Sonos bricking devices intentionally
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@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@sloosecannon By the same token, not having those versions also costs you, in terms of lost clients.
Either you believe that these XP clients are a tiny fraction, and keeping stuff for them does not have a significant cost, or you believe that they are a significant market, and not catering to them is a lost opportunity.
Are you suggesting that you charge people for a deprecated version of the software? Because that's what it sounds like you're suggesting... Otherwise, clients who don't actually pay you aren't viable clients from a business perspective
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@sloosecannon said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
Are you suggesting that you charge people for a deprecated version of the software?
Why wouldn't you?
Anyone who spends money on software and is still running XP knows the caveats that come with that. We unofficially support XP with a deprecated product version and you bet your ass we don't give it away for free.
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@polygeekery said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@sloosecannon said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
Are you suggesting that you charge people for a deprecated version of the software?
Why wouldn't you?
Anyone who spends money on software and is still running XP knows the caveats that come with that. We unofficially support XP with a deprecated product version and you bet your ass we don't give it away for free.
Well I think it depends on if you're selling unofficially to businesses like you are or if you're selling to the general public. Like you said, anyone who's purchasing for a business like that knows the caveats (and likely has access to funds to make supporting old versions like that economically viable). The general public won't, and will assume you're selling software with some amount of guarantee (and generally cannot be persuaded otherwise, no matter what level of disclaimer you give them). Granted they'd lose in court if they tried to sue, but that's still a potential cost...
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@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
If you release that as a new version and keep the old one available for the other guys, fine. If you just wipe out the old version and tell those on XP to get fucked, that's not fine. It does not cost you anything to keep the old stuff (and mark it as deprecated).
Until recently, I was running an old version of OSX on my Macbook, and it was impossible to get a Chromium based browser for it. The old version of Chrome which had stopped updating still worked, but whenever I tried installing Chromium, Opera etc, they would all say "Hey, your shit's too old, go pound sand."
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@sloosecannon said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
Well I think it depends on if you're selling unofficially to businesses like you are or if you're selling to the general public.
There is nothing unofficial about the sales. I officially tell them that if we ever introduce changes that break XP compatibility on the server side they are stuck at that server version if they want to use XP.
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@hungrier said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
If you release that as a new version and keep the old one available for the other guys, fine. If you just wipe out the old version and tell those on XP to get fucked, that's not fine. It does not cost you anything to keep the old stuff (and mark it as deprecated).
Until recently, I was running an old version of OSX on my Macbook, and it was impossible to get a Chromium based browser for it. The old version of Chrome which had stopped updating still worked, but whenever I tried installing Chromium, Opera etc, they would all say "Hey, your shit's too old, go pound sand."
My 10.5 OSX machine still works. Available software is ... scarce. Guess I oughta recycle it - I haven't turned it on in a while - like a couple years...
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@sloosecannon said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
Are you suggesting that you charge people for a deprecated version of the software?
I'm with @Polygeekery on this one, yes, that's what I am suggesting and I don't see why you would see anything wrong with that?
Provided you don't lie to people and make them believe that e.g. the XP version has the same features as the most recent one, this is not any different to selling Gold, Pro... versions with different features sets.
You can already go to an Apple store and buy an older iphone/ipad, with different sets of features, that would be the same with software.
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@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
I'm with @Polygeekery on this one, yes, that's what I am suggesting and I don't see why you would see anything wrong with that?
In the interests of full disclosure, we do not sell software. We provide a service and our software facilitates the service we provide.
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@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@kt_ said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
That’s a completely different example. You have old code that you keep bundling up. There isn’t much additional maintenance for you, it seems.
I agree, but it shows that changing the core system does not necessarily means that you have to change stuff that runs on it. The mentality nowadays is that unless you are running the latest version of everything, then you have no right to expect stuff to work. That's wrong to me.
Well, I don’t know about that. But @Gąska‘s EOL + 12 months rule looks good to me.
But if you have a .NET app which is still under active development, why not upgrade to 4.7? You get new APIs which will increase productivity of your developers, which is a huge gain. If the cost is that some people who didn’t yet move from XP can’t use the app and there’s no business reason for keeping them happy, why?
If you release that as a new version and keep the old one available for the other guys, fine. If you just wipe out the old version and tell those on XP to get fucked, that's not fine. It does not cost you anything to keep the old stuff (and mark it as deprecated).
OK, I guess.
