EDIT: The only reason why I still had it at this point was because I could use it with other apps. However, now that my Spotify Subscription is cancelled, it doesn’t work with anything. It’s mildly infuriating because today, I can’t still use it with other apps like I was able to yesterday.
Please don’t make the same mistake I made. No one should buy this.
The system working as intended. Now you’re “locked in”.
Sadly he is always right. I wish he was wrong all the time.
I’d check his wikipedia page before throwing around “always” like that.
Thank Faust there are times he is wrong! At least I know we live in not the worst world imaginable.
The Controversies section of his Wikipedia page is euh interesting to say the least. He said some things that are not remotely acceptable
Funny you mentioned RedHat’s cancelation of Stallman.
I didn’t mention that? I don’t write on Wikipedia.
But don’t you think his views on pedophilia are unacceptable? He says he has changed his mind and that’s great but doesn’t excuse what he said.
I usually agree with his views on software but the rest is often questionable
“Just find another
jobplace to livehead unit”-deliberately obtuse bootlickers
Something tells me they just didn’t realize someone would buy a Spotify car play without already having a subscription.
I mean really, you’re too cheap for 9.99/m but you’ll drop 100 bucks for something your phone already does?
Seems like OP is just in a very unique situation that Spotify didn’t expect anyone to be in.
They say never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by neglect, ignorance or incompetence. But with a corporations I’m pretty sure its the other way around.
I’d usually agree but this product seems exclusively intended for someone who’s heavily into Spotify, and the marketing clearly states you need a subscription.
and the marketing clearly states you need a subscription.
So they knew. It was by design.
Knew what? That people buying the device already have one?
You still have it backwards. They didn’t sell you the device to get you on the subscription, they assumed only people with money to spend on a subscription would WASTE A HUNDRED BUCKS ON SOME DUMB SHIT LIKE THIS.
Am I missing something, or would basically any old smartphone work in place of this? I have a Pixel which sits in a cradle and takes care of anything I’d use this for. I guess a physical button or dial might be nice, but I have a volume dial on the car dash.
Seems plainly obvious that it’ll require a sub. It’s a Spotify box.
You’re correct, I have a five or six year old kindle fire i got for like 60 bucks that I rooted and installed stock android on, it’s just a really cheap tablet now. Works perfectly for stuff like this.
My last smartphone would also have worked.
This whole thread is just a bunch of moron-consumer apologists. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to hate corporations and their practices, but this is just a bad purchase and buyers remorse packaged as big corpos fault.
I mean, on all the purchase advertisements they said you must have Spotify premium to use this.
They subsidized the price the device based on the expected return from convincing people to keep their subscriptions. Since it supports other clients they probably also have to manage software updates.
Spotify is a bag of dicks for a lot of other reasons but this really doesn’t seem to be one of them.
They could have fixed that when they discontinued them quite easily.
9.99/m is 119.88/y and it doesn’t stop. Maybe OP thought that the purchase was a one time purchase, and I don’t really blame him, since why would the thing exist if phones with a subscription can already do that it does?
I don’t really blame him
He bought a piece of convenience tech designed for a specific piece of software, when said convenience tech is totally unnecessary to the function of that software, then got mad that he needed the software
I am shocked that everyone in this thread isn’t roasting this dude nonstop. He’s an idiot.
They just don’t consider personal responsibility to even exist. It’s the corporation’s fault they spent a hundred bucks on a thing your old phone and a 15 dollar magnetic mount could have done for you, because said device needs a subscription service.
I had a guy tell me in this thread that I had “privilege” for saying Spotify didnt expect people without a paid subscription to be spending money on such an overpriced device. OP is throwing hundo’s away on stupid shit but it HAS to be the corpos fault somehow, people will toss logic right out the window to keep the cognitive dissonance at bay.
Doesn’t stop? You sign on the dotted line for a lifetime of payments? You can’t cancel your subscription?
since why would the thing exist if phones with a subscription can already do that it does?
That’s the exact logic that would lead someone with an ounce of intelligence to go “oh yeah, this product is a completely stupid piece of shit that’s marketed toward people with more money than brain cells.”
