Spotify Car Thing will be discontinued
support.spotify.com
support.spotify.com
I miss the era when I was a customer paying for a product. Now I'm apparently some kind of traveller that's on a journey with dozens of companies as they try to find local maxima of profit.
That was last month.
Otherwise we're just manufacturing e-waste.
Have proper standards how music is transmitted. Have devices support those standards. Have those standards be long-running.
When trillion-dollar companies consider a serial connector to be a proprietary and DRM-enabled apparatus I think the "real solution" is precluded by entirely unnecessary corporate greed.
Regular major and minor chords were unaffected though :)
(I actually started reading this comment as a pun, as in "The EU can regulate music streaming - they already regulated power chords", and that made me smile)
This is particularly true of internet connected devices, but is also true for IOT devices that only connect to the internet indirectly. Security holes get found, if you can't patch and update devices in the field then you are leaving your customers unprotected.
And I feel that updates are being abused too much by device makers now:
-allows making devices worse, say "optimizing" the UI e.g. to make you spend more time in the parts they (not necessarily the user) want you to see
-allows releasing half-finished games since they can just be updated later anyway
-allows breaking old functionality for whatever reason
-allows the device makers to choose when to do the update rather than the user, say just when you want to start playing a game
It's a shame there's no less invasive way to ensure devices are secure. It sure is convenient for the device makers that the solution to security also gives them continuous control over your device's features and when you can actually use it
If the device is using a read-only firmware, has a secure boot chain of trust, lives behind a firewall and only makes outgoing connections, the risk is very limited. You can't directly connect to it, so your only option is to tamper with traffic in transit and exploit some buffer overflow in how it parses replies to its requests - that's already a very targeted attack that's really hard to scale, and with an intact secure/trusted boot chain it still means you can't persist so you'd need to redo this every time the device is rebooted.
And finally, assuming you manage to do all the above, what't the payoff? For a "Car Thing", the payoff is quite limited. I guess you can blast obnoxious music at full volume against the user's wishes?
And if they're your services then you can maintain their stability.
Well no, because not all e-waste are devices that you can conceivably reflash. For instance a monitor equals at least 10 phones in terms of e-waste volume, but I doubt legislation like this is going to make a dent in monitor e-waste. The proposal only realistically makes a difference for computing devices with short EOL periods and locked bootloaders, so basically phones and tablets.
I believe if given the tools, people would gladly donate their time to make something fun with it. Heck, that's what I do in my spare time. But it's impossible if everything is completely locked down, as if a music streaming box contains nuclear launch codes that must be protected at all costs.
If installing alternative/third-party firmware becomes easy and normalized, there will also be more options to choose from, because it will actually become worthwhile for people/companies to develop said firmware.
If you have an easy way to flash any phone and plenty of firmware available, it makes sense to turn flashing into a business. Buy used phones off people who don't need them any more, reflash them with a newer and debloated Android, and then sell them off for more than you got them for.
This would very quickly lead to abuses though. If PC OEMs are bad, imagine what a small mom-and-pop shop, subject to a lot less scrutiny and having much less respect for the law could do.
The industry should be made to move to security models that don't revolve around baking in manufacturer-privileged keys (verification or attestation). Internal groups developing any default user-environment software should have to stay at an arms length from the hardware team, and only be using published documentation.
some subreddits to monitor:
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...
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.
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.
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.
> We recommend resetting your Car Thing to factory settings and safely disposing of your device following local electronic waste guidelines.
It's not everyday that the manufacturer of a working product tells you "throw it in the trash". I wish someone would force them to make a recall instead.
This is a decision by the person who hires the PM. This is a VP/director-level decision.
It seems that they are refunding anyone who asks.
https://old.reddit.com/r/carthinghax/comments/1d0ida1/just_g...
It would be easy to wipe proprietary IP from the latest version, shove whatever's left in a ZIP file, and upload it somewhere online.
It would be easy to do literally nothing except publish instructions on how to wipe the flash. That alone would be enough to allow some clever people online to get a normal Android installation onto these things.
Somehow, all of these options are too much for Spotify to stomach. Shameful.
