetidepro »

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...

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

#185

Post by chazeon »

crazygringo wrote: post #122
keraf wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lack of care for e-waste produced makes me sick. Spotify should at least open the hardware or sponsor a contest for a smart re-use / open source firmware for the device, would probably cost them less at the end and make them look better.

This is going to be a hot take here, but honestly I'm not that concerned about e-waste, in the grand scheme of things. What about cars, air conditioners, dishwashers, fridges, furniture, clothing? What about when we throw all of those out? The amount of e-waste I've gotten rid of over my life is miniscule both in terms of weight and volume in comparison to the things I've listed. I think we confuse environmental impa…

It wasn’t uncommon to buy second hand AC and sell them after use in the NYC. In fact, I barely heard anyone buy new ACs. I guess not everyone has no problem throw those appliances out.

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

#186

Post by [deleted] »

oceanplexian wrote: post #181
Retric wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What passivity ignores is non voters get screwed over by politicians. In California in 2022 voting by age breaks down: 29% or 900,000 18-24 year olds 43% or 1,970,000 25-34 year olds 51% or 2,132,000 35-44 year olds 56% or 4,343,000 45-54 year olds 66% or 3,699,000 65+ year olds So it’s obvious what kinds of things to focus on. Other states get even more extreme only 14% of 18-24 year olds voted in WV. https://www.kf…

I don’t really see a problem with that. People get wiser as they get older and more mature. This has been proven by insurance companies, who charge higher rates for younger drivers since they’re more likely to be reckless and get into an accident. Not the kind of person you would want to encourage to vote, unless you have ulterior motives to manipulate impressionable young people.

[deleted]

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

#187

Post by troupo »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #75
murillians wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have a Car Thing for my 2015 Chevy Volt, and I really enjoyed it. For exactly the reasons you mention, it lets me control Spotify with a great UI. I can also just play my phone over Bluetooth but it's not like I can select different playlists, browse songs, etc. from my car's dashboard - all I can do is go back or forward. I'm also surprised they're bricking Car Thing. Given how it works, I didn't realize it would…

Most of the things in Spotify are done through the server. There are two major reasons why:

- customer-facing reason: Spotify Connect https://support.spotify.com/us/article/spotify-connect/ We have to be able to know which device you're playing on, show it in device pickers and even let you play stuff on devices not in the same network

- second major reason: most of the decisions of what to play cannot be made on the client. This has to do with licensing and related analytics. Even different types of devices will have different licensing applied to them. So to even simply say "play next song" you have to tell the server you're going to listen to a track. And that track might not be available for the specific combination of account/device/country/phase of moon which client has no way of knowing about.

Source: I work at Spotify, but I can't answer any questions about CarThing (didn't work on it, and it would be NDA anyway)

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

#188

Post by troupo »

xp84 wrote: post #130
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Car Thing for my 2015 Chevy Volt, and I really enjoyed it. For exactly the reasons you mention, it lets me control Spotify with a great UI. I can also just play my phone over Bluetooth but it's not like I can select different playlists, browse songs, etc. from my car's dashboard - all I can do is go back or forward. I'm also surprised they're bricking Car Thing. Given how it works, I didn't realize it would…

Seriously. I don't know anything about mobile development, but once it's working in the first place, how hard is it to just NOT delete its API hooks from the codebase. As a developer, I can only guess that maybe the code which supports it, or the code where it has to poke its fingers into into in order to be able to draw its UI, is poorly-architected and removing the Car Thing code across the board will allow them to…

(as a continuation of this: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=troupo)

> how hard is it to just NOT delete its API hooks from the codebase.

Someone has to maintain that API. Not only on mobile, but also potentially on the server as well. Those "hooks" become a nuisance and a hindrance when services change or get deprecated. When data schemas get updated. When new data types get introduced etc.

And that's before we get into discussion about architecture, code quality etc.

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

#189

Post by al_borland »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #160
Anthony-G wrote: post #126

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…

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 .

Stories like this will make me more comfortable trying Logitech products in the future (I say as I look around the room at the 3 Logitech nice within 10ft of me).

I’ve been hesitant to buy things like smart remotes, or other things in similar categories, because so many companies have poor track records around support. Good support does more than advertising ever could for me.

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

#190

Post by DerekL »

mschuster91 wrote: post #168
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since Spotify is a Swedish company, I'm sure this is why they didn't think it would be an issue.

SEPA Direct Debit is a thing here in Europe as well, this is why we could live just fine without credit cards for so long. We instead had our local variants of what y'all call ACH and a few cooperation networks, that got unified as part of the EU-wide SEPA rollout (must have been something like 10 years ago). Now you can do money transfers to and from the entirety of the EU between all banks, if you pay a bit extra m…

Spelling nit: though the logo is all-caps, the company is called “Visa”.
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