When a product is "abandoned" by the manufacturer, how can users' "right to self - rescue" be guaranteed?

As is well known, in the field of consumer electronics, a large number of new products and projects are launched every year, every quarter, or even every month.

Among them, those "successful cases" that are both well - received and commercially successful are obviously the best outcome for all parties. After all, once manufacturers make money, they will naturally pay more attention to their products. They may develop subsequent products for them, provide longer - term after - sales services for the existing "models", and offer future software or system updates.

However, at the same time, obviously not all products can be "successful". Among them, there are naturally many products with high prices but low configurations or those lacking market competitiveness.

In addition, even if the concept of a product is very advanced and the experience is not bad, due to various factors, they may still encounter a sales slump. Sometimes, even if a product is quite good, a project may be suddenly "halted" just because the manufacturer thinks it "won't make money".

If a relevant enterprise or product is "unreliable" from the start and only aims to make a quick profit, then people can laugh at the corresponding consumers for "failing to recognize the right product".

But if a good product is abandoned due to strange "force majeure", then why should the consumers, who were originally "having an eye for good products", suddenly become the "unlucky victims" for no reason?

This kind of thing is not uncommon, and sometimes even involves "big manufacturers"

Speaking of this, we have to mention a case, which is the Spotify Car Thing. As the first hardware product launched by the well - known streaming platform Spotify in 2022, it well illustrates the problem of "how to protect the interests of consumers after a project is abandoned".

The design of the Spotify Car Thing is very simple. It looks like an old - fashioned small - screen MP4 because its original product concept was to add online music playback functionality to cars that do not have internet connectivity or a "central control large screen".

To improve operational safety, the Spotify Car Thing does not support touchscreens. Instead, it can only use knobs and buttons for interaction. In addition, it supports both transmitting internet music to the car's audio system and, after pairing with a mobile phone via Bluetooth, "transforming" into a "converter" between the mobile phone and the car audio system, enabling older car models to play music from the mobile phone wirelessly.

Due to these designs, the Spotify Car Thing actually has a good reputation among its user base. However, the problem is that even three years ago, car models that did not support car - machine internet connectivity or even mobile phone connection to the audio system via Bluetooth were quite rare. So, although the Spotify Car Thing had a good user reputation, its sales were not very good. Eventually, it was announced to be discontinued less than a year after its launch, and its services were completely shut down two years later.

After the project was shut down, the open - source community saved the old users

It should be noted that the original system design of the Spotify Car Thing was very special. In essence, it was a bit like a "cloud computer". That is, after starting up, it had to connect to the official server first before it could display the main interface and run various functions. So, once the services were shut down, this in - car player was basically "turned into a brick".

Fortunately, after the users of the Spotify Car Thing strongly opposed the shutdown, Spotify adopted a rather "yielding" attitude to end the entire project. On the one hand, they refunded the consumers who had purchased this device at that time. On the other hand, they transferred part of the code and tools of the Spotify Car Thing to the open - source community, giving developers and consumers who were still interested in this device a chance to "create" a new version of its system by themselves.

Judging from the result of this incident, although Spotify's decision to terminate the project at that time may have been selfish, their decision to transfer the code and allow the open - source system to "take over" was obviously extremely correct. So far, users have several open - source systems for the Spotify Car Thing developed by different authors to choose from. For example, in the latest "Nocturne V3" firmware, the Spotify Car Thing not only realizes functions such as online playback and mobile phone Bluetooth connection that were available in the original version but also adds the function of playing local music, which was not supported originally. This is equivalent to not only "extending the life" of this device that has been abandoned by the official but also enhancing it in many aspects.

The rights of users of unprofitable projects should also be protected

Obviously, from the perspective of Spotify Car Thing users, they got a device "for free" and can still use it normally for free to this day. Although they once encountered the crisis of service shutdown, with the official's concession and the efforts of the open - source community, the users' rights and interests have been protected to the greatest extent.

However, when looking at the entire industry, it can be found that a "happy ending" like that of the Spotify Car Thing is extremely rare. Most of the time, manufacturers would rather let unprofitable (or what they think are unprofitable) projects be "forgotten" than transfer the subsequent maintenance rights to users or the open - source community when giving up.

Of course, this is not entirely because manufacturers are "heartless" because making the code and design public may involve some private technological patents. However, even without doing so, manufacturers can still find some ways to allow old devices to "continue their lives" after losing official maintenance. For example, they can unlock the BootLoader of old devices that have stopped being maintained, allowing them to freely flash third - party systems (excluding patented code); or they can lift restrictions on old devices at the system and firmware levels, allowing the replacement of third - party compatible components.

To put it simply, when a manufacturer "announces the abandonment" of a product or project, from their perspective, they naturally no longer expect to make a profit from it. However, this does not mean that relevant users have to be forced to buy new products. After all, people have spent real money on these things, and how to use them is naturally everyone's freedom. If manufacturers simply "don't want to care" and directly obstruct users' "right to use", it would be a bit too overbearing.

This article is from the WeChat official account "3E Life" (ID: IT - 3eLife), author: 3E Jun. Republished by 36Kr with permission.