Honestly, I forgot Car Thing even existed. I hardly remembered it at all. Given how my car is over 20 years old and I make extensive use of Spotify while driving, I imagine I was probably the target audience for Car Thing. Makes me wonder if Car Thing's biggest problem was marketing.
Which makes it even more puzzling that they can't keep it running...
[0] https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/27/23280357/spotify-stops-ma...
[1] https://github.com/err4o4/spotify-car-thing-reverse-engineer...
[2] https://github.com/bishopdynamics/superbird-debian-kiosk
As a decade-long Spotify premium user, I am disappointed by this poor experience and wastefulness. Over the course of using their product, there have been few new, impactful features. I do not believe the company can offer a compelling service at their pricepoint and will seek alternatives.
What new features do you want for a music player? Better audio quality? More discovery features? Lower memory usage? More responsive UI?
You just perfectly highlighted the business mindset that never fixes a goddamn thing they rushed out.
- First of all, stop changing the layout every goddamn day
- Stop pushing podcasts
- Better 'ignore' functionality so I can listen to something without it influencing my recommendations. I know Private Mode exists but it's clumsy and all-or-nothing. I want it to be more granular and available on an as-needed basis.
- Support for player cursors, which is like 'queue', but with the ability to tell Spotify to 'resume playing from this point in the playlist'. Maybe even expand this, and add multiple simultaneous cursor support, allowing for on-demand blackout zones or something.
- Bring back the 30 second press-to-hold song preview. Removing this feature was a crime. "low usage" my ass, so what? Keep it in, you scoundrels, even the SDK still supports it.
- Support for song start/end offsets. This is the #1 most requested feature on their feedback forums, has been open for 10 years, and they only ever occasionally chime in to say "we hear you, but not right now". If the issue is legal, just say so and stop leading us all on.
- Allow me to re-order my Liked Songs.
- Do what Apple Music did and require artists upload lyrics. Partnering with Genius was a dumb move. Genius is inconsistently available, and more often than not, just straight up incorrect.
There are so many more. Their UI is just barely on the right side of acceptable and not one inch further than that. I stay on Spotify because their music discovery is really excellent, I look forward to the new recommendations from Discover Weekly and Release Radar, and I think the Spotify Wrapped is a lot of fun every year. But as a music player, it is deficient to the highest degree.
I want control over how my library is organized and made accessible to me. Any basic library system would allow me to tag music and create ways of organizing music in a way that works for me.
For example, I can't view a catalogue of my downloaded songs - only albums and playlists.
What if I could explore music by entering a mode to listen to music as if I were at the time I was in college, considering what I was listening to then?
What if I want to listen to the music I've listened to the most- view the stats of what I listen to, like last.fm's scrobbling?
Why hasn't there been a music video made available in Spotify?
Why isn't there a way for Artists to interact with fans in a meaningful way beyond promotions? Why is there still a barrier to entry for Artists to make their music accessible to an audience- they still have to go through an costly, label-esque intermediary. Why haven't they attracted the DIY scene of bandcamp and built better goodwill?
Further, Spotify's playlist/song centric model promotes only listening to a small number of songs from a large number of artists. I wish they invested in allowing for listeners to discover music in different modalities- like enabling someone who wants to seek out and listen to a whole new album.
A common take, but their recommendations are tired and often just songs I already listen to. Why must their recommendation also be kept behind small sample sizes like the 'Discover Weekly?' Why can't I query/paginate through recommendations- such as viewing artists I might like if I like these sets of artists?
My really only options for discovery are finding music on a lucky chance on a radio- or actively clicking through "Related Artists." - or more likely, not on Spotify.
Further, I cannot get Spotify to understand that I have multiple listening profiles. I sometimes want to listen to jazz or post-rock for background music. In terms of music discovery- I want to find more in my preferred genres, and not have lofi-hip-hop interrupt my listening session. This has never been possible.
They used to support native app integrations- the only way you could use a music visualizer- not anymore.
New features I can think of- there's been the recent DJ- which is a worse version than an app that predated it, Radiant- which is more creative and does a better job at blending AI by taking the form of a robotic person who can provide weather updates.
To then hear that they are investing on building B2B software with commercializing Backstage is concerning. It further hurts their ethos to learn that they are pushing 'Ghost' artists to avoid paying royalties to deserving artists.
