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. Shouldnât have expected otherwise.
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. Wouldnât that be great?
You would basically be treated the same as Tier 1-3 ISPâs, pay for the cost of the routing to the company. That phone plan that costs ?? âŹ/$ a month becomes âPay as you use itâ. 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 werenât 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 doesnât own any kind of rights around it. This has obviously become much worse the past few years (TVâs have ads etc). I really donât 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 itâs EOL and security is something I donât 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 âbridge modeâ, which will completely bypass the features of the modem/router.
The issue here is that the companies donât 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 âYou have the device and the software, but we block you from using it, since you donât payâ, which in my opinion is ransomware, not subscriptions.
For right to repair and owning these devices, I completely agree with you.
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 donât 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 âtied to a specific subscription serviceâ as well as âdisables features that donât need a subscription service when you arenât subscribedâ.
Phones, arguably, donât 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 thatâs 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 donât 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.
thatâs 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.
Every single modem and cell phone Iâve ever owned have worked without a subscription to anything. My internet and ability to make cell calls were limited after my subscription ended, but the devices themselves were easily repurposed to other uses.
You misunderstand. I have no knowledge about how smart you are. You could easily be smarter than me. What im saying is you need to reassess your tone and delivery, because it, and your edit only shows me and others that you are arrogant and therefore unable to properly assess other points of view.
Address the possibility that i have a point on your own time, after your ego-required final comment to me. Whether you will address youself or remain as you are, itâs completely up to you.
But the point is that the description of the product clearly stated it needs a subscription to function. You literally buy it with that understanding. If you didnât read the description then itâs 100% on you.
Whether it should be legal or not, or whether itâs ethical or not, is a different discussion. But the product wasnât disingenuous about how it works, so complaining about how it works exactly as advertised is a bit silly.
Look out! Communists are coming for your toothbrush. Better vote for harsher penalties for modifying stuff you bought. The DMCA still allows throwing away or disconnecting the computer locking you out of your heated seats.
You literally canât buy them anymore! Spotify quietly canned the project. Support pages are still up but I canât find a purchase option anywhere.
I bought one pretty early into launch and even then they were already heavily discounted. It was a weird choice for a peripheral, but personally I really wish they had tried a bit harder instead of giving up outright
They never even came over to the uk and I really wanted one. Nobody else makes anything like it either. I donât know why they canned it, Iâve only ever seen praise for it on YouTube and the like
Sometimes you donât want to use your phone for everything. Plus car thing to me seemed much more interesting outside of the car. Like to use as a media control panel in the kitchen etc.
Thereâs a niche. Iâve only ever driven older cars with less than stellar stereo setups for phone play. The idea is getting a small-footprint and quick to navigate stereo interface without actually having to replace whole ass stereo, and I find it pretty appealing!
For me the problem was connectivity. I assumed the car thing would act as a go-between for my phone and stereo, and it would remain always connected to the car audio system. Instead itâs just another thing youâre connecting to. It actually slowed me down significantly more than it helped.
If it could send/receive audio and just used your phone as a source, thatâd be ideal for me. Like a suped up bluetooth receiver with spotify connectivity.
This thing that OP bought is a separate add-on to the car. As far as the car is concerned it doesnât exist and itâs just plugged into a normal 3.5 mm aux device.
I made a pact with myself in 2005 or so that I would never sort triangles by hand ever again. Since then I have been using higher level APIs and I have not regretted it.
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