What's most disgusting is the tone and wording of the e-mail linked in the Reddit post. It reads like they're outright delighted to be breaking your 90-dollar piece of hardware. Not even a fake apology. Tech bros are getting more and more brazen.
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.
I would love to have a "real language" version of these corporate press releases. They sold a product, got your money, and now aren't just stopping updates but are actively bricking the device in 6 months. And telling you to throw it out 'safely' too.
I wanna sell something that I can just disable a year or so after I've sold it.
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.