- Improved UX: Still can’t filter for unheard episodes of a podcast. Not sure why the repeat button has no tooltip and has to be so cryptic. One tap repeats the (imaginary?) playlist and 2 taps repeats the song? Who knows? Why can’t I see a stream of the songs I played so I can easily find what I recently played and play it again? No, recently played albums/radios don’t help. How do I search for business podcasts that aren’t from my country? Why does the shuffle of an album start playing random other artists? Well, actually I know, those artists are cheaper to play.
- Proper Listings: Bo Burnham’s Make Happy isn’t a podcast and those are not 3 minute long podcast episodes. Hitting next must go to the next track and start from the beginning, NOT from minute 4.
It’s unbelievable that in the last 10 years the only positive change was the podcast UI and addition of podcasts with videos etc. At the expense of app reliability. And how hard is it to allow me to find business podcasts from US? (Yes, I am hung up on it after Google decided to kill the Podcasts app) Or at least sort by globally most listened?
Actually, happy with the car thing dying. Maybe they will pull the super obstructive car UI from the app. It comes back from time to time even though it’s turned off and it’s a major safety risk, despite trying the opposite.
> Why can’t I see a stream of the songs I played so I can easily find what I recently played and play it again?
is available on their Linux client which isn't even officially supported. (It's in the play queue screen.)
Managing or finding playlists on mobile is a nightmare. There's no organization or folders on mobile (despite being on desktop). Searches are always sluggish, even when searching downloaded songs or playlists.
That is bizarre UI/UX. I should just be able to scroll up when viewing my play queue or have a button directly on that page to see the history.
I want playlist folders (which do exist) to be playable in their entirety, or just the sub-list. I want to be able to turn an existing playlist into the top-level one, i.e. categorise within it. I want to find songs I've liked that are not in any playlist. In short: playlist management.
You asked for 'new features', but mainly I want the bugs fixed, and they're not doing that either. (I'm sure they must be, but obviously I mean the visible bugs that prominently affect me.)
Though it's no surprise Spotify failed at hardware given their general software competency. Broke the Chromecast app for years after the big mobile redesign. Not sure how it's possible to have such bugs in an app that shows three buttons, a progress bar, and a picture, but 2,000 engineers will find a way. Liked page on the phone app doesn't even load with bad service, which is like your umbrella not opening in the rain.
Anyone know of alternatives, even alternative clients?
I'll admit, my FOSS prefering, DIY leaning use of tech is tedious, but is it worse than dealing with the churn companies force you (and your wallet) to deal with?
Today, most electronics manufacturers have sold off their operations, so we're left with proprietary pap like CarPlay and Android Auto.
Obviously I would expect an electronic device like this to last more than 2 years, so if Spotify is going to cause it to stop working then they'd have to refund me. Having to do that for their entire customer base would probably result in some different decision making!
Obviously this product was only sold in the US (AFAIK), which has much less in the way of consumer protection, which allows for this crappy treatment of consumers.
The Car Thing is so much more convenient than unlocking iPhone with my face, opening spotify, futzing around on the phone to change songs or playlists or whatever. And its easily accessible to my passenger. Its a far better interface than phone for use in the car! Its one of the main reasons I haven't switched to Apple Music which is bundled with my cell phone plan. I guess Spotify just wants me to got to Apple Music.
A bargain compared to the Car Thing's ~$90 price tag.
The head unit's software is definitely a little janky, but it doesn't really matter as all she uses it for is CarPlay anyway. It even supports wireless CarPlay so she doesn't need to take her phone out of her work bag - our brand new Kia with an expensive infotainment system doesn't even support wireless.
It works extremely well.
It's another to discontinue service (i.e. Music) to the product.
Did the hardware generate a lot of support requests?
Does it require too much engineering to keep secure with updates, etc.?
I can't repeat this enough: there needs to be LEGISLATION against this.
If a product needs cloud functionality to operate, there needs to be a legal minimum number of years (5?), and the company should be required to prominently advertise the length of time (so they can compete to guarantee for longer periods of time, like 10 years).
And companies can still stop selling the thing. They just need to keep the cloud servers running and maintaining their integrations with the rest of their code.
