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Why are speakers so hard? It's insanely old technology and they're still charging hundreds for a baseline handheld speaker. I'm dearly holding onto my Marshall

by sureIy 2y ago

Why are speakers so hard? It's insanely old technology and they're still charging hundreds for a baseline handheld speaker. I'm dearly holding onto my Marshall Acton that can be connect to WiFi without an app and stream directly from Spotify. No smart nothing. Nothing like this seems to exist anymore, not for the $200 I paid this years ago anyway. Before this I had tried a smaller but $250 Sonos speaker and it sounded like crap, with far worse UX.

jimmydoe 2y ago
SONOS prices a premium for its network features. No one wants a few Chinese wifi device at home, otherwise SONOS would be gone.
- sureIy 2y ago
  > No one wants a few Chinese wifi device at home Oh you are so wrong. I'd say no one wants to pay double when two products look the same on paper, and thus people end up with Chinese WiFi devices.
danielmarkbruce 2y ago
It's a fundamentally awful business. If you make a good product and just sell it you get a one time payment and you have a brand that one one cares about because you are a one time decision every x years. You don't "consume" it, there is no "new fashion". One time payment, and not a big one. So, companies try to avoid this fate by doing things which make for a better business - but invariably are bad for customers. In most cases, if you come across something awful like this, it's because just doing the right thing for customers doesn't make any money in that particular business due to the nature of the product and buying process.
- sureIy 2y ago
  Look at Bang & Olufsen. You can definitely produce high quality goods that last decades and update them regularly because they're simply beautiful. My father's 1995 model is still in use to this day. Granted, they're insanely high priced, but that means they also sell very few. There must be a middle ground.
  - danielmarkbruce 2y ago
    The market cap of BO is ~US$250m. That's made up of a product line that includes more than speakers. It's 100 years old. They aren't profitable. It's a great example of being in an awful industry. Personally, I applaud them. But it's hard for a business to point to them and say "See! We can do that!". Investors will run.

by sureIy 2y ago

jimmydoe 2y ago

SONOS prices a premium for its network features. No one wants a few Chinese wifi device at home, otherwise SONOS would be gone.

sureIy 2y ago
> No one wants a few Chinese wifi device at home Oh you are so wrong. I'd say no one wants to pay double when two products look the same on paper, and thus people end up with Chinese WiFi devices.

danielmarkbruce 2y ago

It's a fundamentally awful business. If you make a good product and just sell it you get a one time payment and you have a brand that one one cares about because you are a one time decision every x years. You don't "consume" it, there is no "new fashion". One time payment, and not a big one. So, companies try to avoid this fate by doing things which make for a better business - but invariably are bad for customers. In most cases, if you come across something awful like this, it's because just doing the right thing for customers doesn't make any money in that particular business due to the nature of the product and buying process.

sureIy 2y ago
Look at Bang & Olufsen. You can definitely produce high quality goods that last decades and update them regularly because they're simply beautiful. My father's 1995 model is still in use to this day. Granted, they're insanely high priced, but that means they also sell very few. There must be a middle ground.
- danielmarkbruce 2y ago
  The market cap of BO is ~US$250m. That's made up of a product line that includes more than speakers. It's 100 years old. They aren't profitable. It's a great example of being in an awful industry. Personally, I applaud them. But it's hard for a business to point to them and say "See! We can do that!". Investors will run.