I mean, what you need to consider, as a company, is how this will also play regarding your image. Forced updates bricking your stuff is a no-no, sure. But saying straight away that the old stuff is unsafe, you won’t be supporting it and the best way to go about that, as a consumer, is to brick it, well… it does seem acceptable. If anything, they at least accept the reality of IOT devices.
Think about it: if you stop supporting a piece of software that is later used to hurt lots of people, that’s extremely bad publicity for your company.
Seriously why, apart from the idealistic view that it’s the right thing to keep supporting them?
Because as a consumer, I don't want to be at the mercy of things (updates and changes of functionalities) that may or may not happen years after I bought the initial stuff.
— snip lots of stuff —
Well, if you’re buying IOT, the safest way is to update. When you stop, it gets more dangerous. The solution is to ditch IOT devices. I guess.
But you haven’t really answered my question, when you decided to get lost in your rant. None of this is a good reason for the company to keep supporting your old stuff.
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@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@sloosecannon By the same token, not having those versions also costs you, in terms of lost clients.
Either you believe that these XP clients are a tiny fraction, and keeping stuff for them does not have a significant cost, or you believe that they are a significant market, and not catering to them is a lost opportunity.
I think he believes that bad PR is easier to come by than good PR.
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@hungrier said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
If you release that as a new version and keep the old one available for the other guys, fine. If you just wipe out the old version and tell those on XP to get fucked, that's not fine. It does not cost you anything to keep the old stuff (and mark it as deprecated).
Until recently, I was running an old version of OSX on my Macbook, and it was impossible to get a Chromium based browser for it. The old version of Chrome which had stopped updating still worked, but whenever I tried installing Chromium, Opera etc, they would all say "Hey, your shit's too old, go pound sand."
Which version was that?
I mean, would you really blame Google for not supporting XP?
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@kt_ It was OSX Mountain Lion, the one from 2012. A bit newer than Windows XP from 2001.
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@hungrier said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@kt_ It was OSX Mountain Lion, the one from 2012. A bit newer than Windows XP from 2001.
It's more than a bit, it's actually 1011 bits
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@timebandit The bit is actually a boolean that indicates "newer than 2001"
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@steve_the_cynic said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
(2) I used to know a guy whose dad kept around a can of beer that had never been opened / punctured / anything like that, but nevertheless contained no liquid.(3)
(3) It was an American mass-market product, so I refuse to be drawn into a debate on whether it counts as actual beer, but it doesn't matter, since, beer or not, there wasn't any in the can.
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@jaloopa said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
I wonder if it would be possible to write a nontrivial application using only APIs available on Windows 3.1
Sure. How much time and money you got? Are we also constrained to the CPU and memory limits of the base requirements too?
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@sloosecannon said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@sloosecannon By the same token, not having those versions also costs you, in terms of lost clients.
Either you believe that these XP clients are a tiny fraction, and keeping stuff for them does not have a significant cost, or you believe that they are a significant market, and not catering to them is a lost opportunity.
Are you suggesting that you charge people for a deprecated version of the software? Because that's what it sounds like you're suggesting... Otherwise, clients who don't actually pay you aren't viable clients from a business perspective
Microsoft still charges for "legitimate" access to DOS 6,22.
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@tsaukpaetra said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@sloosecannon said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@sloosecannon By the same token, not having those versions also costs you, in terms of lost clients.
Either you believe that these XP clients are a tiny fraction, and keeping stuff for them does not have a significant cost, or you believe that they are a significant market, and not catering to them is a lost opportunity.
Are you suggesting that you charge people for a deprecated version of the software? Because that's what it sounds like you're suggesting... Otherwise, clients who don't actually pay you aren't viable clients from a business perspective
Microsoft still charges for "legitimate" access to DOS 6,22.
I don't see why people should not be charged. FYI: Deprecated means "express disapproval of" and does not really have anything to do with "support" or other considerations..
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@thecpuwizard said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@tsaukpaetra said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@sloosecannon said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@sloosecannon By the same token, not having those versions also costs you, in terms of lost clients.
Either you believe that these XP clients are a tiny fraction, and keeping stuff for them does not have a significant cost, or you believe that they are a significant market, and not catering to them is a lost opportunity.
Are you suggesting that you charge people for a deprecated version of the software? Because that's what it sounds like you're suggesting... Otherwise, clients who don't actually pay you aren't viable clients from a business perspective
Microsoft still charges for "legitimate" access to DOS 6,22.
I don't see why people should not be charged. FYI: Deprecated means "express disapproval of" and does not really have anything to do with "support" or other considerations..
