What other insider knowledge does your contact claim to have, and how did they come by it?

He is a contractor for West Coast Hifi in Perth WA and said Sonos had announced that they were updating controllers in future to force users onto streaming channels. He was pretty clear about this. 

An announcement that none of us have been remotely aware of? And that has somehow escaped the attention of the world’s press?

This feauture used to be the main reason for Sonos’ existence in times before streaming was big. Sonos seems to have neglected it in the last years firstly by not repairing the ridiculously low 65k limit on S2 even when speakers gained memory and lastly by not including the function in new search.

This could be seen as if Sonos is on a path to abandoning this feature alltogether. But Sonos has not given any official messages on this. Seeing the many people here still using the feature (despite the drawbacks) abandoning this would lead to a serious outcry.

I agree - i have a ‘paid for’ music collection from cd’s or uploaded onto the laptop from iTunes store over years and do not see why I would pay for spotify as you never own the music. Does anybody from Sonos read these posts?

Sonos has just wriitten this

Sonos will not stop you from using a music library, and we do not have any article to state that. So, the statement above is false. Feel free to use your music library. You can import your music to Sonos by following the steps from this support article: https://support.sonos.com/article/add-your-music-library-to-sonos

Where did they write this?

Sonos wrote it in a reply to a question from me on their chat

I heard a rumor that Sonos will be giving us all a free puppy.

Pssst… Sonos I want a male golden lab.

While the original post was mostly mistaken, and I can still happily use a music library on Windows, there is some truth to it.  They did just recently remove the ability to use a local library on *Android* (which pissed me off as I use that feature often when I visit people with Sonos systems).

At the requirement of Google. Just like Sonos removed the ability to stream data from an iOS device, at Apple’s insistence, several years ago. Both companies decided that allowing their devices as an NAS, provided a security issue, and closed that loophole. At Sonos’ and other company’s dismay…or perhaps more acutely, the user’s displeasure. 

If you believe this nonsense, copy your collection to iBroadcast.com and configure Sonos to play from there.

It may seem a pedantic point, but somebody ought to make it: you don't "own" the content of your CDs, records 8-track cartridges, cassettes, etc. You have merely paid to play the recording under specific circumstances.