[hnlmorg]

Sonos gets backlash every few years and they don’t change. It’s almost as if consumers are shit at boycotting companies.

Which does make Boses move even more impressive when you think about how it wouldn’t have affected their business to do nothing.

[troupo]

A few years back Sonos was going to EoL and brick a huge humber of their "legacy" devices and that those devices would prevent new ones from getting updated. After backlash they reversed their decision and all devices remained functional: https://www.businessinsider.com/sonos-device-support-ceo-apo...

However, I wouldn't expect anything from Sonos at this point in time.

[hnlmorg]

And before that it was the “recycle mode” that actually bricked the hardware thus contributing to e-waste: https://www.whathifi.com/news/sonos-explains-why-recycle-mod...

Sonos did revert that decision after mounting public pressure too. However they keep pull these kinds of stunts and then later apologising for it.

My point is: are you actually changing if you keep making the same mistakes and then only saying “sorry” after you get caught?

If Bose shows the same pattern of behaviour the I’d lump them into the same category as Sonos. But thus far they do seem slightly more ethical.

Personally though, I think the whole “smart speaker” industry is crooked. But some are definitely more crooked than others.

[kinkyusa]

https://en.community.sonos.com/ask-a-question-228987/firmwar...

[dear-leader]

I don’t understand what you mean when you say the whole smart speaker industry is crooked.

Every company that makes smart speakers is crooked? Or, the making and selling of smart speakers is inherently unethical?

[hnlmorg]

A little of both.

speakers used to be something that would last a lifetime. I still have the same active monitors that I bought quarter of a century ago when I was producing techno. And I still used those speakers daily for listening to the radio. I used them for a NYE house party. They’re used often and still perform as well today as they do when they were new.

smart speakers is just a way of introducing forced obsolescence into the market.

So these EOL guarantees are nice, but EOL for speaker used to mean 50+ years later or when someone idiot inflicted physical damage onto the hardware. And even then, it was often still repairable.

[pluralmonad]

This conversation reminds me of how predatory _all_ of the big players ToS were when I was shopping for a large (think for outdoor use) BT speaker. Every single one of the mainstream speakers had terrible data collection allowed by their "privacy" policy. I ended up ordering one from Monoprice that did not even have a ToS.

[palata]

Not the OP, but IMO as soon as a company becomes successful, the leadership becomes focused on making money and not making a good product.

Sometimes making a decent product is part of making money, but that's never a motivation in itself. We have enough examples showing that if it makes more money to enshittify (and usually it does), then they will gladly enshittify.

I wouldn't say it's just the smart speaker industry.

[kinkyusa]

https://www.reddit.com/r/sonos/comments/1q6oi06/new_firmware...