I didn't say they were wrong to do so, just providing an example.
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@dreikin I kind of understood why they made the decision to kill off the older addon API (security), but at the same time... the Firefox devs do realize that's what set them apart from Chrome, right?
Anyway, I booted
ChromeFirefox up to use DownThemAll (which I assume is the download manager you mentioned), found out it no longer worked, and immediately downloaded and installed the previous LTS release. That would be version 52.Edit: Brainoed, should be Firefox not Chrome.
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@kt_ said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
I mean, what you need to consider, as a company, is how this will also play regarding your image. Forced updates bricking your stuff is a no-no, sure. But saying straight away that the old stuff is unsafe, you won’t be supporting it and the best way to go about that, as a consumer, is to brick it, well… it does seem acceptable. If anything, they at least accept the reality of IOT devices.
There is still (to me) a mentality problem, where it is deemed more acceptable to brick stuff and force people to update rather than ensure the longevity of the product you're selling. It's very true for software products (stopping releases for XP) where "bricking" is kind of metaphorical (the user can still use the rest of his XP computer, he just can't use your app anymore), slightly less for IoT ones, although this thread and the lack of reaction shows that most people seem to consider this as OK.
Also, I guess that I could agree with you if there really is a significant security risk, that is directly linked to your software. If not (e.g. just saying "XP has a lot of vulnerabilities that aren't patched any more"), that's none of your business. That Microsoft wants to you to update is one thing, that some random software provider forces you to do it is another.
Back to a physical world analogy, we are getting more and more smart electricity meters (and they're another class of
themselves, but that's another story), and while the electricity company might claim that they are better for you and force you to update, no seller of electrical appliance is going to tell you that not only their apparatus requires you to have a smart meter (why not, that may come one day, for example to auto-schedule itself), but that if you bought their stuff a couple of years ago, suddenly it won't work any more unless you get a smart meter.A software provider who decide to suddenly stop working on older platforms is the same thing. Not just stopping development, but forcing you to update entirely.
Think about it: if you stop supporting a piece of software that is later used to hurt lots of people, that’s extremely bad publicity for your company.
Yeah but seriously, what is the risk that a random IoT lightbulb or whatever is going to be used to harm a lot of people? I know, it's a game of probabilities, but that's where I come back to my point, that everyone goes for the 0-risk solution of covering themselves by entirely cutting old stuff, even if it still actually works. And those who still had the stuff, well, fuck them, because some hypothetical risk is more important than caring for your customers, and anyway, everyone has been so brainwashed to accept this as normal that they let themselves be fucked...
Well, if you’re buying IOT, the safest way is to update. When you stop, it gets more dangerous. The solution is to ditch IOT devices. I guess.
I'm still questioning the assumption that IoT automatically becomes more dangerous if you don't update it. Sure, there will always be subtle and weird bugs that will be found years later, but for most stuff, this is wrong. Or rather, it should be wrong, and again there are a couple of example of software that manage to do that right. The fact that all the industry has refused to go this way doesn't mean it is impossible.
Also, I wouldn't mind ditching most of IoT stuff, because they're poorly made and just stupid gadgets. Even worse, I believe that for a lot of makers of physical stuff, making some IoT thing is just a way to be even more lazy in their initial product ("don't bother testing, we'll send an update later when enough people have been killed by our device...").
But you haven’t really answered my question, when you decided to get lost in your rant. None of this is a good reason for the company to keep supporting your old stuff.
Well, you just did the work of snipping everything except my answer, so you've read it already:
Because as a consumer, I don't want to be at the mercy of things (updates and changes of functionalities) that may or may not happen years after I bought the initial stuff.
In the end, this should become a good enough reason for the company (since unhappy consumers should translate to bad reputation, sales etc.). The fact it doesn't is what I'm lamenting, i.e. that people have been brainwashed to accept that software is not like other things and that it is normal that it doesn't work and requires perpetual updates.
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@remi here's a problem with expecting permanent support--
It requires having people trained on that old hardware/software and requires keeping parts. As the number of versions increases, the amount of resources devoted to legacy support increases geometrically. And none of that is making any money (or certainly not enough to cover costs). And your suppliers may not be making those parts any more. The lines have been repurposed for new products.
I only support active bricking when it's a clear and present danger due to an uncovered flaw (CF Galaxy S7). Offering a refund or replacement would be the best PR move, but if they're unsafe (or will quickly become so), the responsible thing to do is to shut them down.
