Sonos Company Ethicacy, Morality and Integrity Core Values?

Yep, definitely another CR100 thread.

Interesting thread, here’s my take on it for anyone that’s interested.

Coming at this as a CR100 owner (just the 2 of them) there are potential legal and moral / ethical issues here.
Legal first, I’m not in the law profession and there are obviously different laws across the world, but I’m assuming that legally (at least here in the uk) sonos have license conditions sewn up in such a way that they can legally send updates to my own purchased equipment in my house and render them useless whenever it decides to do so.


Except that's not accurate. Sonos is not pushing any software on to your equipment without your consent. Either you except or reject each update individually, or you specify that you automatically want to update whenever they are available. By your comments below, you seem to understand this, so I'm not sure why you would chose to word it as if you had no chose in the matter.


Moral / ethical next. I’m one of the vast majority of people who don’t have time to read dozens of pages of licence conditions in legal speak whenever I buy or upgrade something so I may have unwittingly signed up to conditions that allow them to do this. However, if I’d been alerted to a condition that stated that a company held the legal right to terminate the use of a product that I had legally purchased at a time of their choosing, guess what... I would not have bought it.


That is effectively what happened, but technically it's not. As with many modern products these days, you purchase the hardware and are given a free license for the software. Sonos didn't change anything on the hardware, just the software that you had a free license for. I get that that is irrelevant from the point of view of many, and it would clearly be bad business if a company made a habit of revoking free licenses. There may even be a legal case that a company most maintain free licenses to users if it was implied to be part of what a customer was buying when they bought hardware.


There’s plenty of parallels being drawn in this thread but I’m not sure they hit the mark for me. A parallel for me would be if Apple or Microsoft decided that they didn’t want anyone using legacy operating systems any more, so they sent out an ‘upgrade’ that rendered machines that used it unable to function ever again. They don’t do this and there are plenty of XP and NT systems out there, trust me I work in IT. Heck, I even have an old commodore Amiga that still works for the purpose it was purchased for - I accept I can’t do anything modern on it, but that’s fine. Another parallel I’ll draw is viruses... stuxnet last year was a virus that rendered people’s PCs useless, this was seen as a virus and treated as such by the international IT community, it had the same effect of running the ‘upgrade’ to 8.5 for those CR100 owners that were not aware of the effect it would have on their hardware - of which there are plenty.


I find it interesting that some are trying to call Sonos an appliance, like a kitchen toaster, for their analogies, while others are calling it like a computer. The reality is that it's both, and more, since each product is designed (some dependent) to work with other products, services, and the cloud. I think that changes things enough from other products so that most of the analogies are leaving out important aspects. I'd honestly say that this would be more like Amazon deciding that the echo 1.0 can no longer function, communicate with Alexa. That seems shocking right now, but 10 years from now when the tech and protocols have advanced significantly and relatively few are still using dot 1.0 and perhaps similar replacements are readily available and cheap?....I can see that. And to be clear, you aren't buying Alexa when you buy an echo dot.


Final point on this is that I have walled off my network (thanks to the advice of other sonos users, not on the advice of Sonos themselves might I add) and I’m still concerned I might have missed something that may result in an update being applied and therefore rendering my kit useless. In other words, I’m scared of the company that sold me my kit and who have now tried to send an update to it to stop it working and doing the thing I bought it for in the first place. They may as well send someone around to my house with a hammer to trash it when I’m not looking, it’ll be exactly the same outcome.

Therefore is it moral or ethical. Absolutely not in my book.


That's an over reaction. Sonos themselves told us that you can opt not to take the update. Walling the network is a way of preventing you from accidentally accepting the update. It is not to keep Sonos from updating software against your wishes like a virus.


Interestingly, this isn’t the first time I’ve been affected by something like this. Some years ago, I had a Sony pvr hard drive recorder that worked like a dream. That was until Sony decided to send a update and remove the pvr functionality, leaving me with a box that worked as long as I was there to press the record button when my tv show was about to start... similar behaviour from a corporate that left me with a device that didn’t do what it did when I bought it. Funnily enough I’ve not bought anything with a Sony badge since then and I’ll never do so again as I have a lack of trust in that brand due to this behaviour.

