Comment by reeddavid
6 years ago
What a total waste.
Apparel companies are starting to participate in the secondary market for their used gear, why can't Sonos do something similar?
Examples: - Patagonia Worn Wear (https://wornwear.patagonia.com) - REI Used Gear (https://www.rei.com/used/shop/gear) - Arc'teryx Rock Solid (https://rocksolid.arcteryx.com)
As it stands, Sonos is effectively buying their old speakers and then throwing them away. Could they not recoup their costs and avoid e-waste by simply selling the used Sonos devices into a market that can't afford the brand new ones? I thought this is how most phone trade-in programs worked, which seems like a mature process now.
Then they would have to continue supporting those devices, which isn’t part of the planned obsolescence business model. It would also dilute the luxury brand halo that Sonos has tried to cultivate.
It’s more like Louis Vuitton getting into the secondhand market. They too would (and do) destroy merchandise rather than let it get sold at a discount and dilute the brand value.
They’ve actually done a pretty good job of being backwards-compatible and even enabling features on older speakers if they’re grouped with newer ones. For example, having an AirPlay 2 speaker in a group means that all speakers in the group will receive sound through AirPlay 2, even if they didn’t support AirPlay in the first place.
That makes this even more puzzling.
Didn't they face huge backlash a few years back when they EOLed still functional kit people owned and used?
* It was the CR100 Controller they updated to no longer be able to control devices it previously could.
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Not really, if older hardware doesn't support newer features, you'll think about switching ecosystems when you need more speakers. This approach justifies more Sonos gear.
You can already buy louis vuitton at the nordstrom rack.
The model for highly disposable luxury technology is Apple. Apple is also the model for refurbished goods. These things aren't mutually exclusive. You can tuck away a refurbished part of the site just out of the eyes of the majority just like Apple does.
"highly disposable"? I think if you consider the average useable lifetime of an Apple product they aren't as expensive as they may seem.
Of course there are people who want a new model phone every year but that is their choice, certainly not something forced by the nature of the product.
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It's worth noting that other than the physical controller devices (which were discontinued in favor of mobile apps but still given a generous lifetime), Sonos still supports all of their hardware from the very first speakers / amps that they released.
Not that this makes their current actions ok, but at least they had been trying until now. I think they are now realizing that having a product that doesn't have built-in planned obsolescence may be hurting their profits
For a physical device (ie featured-locked upon shipping), “support” amounts to paying the server bill, which is likely negligible.
That's the problem right there, for a hardware manufacturer post shipping there shouldn't be a server.
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Not true, Sonos works in a mesh, so all Sonos devices need to talk to each other, and to the controller app on phone or PC.
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Would be great if you could use your own server, and that the server code was open.
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But still, why not say so directly? Why lie about sustainability? It seems extremely dishonest.
Because they’re an “old” Silicon Valley company still sticking to the rhetoric of “technology always makes the world a better place!!!”
Wonder how long these apparel companies will keep it up. I remember reading not so long ago that some well-known clothes companies realized that people are interested in buying used high-quality clothes, and so they started manufacturing new clothes using worse materials and process but to the same design as quality ones, and then sell these fake-used clothes as "worn".
Stone-washed jeans have been a thing since at least 1980's, from around the same time that "worn in" look became fashionable.
Isn't that basically the "Outlet Store" model? New clothes made to lower standards but ostensibly sold under the illusion of being "last season's overstock" of the high quality normal version?
Sonos could immediately cure the worst of these image problems by setting up something so you could re-license a recycled device for the $120 value (or whatever the amount is) someone got for hitting recycle.
It's not clear to me from the information here that Sonos themselves can't refurbish a device that's been put into recycle mode. This seems to be a technique to block third party refurbishers only.
It appears they can, but choose not to. This way they can ensure that less used units are available on the market, forcing people to buy a new unit instead.
In the thread it was explained how support agents would refuse to do it remotely for a customer's device, but what I'm saying is that Sonos probably retains the ability for themselves to refurbish and resell the units when they are physically returned to Sonos.
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Patagonia are famously environmental and not really run on a capitalist basis...
Patagonia was started by a rock climber who sold his hand-made climbing gear into the free market. He was well rewarded for doing so and from that was able to grow into the Patagonia many of us know and love today (indeed my favorite clothing company).
The company is not only run on a capitalist basis, it's the reason it exists in the first place.
But yeah, it's true they're more conscious and environmentally friendly than most. And I think they play an important role in pushing back against fast fashion, which is incredibly polluting and wasteful.
I believe that Patagonia cares about the environment and wishes there was more they could do, but I think they are absolutely driven by the forces of capitalism, whether they like it or not, and it’s visible in their current practices. They run holiday ads and promotions, they open new stores, they release a new line each year. Yes they sprinkle in campaigns and messaging to not buy new unless you really need it and they facilitate recycling/reuse of their past products, but capitalism still forces them to seek growth, relevance, and sales to survive, which they do. Not faulting them for it, just wishing it wasn’t that way.
>They run holiday ads and promotions, they open new stores, they release a new line each year.
These are all things a regular entrepreneur would do whether they were capitalist or not.
Or any of _other peoples' money_ was involved.
Even when the only environment to operate in is recognized as overwhelmingly capitalist, a non-capitalist entrepreneur can still have some unfair advantages.
When you're selling all you can make for a profit long enough, you're supposed to be doing well depending only on business structure after that. Yes, you might have a disadvantage being surely influenced by the forces of capitalism, but it can often be done.
Also without growth as an articulated goal, the pressure of exponential demands can be appropriately moderated and more sustainable growth with better returns can still result compared to alternative leadership approaches which focus on growth most aggressively but still end up wishing they could do as well.
>If you want to understand the entrepreneur, study the juvenile delinquent. The delinquent is saying with his actions, _This sucks. I'm going to do my own thing._
__Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia
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What definition of "capitalism" are you using?
Patagonia certainly seems to exist in a world of private ownership, private investment decisions, and voluntary exchanges in a free market.
They are literally doing exactly that. You can take your old speaker into a Sonos store or ship it (on Sonos dime) back to them. They then refurbish and resell, and you get a discount.
This story is at best lazy reporting with many facts left out or unresearched.
https://www.sonos.com/en-us/shop/certified-refurbished
https://www.sonos.com/en-us/tradeup
I already replied to your other comment but in the interest of correcting this misinformation, you can neither ship your bricked device to Sonos nor bring it into a Sonos store.
https://twitter.com/sonossupport/status/1179459927624036357?...
https://twitter.com/sonossupport/status/1198204183335309313?...
https://twitter.com/sonossupport/status/1196142002406133761?...
In Belgium, any electronics vendor has 'aanvaardingsplicht', the duty to accept your old device when selling you a new one. So sonos shops here have to accept them. In fact, you can bring in your old 20kg tube radio and claim your new sonos is replacing it.
From the FAQ on https://www.sonos.com/en-us/tradeup -
> Do you resell recycled devices?
> No.These devices are permanently deactivated and cannot be resold.