Did it say anywhere on the package that it gets you a lifetime subscription to Spotify? No. Does OP understand that Spotify works on a subscription model? Probably, Saas isnt fucking new.
This is the kind of boy-who-cried-wolf bullshit that keeps corporations from actually being held accountable, because people who want better worker’s rights and taxes on corporations look like idiots when lumped in with children like you who consider personal responsibility and thinking for yourself to be too scawy.
I cancelled my paid Spotify account because I can’t get them to stop fucking recommending Joe Rogan to me.
I’m moments away from canceling. Splash screens of some bullshit podcast or something I don’t want to see. Getting fed up.
Get on board, sail the seas
Search for Github SpotDL And Navidrome
No need to sail them seas, but maybe still use a vpn, just on case. Fun fact i heard from a friend of a friend: Youtube starts rate limiting after 50,000 audio-only video downloads, until you have a new IP.
I am skeptical of the quality of audio on YouTube. And of full album tracks running together properly.
Am I wrong?
Im not audiophile so I scrape audio with newpipe. Downloaded and stream quality are indistinguishably satisfactory.
It’s free. You’re getting “free” quality. Actual quality anything costs money or requires theft.
I have hundreds upon hundreds of songs in my Spotify music library. Downloading them one by one sounds like hell. And then I wouldn’t be discovering new music either.
If you want to move them elsewhere(or even just get a csv export of them) there are apps for that.
https://freeyourmusic.com will let you pay a one time fee to do it to as many services as you want, it’s a bit slow but it’ll get there eventually.
ive donated to slsk. I like the song radio and album radio features of spotify, found one of my favorite bands that way
Allegedly, YouTube Music is about to shove podcasts in our faces with a soon to come update.
I’m leaving YTM if they do that. I’ll go back to ☠️⚓⛵ and using locally available music.
If you have an android, just download blackplayer and use a YT link to mp3 site to get whatever music you want.
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Time to give Napster a shot!
Is Limewire still a thing?
I’m gonna go pull my fucking LPs out of the attic.
No but direct downloads are all the rage. Here are my two favorite sites for free music. Every track is available in either 320k MP3, or FLAC lossless. So they’re even better than Limewire ever was:
https://slavart.gamesdrive.net/tracks
https://free-mp3-download.net/ (FYI don’t use punctuation in your queries or it breaks the search on this one)
You want SoulSeek. I swear it’s not a dating app
Not as the software it was, but frostwire is still kicking
EDIT: correction, frostwire is now a BitTorrent client
Looks like there are still Gnutella clients out there though
Don’t think so. Soulseek on the other hand…
lol
It’s kind of a joke, but Napster is actually trying to get back into it. They hired the guy in charge of music from Roblox to be CEO
I’ve been pretty happy with YouTube music. I got legacied in due to Google Music shutting down and thought I would hate it, but I’ve had zero complaints. Plus, it comes with free YouTube Premium, so I haven’t seen an ad in years.
I have so many complaints, Google Play music was fine. It did exactly what I wanted it to.
YouTube music is like an alien looked at that app, and tried to recreate it exclusively by smashing it’s forehead against a keyboard until an app that started most of the time came out.
I would actually argue that Google Play Music was the best music streaming app that I’ve used. It was great being able to upload music from CDs of small local bands and have it right in there with the other streaming music.
Just today I had a hankering to listen to a specific song through my android auto, and instead of just being able to verbally ask the unit for that song, or even being able to search through the atrocity that is the YouTube Music interface on my head unit, I had to pull over, pull out my phone, search for the band, then click the uploads tab (because uploaded music does not show with the regular search results) and then click the song to get it to play.
Yes and the glorious “playing near you” feature of Play Music. That made the best recommendations for local shows, and I mean local, within a few miles, not just bands I’d listened to but always relevant and often small shows! That feature, I found several new bands I liked that way and good live music. YouTube has nothing like that. Also interface not as intuitive, more cluttered. My kids like it better because they do like having the videos available, but as I do not give a fuck about that but do like live music this is still not as good as the Play Music.