I would guess that's a licensing or patent issue. Perhaps similar to how denon had to remove some functionality because infringed on Sonos patents. And that's a normal reaction, I don't doubt that. I boycotted, Best Buy for several years because of an incident I had with them. It came to the point though that I realized that I was a one off situation, and I was hurting myself by limiting my buying options much more than it was bothering Best Buy.

Regardless, everyone has a right to hold a grudge or not. Morality is subjective.

I never realised Tesla has the ability to remotely kill their cars.
The story involves a company that buys insurance write-offs, repairs and then sells them on. The written off Tesla was bought like any other car for £15K, repaired and sold on.
Later on the new owner had the car remotely killed by Tesla as It was reported as an insurance write off ...

Hi Melvimbe,

I can understand some of your arguments, but it’s partly what sonos have done but also partly how they have done it...

“Except that's not accurate. Sonos is not pushing any software on to your equipment without your consent. Either you except or reject each update individually, or you specify that you automatically want to update whenever they are available. By your comments below, you seem to understand this, so I'm not sure why you would chose to word it as if you had no chose in the matter.”

You’re right I do not have to accept it, but when the ‘do you want to upgrade?’ box appears, there’s no reference to the fact that by choosing to update you are about to brick some of your hardware. In the case of the CR100,these were £350 boxes back in the day so they’re not cheap. Also, if you do end up updating Sonos refuse to let you downgrade back to a working version either.. finally, there’s no option to opt out of the update, you have to ensure no one in your household presses the update button either by taking action such as locking down your network or relying on everyone (including your children) remembering to not press update on any of your sonos controllers or tablet controllers... this has done in a way that leaves a sour taste in the mouth. If sonos had made the update process highlight that it was about to brick the controller and it gave you an option to opt out of future updates such that existing functionality was maintained I think most people would have been happy with this, but they didn’t.


“I find it interesting that some are trying to call Sonos an appliance, like a kitchen toaster, for their analogies, while others are calling it like a computer. The reality is that it's both, and more, since each product is designed (some dependent) to work with other products, services, and the cloud. I think that changes things enough from other products so that most of the analogies are leaving out important aspects. I'd honestly say that this would be more like Amazon deciding that the echo 1.0 can no longer function, communicate with Alexa. That seems shocking right now, but 10 years from now when the tech and protocols have advanced significantly and relatively few are still using dot 1.0 and perhaps similar replacements are readily available and cheap?....I can see that. And to be clear, you aren't buying Alexa when you buy an echo dot.”

Interesting analogy here, one with many parallels... I do have an echo dot and would be annoyed if existing functionality was withdrawn at any time in the future as the packaging did not say it was a time limited product. However, I don’t expect all new functionality to work in finitum as hardware does move on. The other difference is that an echo dot is a £40 device, not something that people have spend £1000’s on over the years - this is a factor as well in my opinion.


“That's an over reaction. Sonos themselves told us that you can opt not to take the update. Walling the network is a way of preventing you from accidentally accepting the update. It is not to keep Sonos from updating software against your wishes like a virus.”

Disagree on this point. If sonos had provided options to avoid the update, instructions as to how to prevent the update hitting and they provided a downgrade path for those who had accidentally accepted the update then I’d have accepted this as fair and moral. The fact is they did not provide any advice as to how to prevent the update and they only referenced sonos community generated instructions how to achieve this after a lot of bad feeling being vented on the boards.

Thanks for the decent reasoned response though !!

