Streaming platform Spotify has announced that it will be discontinuing its ‘Car Thing’ smart device by December 9, 2024. The company confirmed that the hardware will be deactivated and will “no longer be operational”. Although the announcement states that Spotify remains committed to providing a superior listening experience, users have reacted negatively to the news, with some calling it a “disrespectful and wasteful” decision. Spotify will not offer refunds or trade-in options for the device.
Content creator Frank Passalacqua expressed his disappointment with the decision to kill the device’s operation, tweeting, “Having a 24/7 dedicated Spotify player has been dope. Absolutely no reason to now make it a paper weight.” Lawyer Rob Freund went further, stating that a class-action complaint had been filed by three individuals in response to Spotify abandoning ‘Car Thing’. A screenshot of the complaint shows that “Plaintiffs and Class Members are left with nothing more than a paperweight that cost between $50 and $100”.
Spotify spokespersons have stated that the goal of the “Car Thing” exploration in the US was to learn more about how people listen in the car. The company launched the device in February 2022 and stopped production of the ‘Car Thing’ just five months later in July. Lately, the brand reported cutting costs and laying off staff, including 17% of its workforce, which it said was to save costs.
The platform also announced that it was officially demonetising all songs on the platform with less than 1000 streams last April. The decision was detailed in the report “Modernising Our Royalty System,” and it has been planned by the platform for some time. Spotify has also reduced its workforce multiple times to promote speed and cut costs to report a profit of over €1billion which the company announced in April this year
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