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@benjamin-hall Cars, which are far more complex than IoT devices, generally still have plenty of support and parts available, even when they're ten or more years old. Why should IoT devices be any different?
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@lolwhat they aren't meant to last that long.
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@benjamin-hall said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
active bricking
No. Never. Not even when they're "unsafe." The correct thing to do is to issue a recall and let the owners make the determination.
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@polygeekery said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@lolwhat they aren't meant to last that long.
Well, maybe they should make them last that long, and fuck 'em if they don't.
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@lolwhat the differences (other than parts, which are often reused for years or available in third party forms) are small between model years. None of that is true for small electronics.
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@lolwhat said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@benjamin-hall Cars, which are far more complex than IoT devices, generally still have plenty of support and parts available, even when they're ten or more years old. Why should IoT devices be any different?
Also, you can make money by supporting and repairing vehicles, no matter how old they are. For very valuable or popular vehicles you could even likely build a car from the ground up with all of the parts available. Years ago one of the Peterson magazines tried building a 1971 Challenger or Cuda from aftermarket body panels.
Consumer electronics are disposable commodity items. They have a short design lifespan. Honestly I was surprised that Sonos had a device that old that would still work with current devices. If they had said they would no longer support those devices and that it would stop working with their current software version I would have no real problem with that. It is the active bricking I have issue with. Someone likely could have repurposed those devices to do something else. Perhaps a controller for some other device. Or maybe not and they just went to a recycler.
In either case the actual outcome would be basically the same. Lots of old controllers end up recycled or in the trash. It is the principle of the matter when it comes to active bricking that bothers me.
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@polygeekery said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
If they had said they would no longer support those devices and that it would stop working with their current software version I would have no real problem with that. It is the active bricking I have issue with.
Yes, exactly. I think manufacturers should do more than what they currently do to maintain old versions, but I am OK when good reasons justify dropping support for older ones (I dislike dropping support just because the head dev felt like upgrading to WankeryJS of the day, but that's my inner grumpy old man speaking, mostly). What I'm never OK with, is unilaterally declaring that something that is still functional can no longer work (even if there is a huge security risk, like @lolwhat said, that should be addressed with a recall (*), not with bricking stuff).
Bricking stuff is a breaking a moral principle that when I buy something, I own that thing. It says "you paid good money for that, but actually, the thing still is ours and we can break it and force you to buy another one whenever we feel like". That is breaching a fundamental trust between seller and buyer.
(*) A recall has a side-effect of being very costly to the company compared to issuing a simple update that bricks stuff, but I believe that this is a good thing as this will force companies to make sure they properly test their stuff and don't ever need to do a recall! Anything we can do to force electronic stuff to be less crappy is a good thing...
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@remi What if it's an immanent fire/explosion risk? As in, the failed batteries will go boom sometime soon (at an unpredictable time)? That's the situation with the Samsung phone--even after the recall people were refusing to turn them in. That's not a security risk, that's a safety risk to others. Forcing the issue might be the safest way. Of course the company should pay for replacement/refund, but that's separate.
Note: I'm not claiming this applies to the Sonos case, necessarily.
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@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
I think manufacturers should do more than what they currently do to maintain old versions
That's a fine thing to want. The problem is that most people don't want to pay for that. If you give your average consumer a choice between Widget X and Widget Y where they both do the same thing on day 1 and Widget Y costs twice what Widget X but Widget Y promises 10 years of support...well no one is going to buy Widget Y and Widget X will be a commercial success.
@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
What I'm never OK with, is unilaterally declaring that something that is still functional can no longer work
Define "still functional". What if for this instance of Sonos fuckery they instituted instead of it being nebulous battery worries it was actually that they completely changed all their software and everything was all updated and whizbang and the CR100 did not have the actual capability of running a software that would work with their new stuff? Should they maintain old APIs just to allow a decade old product to continue working?
@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
Bricking stuff is a breaking a moral principle that when I buy something, I own that thing. It says "you paid good money for that, but actually, the thing still is ours and we can break it and force you to buy another one whenever we feel like". That is breaching a fundamental trust between seller and buyer.
I completely agree with you. In all fairness that is not really what they did here. Not exactly. They sent out a support email to people letting them know their intentions and gave them the option of not updating.
Now...how many people didn't get that email? Probably a shitload. I unsubscribe to everything I can and block the rest because I hate constant marketing emails. They are a scourge. If I had this product I would not have received the email.
