Just because you own a piece of technology hardware doesn’t mean that it’ll keep working forever. In fact, all tech has a shelf life, and hardware companies call the shots when it comes to deciding how long to continue to keep a product working. They could, like Spotify in 2022 or Google in 2016, decide to brick a product in the field by pulling the plug on supporting it.

This also applies to digital media, which you don’t own, but effectively “rent” from the content providers. This means that for virtually any reason, that content can be removed remotely from your library.

You might think that the solution is to buy physical media. Here’s a look at what you actually own versus what you’re renting — and how to tell the difference before you buy.

Samsung made a promise and kept it

But Galaxy Watch 4 and Watch 4 Classic owners are left in a bad spot

If you bought a Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 or Galaxy Watch 4 Classic, you were promised four generations software updates. And indeed Samsung delivered: these watches got updates from Wear OS 3.5 all the way through Wear OS 6.

But guess what? That support period is over, and these watches got their final software update in September 2026.

Unlike other tech products that have reached end-of-life that we’ll discuss below, Samsung ending support of these watches just means that over time, they’ll be left behind in terms of new features and security patches, but they will continue to work, which is important and noteworthy.

But when some companies sunset certain products, consumers are left with hardware that is completely non-functional.

When a company pulls the plug

Remember Spotify’s Car Thing?

It stings the most when you spend money on a hardware product that a company later decides to stop supporting and the device turns into a brick.

In 2022, Spotify experimented with an in-car remote control called Car Thing. For $90, this device offered control of Spotify over Bluetooth via a 3.9″ touch display with a scroll wheel and voice assistant (“Hey Spotify”). It was a device made for people with older cars that might not have a built-in display with Apply CarPlay or Android Auto (which has been redesigned, and we love it).

Just five months after its release, Spotify discontinued Car Thing and stopped selling it. Then, they informed customers in May 2024 that the device would stop operating entirely later that year. In December 2024, all Car Things became bricks and rendered totally inoperable with some community attempts to revive it.

Why did Spotify pull the plug on Car Thing? Besides shifting consumer needs (again, most cars now come with a built-in screen and Android Auto or Apple CarPlay), Spotify also didn’t want to maintain the server infrastructure needed to handle the voice processing they employed on Car Thing. In other words: Spotify never made any promises about the longevity of Car Thing, and when it became too expensive to continue running, they just ended it. Just like that.

The Google/Nest Revolv Hub

Earlier, in 2014, Google’s Nest acquired Revolv, a company that made a $300 smart home hub. Google bought the company not for the hardware, but for the engineering talent behind the Revolv hub.

Then, in 2016, Revolv owners were reminded that nothing is guaranteed in technology when Google pulled the plug on Revolv, causing the hub to become an inactive paperweight.

When buying a tech product, you have to stop and ask yourself whether a product needs a company’s permission for it to continue working.

Now, let’s shift our attention to content and media, which is a step further removed from ownership.

Companies can revoke your content at any time, like Amazon did in 2009

Just because you have content in your media library (like on your Kindle), it doesn’t mean you own the content. In fact, you are basically “renting” the content according to the digital rights management (DRM) that you agree to when you sign up to use a content provider.

This hit home in 2009 when Amazon did something that led founder and CEO Jeff Bezos to offer an apology to customers. You see, many customers had downloaded a copy of George Orwell’s famous book 1984 that came from a third party. When the legitimate rights holder of 1984 found out about the unauthorized content, Amazon had to reach into Kindle libraries that had downloaded this content to remotely delete it. This action was a chilling reminder that you can’t count on permanent access to content you download just because you see it in your library.

Amazon had to reach into Kindle libraries that had downloaded this content to remotely delete it

What you can do about it

People are trying to make the “buy” button have more meaning

Here’s the key: the more a product requires the ongoing cooperation of a company, the more susceptible it is to being abandoned at some point.

There is signed legislation in California (AB 2426) that targets misleading digital retail practices. It requires retailers to include plain-language disclosures and prohibit the use of the words “buy” or “purchase” when consumers are just licensing content and when that content can be revoked or limited. That could go a long way to educating consumers on what is actually theirs and what they are just borrowing. Right now, this law has a series of lawsuits linked to it, and it will take years for it to have an actual impact.

If you truly want to own media, the only way to do so is to physically possess it by being physical media, whether owning your music on CD or as an album, or if you’re a gamer, by owning physical games. Except that this is becoming more difficult over time as physical media become increasingly scarce, and many gaming systems are moving to all-digital content (if they haven’t already), where you can’t truly own the media.

But as mentioned earlier about picking tech that doesn’t need “permission” from a manufacturer, the same is true about media: even though it’s becoming more scarce, owning physical media (along with buying DRM-free content, choosing standalone playback devices instead of server-dependent ones, and buying offline versions) is the most surefire way to have control over the media and content you want to consume.