Sonos: users must accept new privacy policy or devices may “cease to function” • Hacker News Board

Re: Sonos: users must accept new privacy policy or devices may “cease to function”

#221

Post by KekDemaga » Wed, Aug 23, 2017, 3:12 AM UTC

eponeponepon wrote: post #143

Naga wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The American Revolution isn't nearly as clear cut as that. It wasn't anti-taxation, it was anti-taxation without representation. The colonists were objecting to being taxed without having a say in the levying of the taxes. There were many colonial Americans who would have been happy returning Members to Parliament without independence. The core of the issue really was that Britain defended the American colonies from…

> The American Revolution isn't nearly as clear cut as that. This is an entirely legitimate statement. > ...now it is Britain freeloading on American military spending. ...but this you're really going to have to back up. Can you point to a specific example and explain why it's 'freeloading'?

The US has a significant presence in the UK: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/unknown-terri...

Re: Sonos: users must accept new privacy policy or devices may “cease to function”

#222

Post by dawnerd » Wed, Aug 23, 2017, 3:14 AM UTC

jwr wrote: post #211

swiley wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get multiple different Linux SBCs for under $10. Grab one, put ffmpeg on it, be happy. I would be shocked if the commercial offerings were significantly better than most open source stuff (except for iphone interoperability...)

It seems that you either: a) haven't used a Sonos system, and/or b) have a lot of free time and don't mind resetting/rebooting your equipment when glitches happen, and/or c) don't care about multi-room synchronized playback. I won't even mention the audio quality, which on an Raspberry Pi for example, is horrible. Sonos Just Works — some people (like me) care about that deeply. I have better things to do with my life…

My experience is way different than yours. Sonos would never stay connected to wifi and required multiple factory resets over the years until I just got rid of them.

Re: Sonos: users must accept new privacy policy or devices may “cease to function”

#223

Post by bigiain » Wed, Aug 23, 2017, 3:20 AM UTC

rconti wrote: post #208

rglover wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Convenience, everybody's favorite little shoulder devil.

Sometimes it's just fine though. It probably depends on the up-front cost, and what value you derive from it. If Spotify stops working tomorrow, I can stop paying them, and we can all go home friends. I wouldn't consider my subscription fees over the past couple of years "lost". On the other hand, if I had to buy a $1000 device for the privilege of paying them $10/month, my anger level would probably depend on how ma…

I've got a friend whose still bitter and vocal about how his car's stereo no longer "works" because Pandora pulled out of the Australian market. Sure that well-over-$1000-device's main purpose wasn't "playing music from Pandora" and it still has it's primary "get to work" utlilty, but playing music is high on the secondary feature list of a lot of vehicle purchases...

Re: Sonos: users must accept new privacy policy or devices may “cease to function”

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Post by forcemajeure » Wed, Aug 23, 2017, 3:20 AM UTC

sverige wrote: post #187

givinguflac wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you even read what data is being collected? Sonos is not a scum company, though the article is providing badly inaccurate info.

Sorry, but any company that wants to collect my personal data just to continue using their product after I've purchased it, is scum.

Any company that isn't collecting data on which features are being used is missing an opportunity

Re: Sonos: users must accept new privacy policy or devices may “cease to function”

#225

Post by sgustard » Wed, Aug 23, 2017, 3:21 AM UTC

bogomipz wrote: post #183

I am sincerely curious and maybe a Sonos owner can offer some feedback. what does Sonos offer me now that a streaming music provider, a smart phone and a portable bluetooth speaker doesn't? I understand that Sonos can stream to multiple "zones" simultaneously but besides the occasion of a house party how often is this necessary? This news to me is just another reason for me to never buy one.

Top things for me are: Excellent sound quality. The fact that Sonos has its own network means I can queue up internet radio or a playlist and it no longer needs to communicate with the phone to continue streaming all day. I take advantage of the multi-room support daily outside the context of a house party, simply so my music follows me from room to room. I do agree the privacy policy is a downer but am pretty sure your smart phone is subject to the same risk.

Re: Sonos: users must accept new privacy policy or devices may “cease to function”

#226

Post by bigiain » Wed, Aug 23, 2017, 3:30 AM UTC

mhb wrote: post #87

crispyambulance wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can play stuff you physically own from a Roku too. Are you saying that Sonos could arbitrarily upload your media files to their servers? Doubtful. At worst, they could do a sound-print analysis locally on the device to identify it and send the metadata to Sonos. I am trying to think of concrete examples of scenarios where actual harm would REALISTICALLY be done to individual consumers because of Sonos privacy pol…

1. Government 'dissident' listens to 'subversive' podcasts via Sonos. 2. Government compels Sonos to provide data on customers' listening histories. 3. Chilling effect, political implications, oppression.

