As noted above, your data has already been sold. Spare the outrage, no one cares that you secretly listen to Brittany Spears.
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Sonos' Privacy Policy Change Suggests It Might Sell Your Data
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My son did his whole house in Sonos a year ago. It worked ok, and sounded great when it did work. I was contemplating converting my lagacy audio to Sonos, but not any more.
I own 9 Sonos speakers. They sound ok, do enjoy the ease of multi room, but find they drop out from time to time. There are other quirks that can be annoying. The update issue put me on the edge, this obvious money grab signals to me they are spiraling down the drain unable to compete on quality. I won’t be wasting any more good money after bad.
I think the point being it is not for them to sell. If someone is going to make money out of my info, I better be getting some if not all of that money.
My son's system 6 soundbars, 3 subwoofers, 4 sets of surround back speakers (although they are not true surround) all wired, except for the subwoofers. He does not have th drop out problem, but people keep turning on WiFi on TVs, soundbars etc., which causes loops, which causes the router to drop connections to eliminate the loop.
The biggest problems is that when we house set and don't have all of the iPhone passwords for lighting, Sonos, etc. the automation is useless. We also have an automated home, but it does not depend on phones. We are signiifically scaling back all home automation that phones home. There is no real need for that except for the selling of our data.
Ahh, but what if you listen to a political dissident. Or what if the government changes from your political view, to the opposite political view. Or what if the government passes a law that you, as the listener, are fined $100,000 for listening to Brittany Spears. (Which is a law that I could support, but that is another story).
These things in lesser terms are happening all over America and the world. And as long as we "spare the outrage", they will continue to happen and get worse. Weak people go along, the strong stand up.
There’s something weird going on with these streaming services. Amazon music has also put many features behind a paywall. Basic functions like skip back a track, playing a whole album etc which you would expect as standard features.
Feels like these companies have come together to agree how they can fleece or upsell their customers for more cash and are making the same shocking moves. The greed is strong.
As far as data selling goes I believe if you offer data at any point you have to accept a certain amount of risk that it will be sold, hacked or shared in some form at some point.
Feels like these companies have come together to agree how they can fleece or upsell their customers for more cash and are making the same shocking moves. The greed is strong.
As far as data selling goes I believe if you offer data at any point you have to accept a certain amount of risk that it will be sold, hacked or shared in some form at some point.
Last time I accused Sonos of this, I got flamed more than any other opinion I wrote. Joke's on you, folks!
Sonos is definitely struggling. Back in the day,, they had technology that no one else had (or at least that worked as well as Sonos' did).
But times have changed, and lots of options for wireless and multi-zone sound. Their hardware is priced for those with deep pockets and nowadays, no doubt sales are down. No recurring revenue stream (subscriptions) leaves them needing something. Most of my Sonos gear is older generation and not used much anymore but when they stopped supporting the older stuff and gave a minimum-feature app, I just lost interest. Surely I'm not the only one.
But times have changed, and lots of options for wireless and multi-zone sound. Their hardware is priced for those with deep pockets and nowadays, no doubt sales are down. No recurring revenue stream (subscriptions) leaves them needing something. Most of my Sonos gear is older generation and not used much anymore but when they stopped supporting the older stuff and gave a minimum-feature app, I just lost interest. Surely I'm not the only one.
Just as importantly, even a ToS which explicitly claims “we do not sell your information“ does not mean your information IS NOT being shared with third parties to generate revenue particularly for advertising. This whole “we do not sell” comment is misleading and a sleight of hand claim. Especially when following links to third parties and affiliated partner websites. This topic is disingenuous.
Is it not weirder that an expectation for free access to music exists in the first place?
We pay for most things in life. Why should access to streaming music be different?
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Free? I pay $139/year for Amazon Prime which includes Amazon Music and I cannot skip back without paying MORE for Amazon Unlimited. As was stated, basic functions put behind a taller paywall.
You may be able to discern a lot about me from my posts across the web, but no one knows that I listen to Britney Spears except for the music services I use. Oh, crap, cat's out of the bag.
According to U2 it was actually Apple that paid them. Also, the album appeared in people's libraries, but wasn't necessarily downloaded (only if you had automatic downloads enabled).
BTW, I never understood the anger. If you hate the album so much just hide it in your library. Personally I liked the music and was happy to get it for free (didn't have Spotify at the time). Too bad so many people flipped out, because it means Apple will likely never do something like this again.
What I really want is to know, when I receive a targeted ad, is where they got their targeting information from. For example if I get a targeted ad from Spotify, I want Spotify to have to tell me "we got your preferences from SONOS, Facebook, YouTube, and our own app". Mainly because I want to know where I can poison my data for it. Until I get at least that information, I'm running adblockers forever.
That would work for me. Alternatively, I could subscribe - for a reasonable price - to the few websites I really frequent and need. The rest can go away as far as I’m concerned. The internet didn’t start out as an advertising medium. It was co-opted by the ad industry.
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No everyone shares so flippantly online.
A defeatist attitude is self-fulfilling.
No, what's happened is people forgot that these are not music companies, they are technology companies with extremely deep pockets (often with external backers) who are able to run at a loss to capture market share. Once they've got that market share they jack up the prices. That was always the model. There is no "coming together to agree how to fleece" — this is the model. Unlike days gone by, where a record label had to sell an album in enough quantities to turn a profit, now companies like Spotify don't worry about profits. They run at a loss with an unsustainable business model, investors pump more money in, and the goal is to increase prices when people are too deeply tied in.
Tech has moved faster than legislation, or the people in charge of legislation have understood. At some point there needs to be a response to that, not a sigh of "oh well, the horse has already bolted." Yes it's a shame the response wasn't sooner, but it has to happen at some point. And Adblockers, cookie opt-in, and a company as large as Apple making a lot of noise about the importance of privacy all play a part in this becoming a wider conversation — at last.
Because really what we've been paying for is Prime's benefits, which is bundled with Music, Video etc. Now Amazon is charging extra for ad-free Video. Prime was never sustainable in its previous form — the value to cost ratio was way out of whack, in the consumer's favour. It's nonsensical to think it was not Amazon's playbook from the beginning to eventually monetise these things. But it's pretty difficult to launch Amazon Music at $10/month in direct competition to Spotify, and likewise Video in competition with Netflix. Instead, charge for Prime with its free and fast delivery, bundle it with "free" entertainment to build the user base, then charge for it.
But yes, "Free" is accurate. You have been paying for Prime and getting the add-ons for free. $139 a year for Prime is $11 a month, which is a steal if you order a few things and get free delivery on them. Nobody is getting ripped off by paying $11 a month for Prime, Video, and Music — you can barely get a standalone music or video streaming service for that.