If maintaining servers for 5 years is the tipping point for them to judge that the product won't be profitable and therefore won't release it, then yeah it doesn't sound like it should be worth selling in the first place.
A judicial solution would be much more measured and flexible.
Unfortunately, lawyers and courts have a undeservedly bad reputation which is often created by poor legislation which is beset by political motives and disadvantaged by having to draft prospective rules that can apply to a broad set of differing circumstances.
Edit: Why don't court do this more? Often because of terrible, over-reaching legislation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Arbitration_Act
Yes, I would totally push for legislation forcing manufacturers to unlock bootloaders and release tech info when they stop selling devices, so that hardware can be repurposed; landfills are already full of perfectly functioning stuff that could be put again in operation if manufacturers weren't so stubbornly hostile to anything Open Source.
https://picard.musicbrainz.org/
Back to your post, if you need to play music from the server, take a look at the mpd daemon and its remote interfaces. It does the opposite as it plays from the server while the clients would be used as remote controls so that you can for example install mpd on a small single board computer (or more scattered around the house), configure them to access local or remote mount point, then grab your phone and tell the server to play the desired song.
They don't mind that their customers paid them for it.
It's a Web-App. So what's the effort to keep this thing running for a while longer?
My guess is that they reached a stage where they should touch the OS again, and there's no-one in the company who can do it...
> By Chris Welch, a reviewer specializing in personal audio and home theater. Since 2011, he has published nearly 6,000 articles, from breaking news and reviews to useful how-tos
So 13 years, that’s around 460 publications per year. That sounds pretty high, you would have to be writing non stop for more than a decade. I know nothing about the tech new industry but is that realistic or just a fantasy?
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2015/12/28/10674048/verizon-will-pa...
I think you might also be underestimating how easy it becomes to just churn out article after article if that's your day-job. You're not writing literature or a longform article in the New Yorker; you're just bashing out 2-4 paragraphs, then rinse and repeat all day.
In any case, the "website writer" jobs are known for overwork and low pay, so these numbers are par for the course.
It drives me bonkers.
I pay for family and am considering moving everyone to deezer out of spite
The least they could do is credit accounts with Spotify Premium, for those that bought these devices.
I'm nearly a day one subscriber but i'm currently exploring my options to leave.
I've been slowly frustrated with the changes Spotify keeps introducing... breaking my "Starred" songs by replacing it with "Liked" songs, tampering with song shuffle, and routinely switching me to "Autoplay". Some of the curated playlists have gone down in quality as well, they'll start off great and halfway through I'm wondering why the playlist changed so drastically.
I can't say for certain the discontinuation of Car Thing will have me end my subscription, but I will say this is the start of a wake up call for how Spotify treats their most loyal customers.
Should force them to open source it.
So this time, the US needs to handle this on their own...
https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/Car-Thing-Develo...
We really need legislation to unlock devices like this when they reach EOL, the hardware here is very simple and could easily be reused.
That email would be fine if they were just discontinuing a feature of their ongoing service - it's disappointing, but you got value out of it while you were paying for it and now we're stopping and won't charge you any further.
But this is a stand-alone piece of hardware that they sold without an explicit expiry date, in a product category (car audio) that generally lasts decades (as they are solid-state devices with no moving parts) and now they're outright making it useless 2 years later without any refunds.
Best of luck safe travels buh-bye!!
I wanna sell something that I can just disable a year or so after I've sold it.
What the hell does this even mean?
I was happy with this on my old civic. Now I’m switching to tidal.
It feels like adding insult to injury for everyone who put faith in the product/company.
I've been a long-time premium subscriber of Spotify, but I've already decided I will never buy a hardware device from them (even before Car Thing came out) or do something like pay annually for their services, because I don't trust their commitment to anything for more than 30 days at a time at this point.
They don't care about waste, they don't care about the consumers, all decisions boil down to profit.
But we just don't care. And what are you going to do?
At one point I cared about the ability to integrate nicely with my Amazon echoes (it was much nicer than the Apple Music integration at the time) which I’ve been replacing with Sonos speakers anyways, which support AirPlay 2.
It seems like it's integrated with my music history, so if I ask it to play a song that I listen to a lot but it has a very common name, it'll still get it right - it's like magic.
