So, people are angry on the internet. Oh my.
And check what it's done to the value of the company, in just a few days.....oh my indeed.
I believe they're working on a reasonable compromise which is to preserve the existing functionality of legacy devices without affecting non-legacy devices. Yeah, they could have thought through things better in the first place.
Not reasonable at all considering the basis on which Sonos has marketed and sold its expensive goods hitherto. And you've conveniently missed out identifying the problems of this 'compromise' associated with having mixed networks, as probably the majority of owners have installed.....as well as with having a legacy network that one wishes to expand or replace dead devices on, or replace a controller on, after May 2020.
This is the way we live now, all vendors of similar wireless systems will have the same issues. The alternative is to use old fashioned wires.
People only want Sonos for streaming audio simply and multi-room, which works perfectly well wireless already with legacy and mixed networks. Most don't want all the other crap, and the uprising is making this clear to Sonos. If Sonos absolutely has to push the other crap, solve it by designing a new device that can handle it and down-sample as necessary to legacy kit, preserving all the full network grouping operability. It's quite straightforward to solve, and persisting with all devices on a network needing the grunt to handle whatever hi-res or other features may be coming, otherwise they can't group, is ridiculous. If owners persevere with the pressure, for example by creating a fuss that also happens to wipe hundreds of millions off the shares value of those who direct/support the organisation’s new path, Sonos may cave in.
But I suppose if one likes bending over to get rogered in the backside by corporate/shareholder greed, even though a much more sensible and sustainable (but less lucrative for the greedy) alternative is available, yours is the right attitude to have.
As it happens, I will be hardly affected by this round of being held to ransom.....but if Sonos succeeds at this one, there'll be another round the corner as the current crop is rendered 'non-groupable except with itself' by the next need to increase memory by a whole, what, 512MB.
Anyway, why so keen to blithely accept being shat on...….and the disgraceful generation of completely unnecessary and avoidable e-waste it encourages?
