Absolutely! It's nice hardware, and it will be sad if they all just end up in the landfill

Seems maybe its already been hacked: https://www.xda-developers.com/spotify-car-thing-root/

I bought one of these for $25 back then hoping someone would create something sweet with it. Well its still in the box, no cool hacks had been released last time I checked. I believe the thing barely has any ram.

some subreddits to monitor:

https://www.reddit.com/r/carthinghax/

https://www.reddit.com/r/SpotifyCarThingJBreak/

Seconded! This is a huge opportunity to avoid unnecessary waste in the landfill.

They'll be extra cheap on ebay for a while. I see a few for US$20.

Here's hoping, but my inner cynic says it's unlikely since it doesn't do anything for those quarterly numbers.

However, I am curious what could be done with the stock OS... This repo here seems to suggest that the UI on the CarThing is just a webapp: https://github.com/williamtcastro/carthing-non-premium-spoti...

If we could take this and rip out the existing frontend, I wonder if we could turn it into a Chumby-like device at the very least. Though I suppose the tricky bit is to enable the bluetooth connection for any kind of network data transfer...

If anyone at Spotify is reading this, I just cancelled my account. You guys deserve considerably less money than you have now, but this is the best I can do.

"I am very tough"

It's not a great move, but I don't think it calls for wishing harm on anyone, let alone a majority of people who at most had a hand in making something you did feel was useful enough to pay for.

It was possible to drive in silence before and it's possible now. Perhaps explore a radio station.

Don't denigrate him, he's done the one thing that is simultaneously most likely to affect change at a company, and also the hardest thing for an individual to do: vote with their wallet. He's right, Spotify does deserve less money for their godawful decent into the lower rungs of mediocrity.

Meh, when I boycott a place I just revoke my money and/or review the place accurately, but I don't posture about it. When I get bad food at a restaurant, I might mention it if it's really rough and ask for something different, but I'm not going to berate the server or kitchen staff; unimaginable. People have enough shit to deal with, like fearing impending layoffs and the likelihood that because the product didn't bring in enough money, they'll be out of a job for god knows how long if they don't turn things around.

I have personal grievances with my iPad, but I'm not about to say "If anyone at Apple is listening, I hope you do worse financially".

I presume they were a bit upset and chose overly broad language, it's not a big deal either way, I don't believe they truly wanted harm on anyone, it just seemed like a silly tone to choose.

> I'm not going to berate the server or kitchen staff; unimaginable.

Who is advocating berating staff? I don't see that in OPs post, nor my own. No one suggests being aggressive towards anyone. Saying the company deserves less money is a capitalistic statement aimed at the corporation, not its diligent employees. You're welcome to to silently withdraw your money from a place of business and leave them with no feedback as to why. But 'posturing' about the reasons of a boycott while also withdrawing money is a great way to attach feedback to an action the company might actually listen to.

There are engineers at Spotify who read Hacker News. They've noticed the threads. Maybe there's one reading at this very minute. Create a burner and speak your mind, comrade.

I think they probably fired anybody at Spotify with influence in the relevant teams in their Christmas cull. Which is probably why they are discontinuing it, because there is no one left who knows how it works.