Next, I certainly hope that there is some manner of notification on the device itself that notifies the user and has them accept in triplicate that they are about to turn their device in to a paperweight full of hazardous substances. If not then Sonos can go get sodomized for that oversight.
But, how many people would just accept whatever is put in front of them so that they can get back to what they are doing and will do so without reading anything? A hell of a lot. Users are goddamn monkeys.
Really though they should have just stopped supporting them if that is what they wanted to do. The bricking part is where they crossed the line. Hell, they could have even put something server side that stopped accepting requests from these old devices. Whatever.
@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
A recall has a side-effect of being very costly to the company compared to issuing a simple update that bricks stuff, but I believe that this is a good thing as this will force companies to make sure they properly test their stuff and don't ever need to do a recall!
But...they don't need to do a recall. These devices will all gracefully die. Unless they did something particularly stupid with their charge controllers the devices are fine. You can run a lithium cell extremely low and recharge it without causing catastrophe. Overcharging or high amperage discharge is what causes the dramatic stuff. Old lithium cells are not the worry. They just degrade and stop holding a charge.
This all boils down to two things: They wanted to cut their support costs for older devices by moving everyone to apps running on mobile devices so that when people have a problem they can tell them to reinstall the app and that will fix it, and they wanted to move new product by offering people a $100 credit to buy expensive shit in their online store. Bricking devices for marketing wank is never OK.
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@jaloopa said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
I wonder if it would be possible to write a nontrivial application using only APIs available on Windows 3.1
Strange thing to wonder, considering that e.g. Office 4.3 ran quite happily on Windows 3.1, and I'd call that non-trivial. Getting development tools today wouldn't be easy, of course.
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@benjamin-hall said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@remi What if it's an immanent fire/explosion risk?
If the risk is immanent, then I think you have more to worry about than whether a ten-year-old device still works.
("Immanent" is a word, but it doesn't mean the same thing as "imminent".)
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@steve_the_cynic said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@benjamin-hall said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@remi What if it's an immanent fire/explosion risk?
If the risk is immanent, then I think you have more to worry about than whether a ten-year-old device still works.
("Immanent" is a word, but it doesn't mean the same thing as "imminent".)
Derp. Yeah, I meant imminent. Spelling's never been one of my skills, and spell-check gave me the wrong one.
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@lolwhat said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@polygeekery said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@lolwhat they aren't meant to last that long.
Well, maybe they should make them last that long, and fuck 'em if they don't.
Dude...they are technology devices. Are you still running the same computer, or phone, or tablet that you did 10 years ago?
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@polygeekery said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
Dude...they are technology devices. Are you still running the same computer, or phone, or tablet that you did 10 years ago?
I still have the same LED TV
And it's got something like 7 HDMI ports that still work with current technology.
Oh, but it's not a Smart TV, so it doesn't need updates and can't be bricked by the manufacturer.
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@timebandit said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
I still have the same LED TV
I do also, but it has been moved to the bedroom and we have bigger and better in the living room.
@timebandit said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
And it's got something like 7 HDMI ports that still work with current technology.
Nice. All of ours have 2 and that is annoying.
@timebandit said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
Oh, but it's not a Smart TV, so it doesn't need updates and can't be bricked by the manufacturer.
Smart TVs are such a dumb idea. Our Apple TVs and Fire TVs make our TVs smart enough and they still work on our oldest TVs.
We recently upgraded some TVs as part of a conference/training room upgrade for a client. They did not even want them because they were only 1080p so the guys who work with me got free TVs.
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@polygeekery said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
Smart TVs are such a dumb idea.
Whenever a salesman tells me "It's a smart TV", I always reply "and I'm smart enough to not buy one" :face_with_stuck-out_tongue:
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@polygeekery said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
Smart TVs are such a dumb idea. Our Apple TVs and Fire TVs make our TVs smart enough and they still work on our oldest TVs.
This part annoys me. I have an LG Smart TV, and I use a damned Chromecast to stream stuff instead of the TV because the TV's software sucks so badly. I've seen decent ones (namely, the TVs loaded with some flavor of Android seem to run pretty slick), but given the cost difference, I don't know why I'd spend $2k when I could get an equally good TV for $1k plus a $30 Chromecast. (Costs obviously asspulled, but the principle still applies)
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@polygeekery said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@lolwhat said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@polygeekery said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@lolwhat they aren't meant to last that long.
Well, maybe they should make them last that long, and fuck 'em if they don't.
Dude...they are technology devices. Are you still running the same computer, or phone, or tablet that you did 10 years ago?
...
....
