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 can probably see where this is going.

You can read Google's explanation of speaker group changes on the official support site, complete with user tags down at the bottom. The gist, as we previously covered, is that you can't control the volume of entire speaker groups anymore—not with the volume rocker nor on-screen controls. Instead, you have to control the volume individually.

Esper technical editor Mishaal Rahman spotted 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.

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