--- title: If It Has a Chip, You’re Renting It. Here Are the... description: A documented case against the modern reality that chip-enabled devices are effectively rented, not owned. Using real incidents — including Spotify remotely... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/if-it-has-a-chip-you-re-renting-it-here-are-the-receipts-and-the-fight-back--ehz9pgvtd twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: If It Has a Chip, You’re Renting It. Here Are the Receipts — and the Fight Back. | daily.dev og:description: A documented case against the modern reality that chip-enabled devices are effectively rented, not owned. Using real incidents — including Spotify remotely... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/if-it-has-a-chip-you-re-renting-it-here-are-the-receipts-and-the-fight-back--ehz9pgvtd og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/EhZ9pgVTd.png og:image:alt: If It Has a Chip, You’re Renting It. Here Are the Receipts — and the Fight Back. og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # If It Has a Chip, You’re Renting It. Here Are the Receipts — and the Fight Back. **[Noor Mohammad](https://daily.dev/sources/ew9hy5zthevyyefagop4g)** · [@noormohammad](https://daily.dev/noormohammad) · 1 min read · 0 upvotes · 1 comments ## Summary A documented case against the modern reality that chip-enabled devices are effectively rented, not owned. Using real incidents — including Spotify remotely disabling every Car Thing device sold — it outlines five distinct mechanisms by which manufacturers can revoke functionality after purchase. The piece also covers an audit readers can run on their own devices and highlights laws pushing back against these practices. ## Content Dec 2024: Spotify remotely bricked every Car Thing ever sold — a device people bought and paid for. Initial advice to owners: throw it away. Refunds came only after backlash + a class action. Nothing malfunctioned. Nobody broke in. Whoever controls the chip's software controls the object, wherever it sits and whoever paid for it. Giles Crouch made this argument with fictional vignettes. This makes it with the documented record — five distinct revocation mechanisms, real cited incidents, an audit you can run on your own devices, and the laws pushing back. 🔗 [https://medium.com/@reactjsbd/if-it-has-a-chip-youre-renting-it-here-are-the-receipts-and-the-fight-back-0d3c86db158d?sk=6a0e5e23fadc4c947a10a2a025372a15](https://medium.com/@reactjsbd/if-it-has-a-chip-youre-renting-it-here-are-the-receipts-and-the-fight-back-0d3c86db158d?sk=6a0e5e23fadc4c947a10a2a025372a15) ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@noormohammad** · 0 upvotes > For devs building connected hardware: the OTA-update pipeline that ships your features is the same pipeline that can revoke them, and most firmware architectures make "vendor can brick this" the default rather than a decision. Anyone deliberately designing for graceful degradation / offline-first / local fallback when the cloud goes away? Curious what that looks like in practice. --- Tags: [#iot](https://daily.dev/tags/iot), [#licensing](https://daily.dev/tags/licensing) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/if-it-has-a-chip-you-re-renting-it-here-are-the-receipts-and-the-fight-back--ehz9pgvtd) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"DiscussionForumPosting","mainEntityOfPage":"https://daily.dev/posts/if-it-has-a-chip-you-re-renting-it-here-are-the-receipts-and-the-fight-back--ehz9pgvtd","headline":"If It Has a Chip, You’re Renting It. 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