Google Assistant is absolute trash in comparison, even on the (rare) occasion that it finds the right song, it's super slow and half the time it won't even start the music. And good luck asking it to play a song that shares a name with a movie, it'll think you're trying to play the movie.
Really disappointed that Spotify is going to stop me from using a piece of hardware that I paid for, and by making me switch to Google Assistant is going to make listening to music in the car hell.
I didn't expect any refund here but it does remind me of when Apple bought lala, the music streamer, for their track upload technology to be added to iTunes. I eventually got a check from Apple refunding the $25 I paid that had enabled the ability to play tracks more than once, in this case, 100 of them. I wasn't expecting anything but it was a nice gesture.
The Spotify experience continues to remind me I miss lala (and rdio).
I use my CarThing as dedicated Spotify controller for my desktop PC and they're just straight up making it a paperweight rather than leaving in the current level of support for it so it could still function in the future without the need for constant updates (not that there ever seemed to be any anyway).
I hope they think again and reconsider either making it open source as people have suggested or just leaving the current level of functionality.
They will loose a lot of followers if they go down this road and potentially also get quite a lot of bad press.
What happened, vulnerabilities which are not disclosed now?
I got one on sale a year ago, it's a really well-built nice device, would be great if they open-source the missing parts of it (the GPL'd kernel was released some time ago, but it's not the latest I think)
> This decision wasn't made lightly
"We thought long and hard about the money we make and the stuff we sold our customers, and frowned when we realized we prefer the former"
> and we want to assure you that our commitment to providing a superior listening experience remains unchanged
That is: unless you are using car thing, in which case your experience will become much worse
I do not see how the right to repair does not mandate that Spotify publish any and all keys and documentation to allow the purchased devices to be repaired.
RIGHT?
EDIT: don't waste your time, PayPal auto-denied it because it's been >180 days since the transaction ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
"Oh, goodness, no! We're doing great! But we already took that money, and we know our customers are too weak and airheaded to put law enforcement or regulators on us, nor to sue us for more than a free Big Mac coupon settlement received only after several years of foot-dragging. And most all of you pathetic worms will keep paying us money. If you can't hear us laughing at you, that's because you're plugged into one of our other products like a mindless zombie."
It's a perfect device to fill a specific niche for when you want Bluetooth audio but your existing audio system only has aux input or a tape deck.
> “The goal of our Car Thing exploration in the U.S. was to learn more about how people listen in the car,” the company said in an emailed statement to TechCrunch.
The goal was not to build a consumer device for users who actually wanted to use the damned thing! So it apparently was never about demand to begin with, it was a learning exercise. Apparently the RLHF was so disastrous it only took 5 months to train this feature out of Spotify's business plan.
Who is this product for? Someone that is willing to spend money on a relatively expensive Bluetooth receiver and a premium account and someone that is driving an older car (possibly 8-10 years old at least) that lacks bluetooth. Frugal car owners might not have a lot of overlap with those with the disposable income for premium audio equipment and music subscriptions.
For $100, you can pretty much buy a new stereo that has Bluetooth and you don't need Spotify premium to use it. Even just $15 on Amazon will buy you a Bluetooth receiver that works with your car's aux jack or a cassette adapter. It's a neat device and definitely filled a niche for some people but it wasn't going to convert many users to a paid account.
Even if the internal API-s change, can't they just create mappings the devices need? They are not even willing to put that effort in.
So sad to see software companies treat hardware as a failed hobby project then flat out say customers to bring their devices to an e-waste dump like they do in their FAQ.
50?? Try 1600+ (from https://engineering.atspotify.com/opensource/)
The biggest benefit of the Car Thing for me was flawless voice control that leagues ahead of Google Assistant, the Car Thing was much more than a screen that showed album art.
I haven't found a similar replacement for that.
What's wrong with a usb pen drive full of tunes?
You get to keep the files!
I don't know about you, but my whole life is in the cloud these days. /s
I may not keep the files, but if I left Spotify I’m still left with a list of thousands of songs I enjoy and almost certainly wouldn’t have discovered otherwise.
I understand it was no longer supported at the time, but there is no reason why it couldn't still function as a controller, there solution is just to throw it away?
