End of Software Support - Clarifications

You, Pieter & Margriet, have nothing to apologize for. 

My Dutch language skills are futile at best and communication would be impossible without your willingness to write your note in English.

Dank je for sharing your story and I agree with your international and common perspective.

Thanks for posting.  One thing, though, about this and other similar articles is that they really don’t do enough to acknowledge that Spence’s “mea culpa” was nothing of the sort and actually offered little to nothing new over and above the initial botched announcement.   Most of the articles focus on the supposed mea culpa but, exactly as Spence’s ghostwriters intended, don’t actually point out the lack of anything new…  It’s owners here who are calling out Spence’s BS, the media are too easily distracted by the bogus “apology”.  

I agree…..very little difference between the two announcements.

Very true. I still lament the loss of function to the desktop controller to this day; it’s a sore spot for many. But my greater point was simply that much more has been added and little taken away from speaker capability itself; the core control function of the the speaker units is still accessible with devices that vast majority of everyone has at their disposal and also has more features itself therein. And, the desktop application does still exist in a very basic form, e.g. they didn’t remove OSX or Win support as it were.
Regarding locking it down, yes, as am I. Because it still functions as needed and as purchased, and should as well in legacy.

How would the collective ownership here react if Sonos valued their most loyal and invested customers with a pro rated discount? Just for thought, some appreciation for those with multiple "legacy" Sonos devices, say 70% discount on new products for those with >10 registered legacy devices. 60% for 8-10; 50% for 5-7; 40% for 2-4; and 30% for single units.

Would something like this mollify the majority or is this still unfair?  

Wow Sonos is ALREADY renting speakers on a monthly contract!!! 

I wouldn’t personally ever rent durable goods.

Ryan - is this new future for Sonos? The article says its going to be a worldwide scheme - is that the case?

@snpanago : I agree with a slight but important difference. I think that one should be looking at third party workarounds, regardless of what one may think of Sonos coming through in future for legacy products. Sonos is a for profit company, and they will keep their promise to do this only as long as the keeping of this promise aligns with this fundamental fact about them. And in my view, there is nothing wrong with Sonos taking such a view, as long it is based on long term profit making objectives and not something that needs to be done to meet this quarter's guidance to Wall Street. This hope thing also reminds me of what was dunned into my head in my early days in corporate business management: Hope is not a strategy.

For more on third party workaround that are possible, see:

https://en.community.sonos.com/controllers-software-228995/the-sonos-brexit-and-pragmatic-ways-past-it-6836056 

I bought my (now legacy) Connect Amp in August 2019 on sale with a 6 year warranty from Richer Sounds in the UK. It was new, but an “ex-display” model, it even looked new. It was not advertised as ex-display (only as on sale), they told me this when I went to collect it. It didn’t cross my mind to ask how long it had been on display, obviously a very long time! I thought it was because Sonos had launched the new amp and they were discounting current stock of the previous amp. I didn’t need the new amp’s features so seemed a good deal.

Offcourse the analogy sucks, because you try to make “Things that break, due to wear” the same as “Things that work but is still being disabled”.

Imagine you put your car in for it’s 8 year service and when you get it back the rep. tells you that there were a security update they had to install for your car, because of some software fault that could affect the cars driveability.

Oh and that since all the car’s ECU’s must have the same firmware version, they have had to disable the climate control, because that could not be updated to the new firmware and thus had to be disabled for the rest of the car to work.

I bet you would be LIVID and DEMAND that they undid this.

Exactly Spence’s “apology” was more of a “I am sorry, let me rephrase what i just said in an even more vague and non-precise way so that you might think something has changed, when it has clearly not”.

Any time someone delivers a message that is fluffy, not precise and consice, it is almost always because they have some message they need to put out, but know that they have to try and cover up the truth behind what they are intending.

They knew the message would be unpopular, and tried to make the statement just weak enough that someone might interpret it more positively than it was intended.

Sadly most of the press people, don’t understand or want to understand, they just need the article done in a hurry, so when sonos says “We are sorry” they just assume that something has changed.