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the core business problem for sonos is that they were a one-trick pony that didn't strategize. they assumed they had cornered their little market segment and fo

the core business problem for sonos is that they were a one-trick pony that didn't strategize. they assumed they had cornered their little market segment and focused on feathering their nest, rather than monitoring and adjusting to wider market dynamics. entrenchment is not a (sustainable) business strategy. when sonos came to market, they were the best repositionable home speaker system, hands down. their primary differentiator was their superb and resilient audio-syncing capabilities (not it's less-defensible content catalog, though that helped as a flanking feature). they had the chance to become the brand in home audio, and they blew it. phenomenally. likely because they were under-/mis-invested in r&d, and possibly also under-capitalized (often because founders don't want to risk devaluation/dilution). from that base of home audio, they were perfectly positioned to become the home hub of the future, the nerve center for everything audiovisual (and beyond) in the home. instead, they got distracted by clouds, analytics, big data, and every other tech buzzword floating about. it's business strategy 101, and the perfect business case fodder.

lostlogin 6y ago
How have they blown it? I have tried a few systems and none work as well as theirs. I’m not interested in voice activated anything, which may make me an outlier. This article (and a post yesterday that said similar) have me making some system tweaks and the Pihole is part way their. I think I’ll just block the speakers at the firewall to keep things simple.
- echelon 6y ago
  You can only sell so many speakers to your customers. They're not disposable commodities that need annual refreshes. I'm not buying any more Sonos equipment. I was done five years ago. Sonos is trying to deprecate their older models and introduce planned obsolescence. They had a program to brick your old equipment in exchange for rebates on newer models. That was totally wasteful and wanton, and the Internet called them out on it. They have so many competitors now, including the tech giants which control streaming. Google is in a feud with them and could cut off access. Sonos is in a very precarious spot.
- clairity 6y ago
  > "How have they blown it?" this kind of negative press does filter out into consumer choices over time. and as @fivre pointed out, they're getting squeezed out by better-capitalized monopolists, losing market- and mind-share to the likes of apple, amazon and google. sonos doesn't have the capital to compete, and lost their first-mover advantage by stagnating rather than leading the market. (i also block everything but streaming connections for my sonos at the router.)

lostlogin 6y ago

How have they blown it? I have tried a few systems and none work as well as theirs. I’m not interested in voice activated anything, which may make me an outlier. This article (and a post yesterday that said similar) have me making some system tweaks and the Pihole is part way their. I think I’ll just block the speakers at the firewall to keep things simple.

echelon 6y ago
You can only sell so many speakers to your customers. They're not disposable commodities that need annual refreshes. I'm not buying any more Sonos equipment. I was done five years ago. Sonos is trying to deprecate their older models and introduce planned obsolescence. They had a program to brick your old equipment in exchange for rebates on newer models. That was totally wasteful and wanton, and the Internet called them out on it. They have so many competitors now, including the tech giants which control streaming. Google is in a feud with them and could cut off access. Sonos is in a very precarious spot.
clairity 6y ago
> "How have they blown it?" this kind of negative press does filter out into consumer choices over time. and as @fivre pointed out, they're getting squeezed out by better-capitalized monopolists, losing market- and mind-share to the likes of apple, amazon and google. sonos doesn't have the capital to compete, and lost their first-mover advantage by stagnating rather than leading the market. (i also block everything but streaming connections for my sonos at the router.)