YouTube music is like an alien looked at that app, and tried to recreate it exclusively by smashing it’s forehead against a keyboard until an app that started most of the time came out.
You think they that much care and attention into the app?
But seriously, yeah, I had pretty much the same experience -Google Play Music just worked beautifully, whereas YouTube Music was a steaming turd on Android. I gave up after six months and two phones and went to Deezer, never looked back
Same. Honestly, I expected YTM to make things worse. That’s usually how those kinda things go. But it actually did get better for me. I jumped to Google Play Music because it had better selection than Spotify (at least back then). YTM kept that, but fixed the issues I was having with the desktop browser player sometimes getting stuck. And the more recent support for lyrics that are synced to the music is great.
Their queueing system sucks. All I want to do is queue up some songs but instead YTM fills my queue with tons of crap I’ve never listened to before because that’s how they make money. They put my manually queued songs at the END of the queue so I have to move them up 20+ spaces. There’s literally no way to do it other than creating a custom playlist every time I listen to music, and they intentionally made that take more clicks/taps than queuing. I don’t get how people are ok with the YTM app, it’s terrible.
I hate YTM and I hate that I can’t cancel it because they bundle it with YouTube premium, which my partner uses every day. Screw Google and they anti-consumer manipulative bs.
Yeah, you can use the play next button but it’s not ideal
There’s literally a feature on Spotify where you can hide an artist and never see it, fyi
Really? Where out of curiosity? I’ve never experienced that.
On PC. Keep (kept) it in a separate window while working.
Never had issues with that either tbh. I guess the algo just picked up on something for you. That’s annoying.
White guy late 50’s? What algo would ever target me?
you can try this
https://github.com/williamtcastro/carthing-non-premium-spotify
the whole ui/dashboard is just a web app, so it’s pretty easy to “jailbreak” or modify
I also may or may not use a ‘freemium’ spotify apk. Its been about 3yrs and not issues, so far…
Why would you even buy this? Literally just buy a phone mount and use your phone. This thing was a textbook example of a useless product.
Seriously, what does this do that a phone doesn’t? Am I missing something? Even early Android/iOS devices could run Spotify in their time (although not always anymore). What does this do?
Whenever I’m driving, my phone is almost permanently mounted as a GPS. I also own the car thingy, it has very intuitive hardware buttons and a dial on top of being touch screen. This way I can leave my phone on the GPS screen and adjust Spotify controls on the car thingy without taking attention of the road.
The only real shitty thing I would argue is that you NEED Spotify premium not just to control your Spotify, but also to control youtube/mp3 player/ any other media that you would want to play through your phone.
very intuitive hardware buttons
Now there is an actually sensible product: A phone holder with nice hardware buttons, exposed to the phone as a USB keyboard.
I’ve got a bluetooth steering wheel control (add on for ~$15) that adds play, pause, volume control, and next/previous track.
It has volume button. Idk
They named their device “Car Thing?” Just looked it up. Why not just buy a phone mount and play through your phone?
You can get a magnetic phone mount for like $10-15 that fits in the CD slot like in the picture. Not sure why this is a thing.
I have one on my seat bolt that is strong enough to hold a tablet for like $20.
i’m also strong enough to hold a tablet for $20
Yeah but can you hold my seat bolt on now?
I’ll do it for $10.
$9.50
$3.50
My phone mount attaches to my car’s air vent and I’ve been using it for years. Cost maybe 15 bucks.
I think this is the real takeaway from this post. Someone bought this thing.
Because they know idiots will buy it
Why not just buy a phone mount and play through your phone?
It has the nice big knob so you can change the music while looking at the road…
Can’t you get Bluetooth steering wheel controls for like $30?
Fits with the stupid, low effort, cave-man speak error message “Need Premium Account”
Deception followed by coersion is an excellent way to increase shareholder returns.
Why do you hate capitalism?
Deception and coercion are by definition not part of capitalism. If those things are happening, capitalism has broken down.
Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price systems, private property, property rights recognition, voluntary exchange, and wage labor.
