gearsAmazon did this with their cloud security cameras as well.
Spotify did it with their “Car thing”
It’s common and I agree, should be illegal.
Should be required to open source it and unlock everything before sunsetting products.
Before launching products*
walled gardens are only a little less awful when still supported
To be mildly fair to Spotify Car Thing lasted for at least 3yrs. The worst part was, imo, it was really good. Like sure, my phone does voice commands but they work like 1/5 times. Car Thing worked nearly 100%, responded to anyone in the cars voice (pro/con depending on situation lol), and was a nice display for my preAndroidAuto headunit. Honestly I think the biggest mistake was that it was tied to a car, I used it on my desk for a while as a dedicated music control surface and it worked well. If more time went into making it just a universal Spotify control surface it would have been much better as a thing.
Good luck. Sounds similar to the problem that the movement Stop Killing Games is trying to solve as well, which I doubt will get anywhere.