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Someone at every company has clearly done the math and decided the security conscious customers they alienate/lose will be massively offset by the amount of rev

by jowsie 6y ago

Someone at every company has clearly done the math and decided the security conscious customers they alienate/lose will be massively offset by the amount of revenue they can generate by harvesting data. I'm no longer surprised to find [random simple device] is sending any data it can find off to third parties anymore.

chubot 6y ago
Reading between the lines in Wikipedia, it seems like they were forced into a pretty hard pivot in recent years. I think people were pressuring the founder/CEO to switch to a different revenue model, and then he stepped down shortly thereafter. It's hard to compete in this area for sure. I want a no-cloud, LAN not WAN speaker, but I think economics forces them to do the "Big Tech" thing ... That business model works :-/ It does seem like another instance where the markets are "broken" (or maybe not, I guess most people just like giving up their data, and they don't have subscription fatigue) Looking at the last data point, I feel like they'll be incentivized to do more of this kind of stuff to improve the business. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonos In March 2016, CEO John MacFarlane announced the company's shift to streaming music services and voice control instead of local playback, and laid off some employees.[25] In July 2016, the company opened its first Sonos Store in SoHo.[26] In September 2016, the company announced that its products would become available at the Apple Store.[27] In January 2017, MacFarlane announced via the company's blog that he would be stepping down from his role as CEO, and that he would be succeeded in this position by former COO Patrick Spence.[28] ... In August 2018, Sonos went public, trading on the NASDAQ under the symbol SONO.[30] In November 2019, Sonos acquires Snips SAS, a privacy-focused AI voice platform for connected devices with the goal to bring a music-specific assistant to its devices.[3] In June 2020, Sonos announced plans to lay off 12% of its workforce, close its New York store and six of its offices, and cut its top executives' pay by 20% for three to six months, in response to the economic disruptions caused by the COVID pandemic.[32]
- derriz 6y ago
  "John MacFarlane announced the company's shift to streaming music services and voice control instead of local playback" That's all fine and best of luck with the pivot. Businesses change focus all the time. What is has made me despise the Sonos company and culture is that they effectively forced pre-pivot customers who bought Sonos products (which were designed and sold primarily for local playback) to make that pivot also or else have their devices bricked.

by jowsie 6y ago

chubot 6y ago

Reading between the lines in Wikipedia, it seems like they were forced into a pretty hard pivot in recent years. I think people were pressuring the founder/CEO to switch to a different revenue model, and then he stepped down shortly thereafter. It's hard to compete in this area for sure. I want a no-cloud, LAN not WAN speaker, but I think economics forces them to do the "Big Tech" thing ... That business model works :-/ It does seem like another instance where the markets are "broken" (or maybe not, I guess most people just like giving up their data, and they don't have subscription fatigue) Looking at the last data point, I feel like they'll be incentivized to do more of this kind of stuff to improve the business. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonos In March 2016, CEO John MacFarlane announced the company's shift to streaming music services and voice control instead of local playback, and laid off some employees.[25] In July 2016, the company opened its first Sonos Store in SoHo.[26] In September 2016, the company announced that its products would become available at the Apple Store.[27] In January 2017, MacFarlane announced via the company's blog that he would be stepping down from his role as CEO, and that he would be succeeded in this position by former COO Patrick Spence.[28] ... In August 2018, Sonos went public, trading on the NASDAQ under the symbol SONO.[30] In November 2019, Sonos acquires Snips SAS, a privacy-focused AI voice platform for connected devices with the goal to bring a music-specific assistant to its devices.[3] In June 2020, Sonos announced plans to lay off 12% of its workforce, close its New York store and six of its offices, and cut its top executives' pay by 20% for three to six months, in response to the economic disruptions caused by the COVID pandemic.[32]

derriz 6y ago
"John MacFarlane announced the company's shift to streaming music services and voice control instead of local playback" That's all fine and best of luck with the pivot. Businesses change focus all the time. What is has made me despise the Sonos company and culture is that they effectively forced pre-pivot customers who bought Sonos products (which were designed and sold primarily for local playback) to make that pivot also or else have their devices bricked.