— Wikipedia
I’ve highlighted the parts the conflict with deception and coercion.
You’re quoting capitalism’s sales pitch of capitalism.
Go to your local tent city in every city if you want to see what “voluntary” looks like, dying of exposure and
policecapital defense force harassment while serving as capitalism scarecrows to keep the working poor scared shitless into “voluntarily” showing up to be exploited for already wealthy people’s further profit for their unquenchable greed.Capitalists aren’t even willing to admit being greedy, only acting on “rational self-interest.” If you want to believe what capitalism claims to be, you do you. If you want to see what capitalism is, use your senses and your critical thinking skills.
It’s a definition. When something doesn’t match the definition, it doesn’t meant the definition is wrong it means it’s wrong to call that thing that term.
Greed is, by definition, irrational. But greed vs generosity is independent of capitalism.
If you want to see what “capitalism” is, learn what a definition is and how that relates to reality.
If there are people who truly have no choice, then you don’t have a free market and you don’t have capitalism. However, I will say that I was homeless and during that time my choices were constrained but didn’t disappear. I stopped being homeless because I made the right choices while homeless. This “having no choice” thing is simply not true.
Capital accumulation
I have a car thing, I use it at my desk for media controls. It is pretty great.
But the product description was pretty clear that you needed premium to use it. The same goes for using any third party Spotify client. Shouldn’t have expected otherwise.
Buying any physical hardware that doesn’t function without a subscription should be a illegal, not something you should expect.
A gas stove requires a subscription.
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Just responding to the edit;
Modems work with other providers. You don’t own the infrastructure that connects the internet -> subscriptions.
Phones make it impossible to root or change batteries? I don’t own the device, byt at least it’s not e-waste yet.
The car thing you don’t own since the software makes the hardware e-waste.
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So what use is a consumer modem without an internet service?
You can still use it to network with other computers over the telephone network. Heck you don’t even need to do that via the actual telephone service you can just run some wire.
But I think what was actually meant by OP is “tied to a specific subscription service” as well as “disables features that don’t need a subscription service when you aren’t subscribed”.
Phones, arguably, don’t perform their primary function without cell services.
You can use them as e.g. smart home remote. The cellular modem is going to go unused (at least apart from emergency services) but that’s only a small portion of the hardware, and modems were only ever locked to subscriptions (at least over here) if the phone is subsidised by that subscription. I don’t think they even do that any more, they replaced it with minimum contract durations. In any case even back in the days you could unlock it after some time or coughing up some money.
that’s why I think it should be root-able, serviceable, and speak in standard open protocols
Yep I wish rootability was included in the new EU regulations, it would solve so many issues at once. OTOH: It would solve the issue for people who are tech savvy enough to do such things, gotta be careful with our own elitism there. Enjoying consumer rights should not hinge on being a grease monkey.
Public companies obviously intentionally want to make everything as shitty as possible, just to extract money, but lets accept the hypothetical that subscriptions will actually be banned. Wouldn’t that be great?
You would basically be treated the same as Tier 1-3 ISP’s, pay for the cost of the routing to the company. That phone plan that costs ?? €/$ a month becomes “Pay as you use it”. Flat fee per gigabyte / message etc. These plans were at least here in Finland, and I think my phone bills were around 4-5 EUR a month and a cap that you cannot exceed that month, though smartphones and data plans weren’t a thing. Now everything is a subscription.
Now back to hardware vs software. You obviously pay for the software also when buying the hardware, but for whatever reason the user doesn’t own any kind of rights around it. This has obviously become much worse the past few years (TV’s have ads etc). I really don’t think that the issue is anything you listed, the issue is that greedy companies want to use the subscription model rather than play fair. Phones and modems are EOL at best in a year. I have a PFSense router that cost me less than a router from my ISP used and it’s EOL and security is something I don’t have to worry about.
Modems and routers have most of their features dedicated to home networking and are not usually made by the ISP. Them connecting to the internet is one of the smallest features they have. The other features are related to offline networking and tight security, you can actually just plug an ethernet cable to the wall and get connection from your ISP. Same as using a modem and putting it in “bridge mode”, which will completely bypass the features of the modem/router.
