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Comment by eecc | Hacker News Reader

The first effects of a world of end-to-end encrypted media streaming. You don’t own the content, you don’t own the hardware, you can’t play whatever you want, you just pay and go with whatever happens to be there. You can change channels like a Radio, that’s about it

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I expect any and all features of my Sonos speakers to possibly stop working except the local music library. If they ever stop that, I and others will file class action lawsuits at the very least. When the dust finally settles, that will probably be the only service still working anyway in the not so distant future. It's sad that the commercial market cannot and will not create worthwhile music services that are worth paying for in the long term. If my favorite songs disappear from the online library every few months, why should I pay a monthly fee? This happens on every service and is a categorical failure of the system's only purpose, to keep my favorite songs available. I'll take my NAS over those systems any day.

>If they ever stop that, I and others will file class action lawsuits at the very least.

The complete failure case for Sonos is the company stops existing or discontinues the product line and your devices are all stuck at whatever software version was the last, possibly useless after security issues or other software rot. There's no reason (and possibly no entity) to sue when that happens.

As long as it still plays shit off my NAS, I don't care. And I don't see why it wouldn't, whether the company exists or not. That's what I was trying to convey above.

>And I don't see why it wouldn't

Because your new NAS no longer supports the old protocol. Because there was a security issue that's too serious to allow you to keep it on without a fix. Because...

If I own the hardware, I decide whether the security issue is “too serious”. Not them.

Sure, but we're moving from a time where your audio gear was something you could fix and would last for decades to having these kinds of devices where software support may last a very short time. If you're ok with that tradeoff that's fine. Personally I'm not.

Precisely the reason I never invested in the Sonos. I looked into it a few years ago and I just thought they were overpriced and inflexible.

I have Bluetooth speakers in my rooms and Spotify and Radio apps on my phone / tablet. Cheap and easy.

Ignoring that that's an outplayed argument, it's irrelevant. This is about hardware, not about streaming services.

Well why is it irrelevant. It used to be you ditched your receiver or player when it was irreparably broken, not when Sony or Technics decided they’d had enough supporting your hardware. Here you have hardware that is useless without a software service that gets discontinued or it’s utility modified after-sale. For now users can stay on current firmware but that depends on whenever Sonos will pull a Sony PlayStation move and force an update to continue access to DRM’d music

Isn't that life anyway? We're only on earth for a short time. You can't take your music to the grave with you, so why not accept its never really yours anyway?

This isn't about accepting it's "not really yours". This is about accepting it's actually someone else's that then has control about what you can and can't do. That entity will often be on earth for even a smaller time than you before it goes bankrupt or loses interest in that product. So you get to spend your short time on earth dealing with product obsolescence instead of owning your stuff while you're alive and even being able to pass it on to your children. It's a terrible bargain.

No, it isn't. You don't need to take your music to the grave, those who come after you can inherit it. It can be 'yours' if you want it, as long as you managed to avoid the traps set by those who'd like you to believe there is no other way so you might as well accept it and just pay, and pay, and pay again.

well, if you were careful enough when you bought that "The Dark Side of the Moon" LP vinyl you'd have a collectors item but - most importantly - a media record you can play anytime you want without having had to pay thousands over the course of a lifetime. Just a little cash 44 years ago.

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