If you're a "government dissident" and you're inviting internet connected always-on microphones into your home - you're doing it wrong...

"Alexa? Send details of my subversive plan to the government!"

"OK Google, upload the audio of the last 30mins discussion with my co-conspirators directly to PRISM!"

"Hey Siri? Which law enforcement agency needs to know about this surprise protest we just planned?"

Re: Sonos: users must accept new privacy policy or devices may “cease to function”

#227

Post by xxXXxx- » Wed, Aug 23, 2017, 3:44 AM UTC

majewsky wrote: post #17

cujo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* Shared playlist/queue between all users of a household. * No need to have a second device present to stream music. That is, I can start up music with the controller on my phone, and go to the store, but the music still plays since all the streaming is handled by the sonos speaker. * No need to pair your phone/computer to the device every time you come home. Just get on the wifi, and you're set. Those are the big on…

Why would you need to play music at home while you're going to a store? Also, activating Bluetooth is as frictionless as activating WiFi.

You're hosting a party and you run out of something so you run to the store.

Re: Sonos: users must accept new privacy policy or devices may “cease to function”

#228

Post by sowbug » Wed, Aug 23, 2017, 5:00 AM UTC

iomotoko wrote: post #204

sowbug wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hardware vs. software. Declining update and choosing to live without new features vs. ceasing to function.

"[...] the customer will not be able to update the software on their Sonos system, and over time the functionality of the product will decrease." Sounds to me like maybe the bluetooth syncing with a recent smartphone or something of that nature might not work if the speaker didn't receive a certain update, which I consider a possibility. The "cease to function" seems like a nightmarish-description of such. It's not l…

That point is a bit of a red herring. The question isn't the value of the update; it's whether existing customers should have to accept inferior terms of service to get it.

The right path for Sonos would be to open-source the kernel and hardware drivers, then either keep it up to date with a base feature set or budget $100K or so a year to run a bounty-based community contribution program. That will end the complaints that Sonos risked bricking hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of consumer hardware so its marketing department could harvest email addresses. Not everyone would like that choice, but it would be a better choice than the gradual decay of perfectly fine (and expensive) hardware that should otherwise last for decades.

Unfortunately the economics of service-oriented consumer hardware is all screwed up these days. Should buying a proprietary connected geegaw for a single up-front fee entitle me to eternal updates? In what non-pyramid-scheme economic model does that work? Yet in our world where we're still weaning ourselves from the dot-com years, that's typically the expectation.

Re: Sonos: users must accept new privacy policy or devices may “cease to function”

#229

Post by kartickv » Wed, Aug 23, 2017, 5:16 AM UTC

badwolf wrote: post #190

bogomipz wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"If you don't like this, don't ever buy smart devices because they /all/ reserve the right to do this kind of stuff." It seems odd then that you have to actually buy the device before you can even read the terms. I guess the idea is that you can always return it if you don't agree?

"That'll be a $25 restocking fee, and a $25 open-box fee"

Or, in India, typically a 100% restocking fee.

Re: Sonos: users must accept new privacy policy or devices may “cease to function”

#230

Post by KMag » Wed, Aug 23, 2017, 5:39 AM UTC

sverige wrote: post #191

I hate all smart devices. The TV should just be a TV, the dishwasher should wash dishes, the refrigerator should keep stuff cold, the washing machine and dryer should clean my clothes, and speakers should just produce sounds. I have yet to hear any compelling reason to make these devices dependent on software.

My degree is in mechanical engineering, but I work in software development. Software is eating the world for good reasons.

How many gates would it take to have a pure hardware decoder for ATSC?

A microcontroller-based dishwasher timer is much cheaper to design and manufacture, and wears out more slowly under many conditions, than a mechanical timer.

I wouldn't be surprised if a micontroller could wring another 1% efficiency out of your refrigerator vs. an analog or mechanical controller.

A microcontroller inside the speaker could perform some digital signal processing to account for the speaker's frequency response, so that the receiver doesn't have to know any details about the speakers.

Now, I do see little reason to make any of the non-TV appliances you mention reliant upon network connectivity or anything outside themselves apart from power and physical consumables (soap, water, etc.). Ideally, the television itself would be split into a screen with only HDMI in, and a small box or dongle that performs ATSC reception, decoding, and any smart TV functionality. The television itself should be something like a Chromecast.