The issue here is that the companies don’t want to provide value, they just want to extract as much money as possible, which is wrong. Laws and regulations are desperately needed and even something as radical as banning subscription services for user devices would be a net positive. Renting Tier 1-3 operator infrastructure for your router/modem to work is completely different than “You have the device and the software, but we block you from using it, since you don’t pay”, which in my opinion is ransomware, not subscriptions.
For right to repair and owning these devices, I completely agree with you.
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What is this device? I’m confused as to why it even exists.
Edit: I discovered it is literally called “Car Thing”.
I’ve never heard of it before, it looks like a smartphone that doesn’t do anything other than have the spotify app? Like is there any mapping or calling built in? And to lock hardware like this behind their premium subscription is wildly, not mildly infuriating.
Man we’ve hit the point where people don’t even know about Sirius or XM radio do they? You paid to listen and you had to pay for the receiver, oh and likely an adapter to get it to work on the vehicle too.
I have the hobby of cracking stuff like that (but mainly windows apps to tell you the truth) and there are many-ish people out there with the same hobby. search around a bit and google stuff like “Spotify Car Thing github” or “Spotify Thing bypass” or jailbreak. Heavily rely on github and russian forums. Also random small blogs
If you’re so determined though and nobody else has done it and you’re fine not using it for 3+ months, there’s a very slim chance that I could find the time to bypass it
EDIT: Yeap it’s cracked and it’s easy too
Thank you for your service, comrade
unfortunately I’ve not released any crack and the reason behind it is that I develop them in a way that you can read what they do (which function they hook, what do they expect and more) using https://frida.re so the crack ends being a javascript file that is run through a power shell script. so no “copy this dll” or “disable your antivirus” - super clean and you can always see what the crack does. my base is ALWAYS that you download and install the app from the manufacturer
due to that though I “can’t” release the scripts to the public as:
- I’ll go to jail
- the companies will start to implement anti-cracking measures as I give them exactly the way I crack their app on a silver platter
Russian forums are truly the peak of hacking
And? Their site clearly states that a premium subscription is required.
And was that the case since it first went on sale?
Yes. They said so in their announcement of the device’s general availability.
Do I just want to ask a question too?
Yes?
Correct… ?
Where do babies come from?
Honestly this is such a stupid product… Just buy an Android Auto and/or Carplay device instead. They are cheaper, offer more features, and don’t force you to pay a subscription fee to utilize it.
Fuck products like this one. If you own it, it should be yours to use.
Do you have a recommendation for a good one of the Android auto things? They vary so much in price and I don’t know if paying more means it’s actually better
I mean to be fair, Spotify as a company clearly would rather give millions to right-wing shitheads than ~anything else.
How else will Joe Rogan be able to afford his basic necessities like subverting democracy 🥺
Out of all the things that Spotify is shitty for that’s the least of my worries about them, and I fucking hate right-wing shitheads. People would rather see the artists they love starve if it gave them convenience to enjoy their art without actually paying for what they do.
It’s honestly kind of baffling to see people go up in arms enough to side with fucking Disney “in support of artists” because AI is supposedly stealing from them and the same people go on with their lives and put on Spotify and feel self-righteous. People fucking suck.
/rant
and the same people go on with their lives and put on Spotify and feel self-righteous
Yeah but consider that for me for example, I was previously giving exactly 0 to artists. Now I give whatever tiny amount my odd song played here or there pays out. Which is more than previously.
Is it a lot? No. Do I listen to a lot of music? Hell no. Did I buy any music before as a result? Fuck no. And now I sometimes listen to some. Plus the music I listen to I couldn’t buy in physical anyways (low-fi or synth background noise while coding), and wouldn’t know where to buy digital even if I wanted to. Previously I just used a noise generator, btw.
It’s probably not a good idea to assume that 100% of listeners on spotify would have invested that same amount of money into physical sales.
Imagine if they had spent that $50 million on programmers instead. They could have had the best music playing app in existence.
wait they DO THAT??