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@steve_the_cynic said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
Getting development tools today wouldn't be easy, of course.
Think I've still got the old MSDN CDs... Well, Visual Studio 6 at any rate...
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@timebandit said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
Oh, but it's not a Smart TV
I'd say that's a good thing.
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@benjamin-hall said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@remi What if it's an immanent fire/explosion risk?
That might indeed be a situation where forcefully bricking the devices would be the best option. But 1) this really should happen only once in a blue moon, and be a huge thing when it does (which is what happened with Samsung) and 2) this should be seen as really a last-resort solution when everything else failed (or the risk is really huge), not something that can routinely be done at a whim from marketing/dev.
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@polygeekery said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
I think manufacturers should do more than what they currently do to maintain old versions
That's a fine thing to want. The problem is that most people don't want to pay for that.
I know, and that's the reason why I am complaining about it. I strongly dislike having to buy a new phone every two years and a lot of other forced (or at least considered as normal) changes, but I know that I am in the minority here.
Define "still functional". What if [...] ? Should they maintain old APIs just to allow a decade old product to continue working?
You can always build nice hypothetical scenarios where it makes sense to deprecate old stuff rather than spend to maintain it, and I won't tell you that you should keep stuff working whatever the cost. Yet the fact is that at the moment, there is little to no attention that is paid to that, and manufacturers go for the "deprecated!" option immediately, and people buy it, and I don't think this is the mental framework that we should have. I do believe that in many cases, a bit of thinking could easily maintain at least some form of compatibility, if that was amongst the priorities. Is that wishful thinking? From a technical point of view, I don't think so. From a practical one, probably, given that nobody does it.
But...they don't need to do a recall. These devices will all gracefully die.
Yes, but at this point I was blabbering more generally, not specifically about Sonos. On that specific item, I agree with you, no recall is indeed needed.
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@remi That I can agree with.
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@polygeekery said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@lolwhat they aren't meant to last that long.
And they’re much cheaper, plus “support” for cars is additionally paid, whereas IOT reaches the point of “it’ll be easier and cheaper to buy a new one, than having this one repaired”.
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@benjamin-hall said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@lolwhat the differences (other than parts, which are often reused for years or available in third party forms) are small between model years. None of that is true for small electronics.
Plus support for cars is charged additionally. And IOT are much cheaper so they reach the point o f “meh, it’ll be easier and cheaper to buy a new one than having this one repaired” sooner.
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@benjamin-hall said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
here's a problem with expecting permanent support
Are we talking about devices or a service? With a service, as long as people are buying the service you better believe they expect support. The service provider might need to replace the devices on the customers' sites from time to time to enable them to provide the service they want to provide. That's OK.
With a transaction that was principally about acquiring a device, you're into the somewhat murky area called Reasonable Expectation of Functioning. Alas, that's a term of legal art, so it's been litigated to heck and has politicians interfering too, but the usual nature of these things is that the time which a consumer device is expected to last depends on how much they paid for the device and what it is supposed to do; if you pay a hundred for something you don't expect the same durability as if you'd paid a thousand for it, and some devices don't last as long in the first place due to the type of wear and tear it is reasonably expected to receive. But the key is that having some company brick the expensive device that you only bought a few months ago and then only offer a pittance of a voucher in compensation is simply not a good way to discourage you from taking the whole thing to the law, and trying to include “Hahaha! Trap! You can't do that!” clauses in a business-to-consumer contract is really not a good idea (as they often get ruled to be unconscionable by courts and struck from the contract before the rest of the complaint is processed at all; it often only really serves to convince the court that you were intending to act in bad faith all a long, at which point the court can impose significant fines). It's different with b2b contracts; businesses are supposed to spend more effort on looking after their interests properly ahead of time.
So yes, it can be complicated. And yes, it can mean keeping trained staff around or an active programme of replacement. Hey, the latter can actually make for reasonable PR. But a key thing is whether you're talking about services or devices; lots of things flow from that basic distinction.
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@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
I strongly dislike having to buy a new phone every two years
Why do you? I am going on 3 years now and the only compelling and immediate reason I see to update is that I am soon changing carriers.
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@tsaukpaetra said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@polygeekery said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@lolwhat said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@polygeekery said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@lolwhat they aren't meant to last that long.
Well, maybe they should make them last that long, and fuck 'em if they don't.
Dude...they are technology devices. Are you still running the same computer, or phone, or tablet that you did 10 years ago?
...
.......I should have considered you.
You are the exception that proves the rule.
