I watch a lot of videos on TikTok reviewing and showing off newer vehicles, and I'm very frequently shocked by how every single vehicle now has some kind of computer onboard that makes it super easy for you to connect your phone and play music.
Living in a country where older models dominate the streets, I totally appreciate the utility of a product like Spotify's Car Thing. However, if you happened to be one of the people who bought one in 2021, the company is about to pull the plug on it by the end of the year, leaving you with a non-operational device.
Spotify Is Going To Kill Car Thing By December 9th, Leaving It Useful
Spotify's Car Thing was a piece of hardware made by a company best known for software to bring their software to cars that don't have the hardware for it. In other words, it'd let you use Spotify in older cars that don't have all those fancy systems with Android Auto or Apple CarPlay. Where I live, that's the case for the majority of vehicles on the road, so I understand why it's a thing that could sell.
When it launched in 2021, the Spotify Car Thing cost $90, which isn't cheap by any measure, especially considering all it does is bring Spotify and no other apps, but it is certainly cheaper than getting a new car. The device has a four-inch touchscreen and voice controls, enhancing the experience of using Spotify in a place where you'd prefer to keep your hands on the wheel.
At this point, it doesn't matter how useful you might find Spotify's Car Thing to be. The company has announced that it'll be killing the product on December 9th, 2024. They've stopped selling it since 2022, so this doesn't mean that you won't be able to find it on shelves; it means that the device will “no longer be operational”.
The company claims that the reason for this is to streamline its product offerings. I get it, some products aren't worth keeping staff on when they could be pushing their efforts to more popular offerings, but moves like this certainly make a lot of people upset.
At The Moment, Nobody Is Going To Receive A Refund Or Any Kind Of Credit
Now, the real part that hurts is that after paying $90 for a Car Thing, it is being killed about three years later, which is certainly a short lifespan for almost any hardware product. Since it won't be operational after this date, it means that your Car Thing is going to end up in a landfill as e-waste at the end of the day.
Personally, it'd be nice if the company opted to compensate customers who supported the Car Thing with a refund or some kind of credit, but it seems there are no plans in that direction for the company. A few months of Spotify Premium free certainly wouldn't hurt. Anything but leaving these customers out in the cold.