I’ll need to rethink my choice in streaming platforms, because that’s messed up
I can’t tell if you’re being serious or not but they gave Joe Rogan a platform and pay him a lot of money for it. Probably other stuff too if they support that.
what’s wrong with Joe Rogan?
Alex Jones Jr. Wing nut conspiracy theorist.
Horse dewormer man.
It would be quicker to list what’s right with him
He’s a lunatic
He’s the male Gwyneth Paltrow selling brain pills instead of Goop. He promotes alt-right and far-right conspiracies. He told people not to get the COVID vaccine. If he just interviewed people – even people from all sides – I’d be fine with it. Problem is he promotes dangerous conspiracies and usually ignores fact checking. He’s using his influence and authority to do harm. And worst of all, I think he just does it for the ratings.
Cars in 2030: to use brakes you need premium account. Sorry!
This thing that OP bought is a separate add-on to the car. As far as the car is concerned it doesn’t exist and it’s just plugged into a normal 3.5 mm aux device.
How does that boot taste?
Fuck streaming. Return to a big dumb pile of MP3s.
This is absurdly difficult if you want to actually pay for individual mp3s. It’s like they want you to pirate
Nice weather we’re having.
You wouldn’t download a storm cell.
I know, right? A bit hot in some parts of the world, but in general, things seem nice.
The first generation iPod topped out at 40GB. It’s felt like that for a long time, matey
I still buy CDs and rip them. All the music I want on my phone ready to play from headphones or the car
That must be expensive as fuck.
I think Spotify is 12€ p month. Let’s say 10€. A new album costs about 10€ digital or 15-20€ as a CD.
So you could buy a new album every month and build up a catalogue.
I buy them used for about 2,50€ an album.
I don’t always want an album though. Sometimes I just like one song on an album.
Spotify is just so convenient. I have over 5000 liked songs on there.
Yeah, I love streaming for music. About $10 a month and I get seemingly every song I’ve ever looked up. Streaming video has a lot of problems with fragmentation, but music doesn’t seem to have nearly as bad of an issue. I use YTM and have never not found what I wanted to listen to. $10 is like the price of a single CD (or was – it’s been well over a decade since I’ve even looked at the price of CDs).
I’ve also listened to a lot of full albums on streaming (it’s often what I do when I discover a new artist that I like) and there’s never an album that I’d want to buy every song from. My music tastes are also very diverse. My liked songs are full of tons of songs that may as well be one hit wonders to me. That doesn’t translate well to buying CDs.
I just bought a CD player a few weeks ago. It’s not very good (it’s a combination CD player/alarm clock, and the speakers are crap) but it’s nice being able to just put a disc in and press “play” instead of booting up one of my game consoles or plugging in my USB optical drive. I’ve started hitting up second-hand stores for CDs to play with it.
Instructions unclear burning 8 track tapes.
I stopped listening to music, radio or nothing. I’m tired of being constantly stimulated, I desire peace and quiet
Audiogalaxy
I actually really love the idea of spotify, but their execution is fucked. Joe Rogan’s getting billions and musicians who make up the overwhelming majority of the plays get microscopic returns per play. That’s bullshit.
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can’t blame the devs, it’s a thing for a car. better than spoticar
better than spoticar
Barely, if at all.
Unironically Spoticar would suck less
Wait, so let me get this straight.
You purchased a device that presumably has no local storage and are upset that it needs you to login to a server that can then stream you the music?
Or is this an issue of not having a paid account?
I guess Spotify didn’t realize someone who didn’t pay for Spotify would be likely to pay 100 bucks for a device to stream Spotify, and in most cases I’d say they’re probably right.
upset that it needs you to login to a specific server before it will let you stream music from other unrelated servers
FTFY
Must be nice to be privileged
If you can drop 100 bucks on a random bullshit device instead of just using your phone or something then you’re the privileged one.
Reduce and reuse was just a way of life for some of us.
Plus it was on the marketing, not much to be done there unless you just can’t read.
I pay for a family account, but apparently that’s not the same as a premium account. I’d have the same problem using this device without having to upgrade my Spotify account.