You’re right I do not have to accept it, but when the ‘do you want to upgrade?’ box appears, there’s no reference to the fact that by choosing to update you are about to brick some of your hardware. In the case of the CR100,these were £350 boxes back in the day so they’re not cheap. Also, if you do end up updating Sonos refuse to let you downgrade back to a working version either.. finally, there’s no option to opt out of the update, you have to ensure no one in your household presses the update button either by taking action such as locking down your network or relying on everyone (including your children) remembering to not press update on any of your sonos controllers or tablet controllers... this has done in a way that leaves a sour taste in the mouth. If sonos had made the update process highlight that it was about to brick the controller and it gave you an option to opt out of future updates such that existing functionality was maintained I think most people would have been happy with this, but they didn’t.


Sonos did send out emails regarding the CR100, correct? Still you have point regarding specifying the features changes for upgrades. I do not that that would stop someone from still upgrading accidently though.



Interesting analogy here, one with many parallels... I do have an echo dot and would be annoyed if existing functionality was withdrawn at any time in the future as the packaging did not say it was a time limited product. However, I don’t expect all new functionality to work in finitum as hardware does move on. The other difference is that an echo dot is a £40 device, not something that people have spend £1000’s on over the years - this is a factor as well in my opinion.


Agree that cost is a factor. In some way, I think that is part of the reason Sonos choose to do it this way. Many other companies will just put an entire product line to pasture. Sonos 1.0 is dead, everything is 2.0 going forward. However, because this is a whole home product where people are investing a lot and intend to add on products in the future, having no new functionality when it's technically possible and having to scrap everything they have to new stuff that does pretty much what the old stuff does...they wouldn't be that happy.



Disagree on this point. If sonos had provided options to avoid the update, instructions as to how to prevent the update hitting and they provided a downgrade path for those who had accidentally accepted the update then I’d have accepted this as fair and moral. The fact is they did not provide any advice as to how to prevent the update and they only referenced sonos community generated instructions how to achieve this after a lot of bad feeling being vented on the boards.


Well, when it asks if you want to update now, you say no. I don't know what other instructions would be required. As far as a downgrade path, that implies that Sonos is going to support multiple software versions. Then, for the next upgrade, another group of people what their favorite version supported because they like the black background over the white, or vice versa. It's opening up a potential can of worms. A common problem with IT support, as I imagine you are familiar with. I personally work with Oracle ebusiness, where pretty much every customer is pretty much on their own unique version. It's a nightmare trying to get good support.


Thanks for the decent reasoned response though !!
likewise.

On the save CR100 thread, someone reported that if you try to update above 8.4, a warning box appears warning you that the CR100's will no longer work if you carry on with the update, although no one from sonos has confirmed it.

On the save CR100 thread, someone reported that if you try to update above 8.4, a warning box appears warning you that the CR100's will no longer work if you carry on with the update, although no one from sonos has confirmed it.
That’s interesting, someone else reported updating as normal and then getting a message saying that the CR100 no longer worked... without any notification as to the impending impact...

Anyone interested in CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT. The only reason CR100 was killed was monetary. What changed from prior release when CR100 worked to now when CR100 is a brick? Investing thousands of dollars in Sonos allowing the company to grow only to be screwed. My CR100's worked great no issues., The BOZO that made this decision should be fired! I asked to talk with someone at the company about the disregard of a loyal user. NO ONE AVALIABLE.

Anyone interested in CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT. The only reason CR100 was killed was monetary. What changed from prior release when CR100 worked to now when CR100 is a brick? Investing thousands of dollars in Sonos allowing the company to grow only to be screwed. My CR100's worked great no issues., The BOZO that made this decision should be fired! I asked to talk with someone at the company about the disregard of a loyal user. NO ONE AVALIABLE.

Yeah, good luck find a lawyer to take on a class action for a couple hundred claimants, lol. Not gonna happen. Oh, BTW, this thread ISN'T about the CR100, lol.

And yet again we have people commenting on a thread titled "...... Ethicacy, Morality and Integrity Core Values" and then calling people at Sonos BOZO.

Here's a bit of free advice - If you're going to try and lecture about Ethics, morals and core values don't go and behave exactly as if you don't have any of them.