Users protest Google’s speaker group nerfing with hilarious post tags
Google was handed a defeat by the International Trade Commission (ITC) this week, which ruled that Google did indeed infringe on Sonos' intellectual property with its cast protocol. Luckily, basic volume controls are back in Android with the latest OTAs, but speaker groups might never be the same. The folks on Google’s Nest support forums are not pleased with the changes, but it turns out Google supports user tags on its support site. you could probably see where this is going.
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Esper technical editor Mishaal Rahmanspotted the ballooning list of snarky tags. As you can see from the above list, people aren’t happy, and they’re unhappy in surprisingly different ways. Some people want to boycott Google, and others want to boycott Sonos. Some tags are even constructive criticism, like: JustPaySonosTheMoneyAndLetUsEnjoyOurDevicesAsAdvertised. Other highlights include Google Sucks, BaitAndSwitch, THIEFS (sic), and GoogleistheExxonofsmarthomes. For the most part, people blame Google, which sold these devices with a certain feature set. Now, some of those features don’t work as well thanks to Google’s alleged infringement of Sonos tech.
The legal tussle is still ongoing, and it’s possible the companies could come to an agreement that involves cross-licensing. If that happens, Google could return the full speaker group features in a future update. In the meantime, Google might be regretting allowing users tag posts.
UPDATE: 2022/01/14 21:39 EST BY RYAN WHITWAM
Tags removed
Well, the tag party is over. Google has removed the tag snark from the announcement post as of Friday evening. It’s a bit surprising it took this long, but we have a copy. Here is the full post with the tags, immortalized for all time.
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