Hate the PR speak here "This decision wasn't made lightly, and we want to assure you that our commitment to providing a superior listening experience remains unchanged."
So what superior listening experience are they committed too exactly? When all they are doing is lowering the experience?
Perhaps pruning projects like this helps them deliver on higher quality streams, which they have been alluding to for years now. Spotify Hifi was announced in 2021.
Depending on your jurisdiction, this may be a short enough window to warrant a refund. Or at the very least a chargeback.
We deserve this shit, because we keep buying into it
Capitalism, and particularly capitalism that emphasizes profit, warps incentives away from building things for people.
And we have other functioning models! Open source is about as close to anarchist theory in practice as there is, for example. "Wellbeing for all" isn't some pipe dream we could never achieve, FOSS is built on the principle of "I'll build it, use it if you like. Help me if you can."
It's one thing for software to be a service. Hardware? No thanks. I will never, ever "buy "something still controlled by the manufacturer after I take it home, and I discourage everyone from doing so.
Stealing devices is still theft.
I purchased mine without any intent on using it in a car, and in fact I never did, but it was clear that I was engaging in out-of-bounds behavior in doing so.
My 2001 Jeep Wrangler has both
$300 more for a new stereo is still a lot to many people. Plus, if I buy beater cars but put a nice stereo in them I'm at risk of theft. And I have to pay install fees again if I buy my next beater.
The buyers of this product are people who:
- spend enough time in their car to want streaming audio
- spend money on phone and internet
- have a desire to improve their car to have streaming audio
- but not enough to replace the car
- and also not enough to replace the stereo
- but definitely enough to pay money to add it
- and are willing to remove the item they are paying for every time they leave the car to prevent its attractiveness to thievesA brand new Toyota Corolla is $22k and comes with both. For older cars, you can get a nice stereo for $300. If you aren't an audiophile, probably $100.
You can get a Bluetooth-capable stereo with hands-free microphone for around $100, and while I haven’t yet installed it, I just bought a 7” screen double-DIN stereo for under $300 that has (wired) CarPlay and Android Auto integration, plus a backup camera. It even has ports for a front camera if you want one, though you’ll have to buy it separately. That’s a huge capability upgrade for very little money, and not at a discount retailer either. I got it from Crutchfield, whose value proposition is extensive installation advice and lifetime tech support from actual experts based in the US.
$300 is more than I spend on gas each year. Not worth it.
Backup cameras aren't necessary, but they're damned handy. I thought front cameras were kind of silly until I drove a car with one, but it turns out they're very useful in the right situations.
Because owning a small, cheap car doesn’t cost much and is way more convenient than renting one.
For example. I use my car when I need to transport something I can’t take on my bike. I might need to pick up a package from the nearest parcel point that’s too big or too heavy to transport otherwise. This is about 500 meters from my house, just too far to walk with a heavy package (done that, not fun) but renting a car for a 2 minute trip seems a bit ridiculous.
Or I may want to buy a few crates of beer for a party. A bit inconvenient to get by bike (although possible). This is a 1 kilometer trip. Again, not worth the trouble renting a car for but not a problem if I already have a car anyway.
Or I may need to take some stuff to the recycling center. Again a short trip (2 kilometers).
You may start to see a pattern here. If I had to rent a car for those situations then it would take me more time to pick up and retrieve a rental than for the trip I need it for.
You may not care about the features of that sound system, and so don’t want one, but that’s a different story than “it’s too expensive”.
It wasn't about having a car or not. It was the assumption that if you have a higher income you are automatically willing to spend a sizeable chunk on it on a car. Not all people are as obsessed with cars as the average American.
I do pretty well for myself and I can think of a thousand things I'd rather spend my money on than on a car.
Even a cheap car car costs £1000's up front (or £100's/mo financed), with recurring > £100 a month in insurances, fuel, and repairs.
A spotify subscription costs £12/mo, and a family plan £20/mo.
A more than good enough data plan is £10/mo.
A more than good enough smartphone is £100.
The vast majority of older car owners can easily afford a Spotify subscription.
In short, the top ~10% might have modern cars. The top ~90% have unlimited data or data where the limits will not be reached by playing Spotify. I could see someone going "Hmm, that's 80% of the market we could sell this too".