bklaas wrote: 
> Ah, I see. Then I concede that they got this part correct. I think I let
> the "will-not-play-anything-without-working-internet-connection" thing,
> and the
> "doesn't-work-with-squeezebox-for-no-technical-reason-other-than-we-want-to-kill-squeezebox"
> thing, and the
> "we-haven't-really-engineered-anything-but-just-rebranded-and-emasculated-sbradio"
> thing has made me dismiss every other aspect of that product.
> 
You forgot the "we-screwed-up-even-stuff-that-worked-before" aspect,
which is probably the worst one if you look at the user comments. Who
needs a working alarm? Bah, people don't listen to podcasts anymore!
Everybody must have an iPhone or Android these days! You don't need to
add custom radio stations! Has anybody ever used playlists?

> 
> I see your point here, but the reasons for not requiring sign-in on
> setup well outweigh that potential annoyance. Consider the use case of
> someone who doesn't have any need for anything but free internet radio
> and local music. Registration/sign-in is literally just a waste of time
> for this user.
> 
Yes, I agree, for this user it's n annoyance for the sake of nothing.
Maybe I'm too much coming from the other side of things:
1. The Squeezebox, even the Radio, probably doesn't cater to a lot of
people who only want a simple internet radio. It's simply too expensive
for that, could get the same thing at half the price if you are not
after more (I believe that THIS will eventually be the main argument
that will kill the Smart Radio, horrible execution aside)
2. If you are a vendor with a decent long-term strategy (which Logitech
clearly isn't, right now), you HAVE TO try to get your users registered.
Simply because you need those numbers to get (online service) partners
interested and simply because you WANT your users to find it easy to
join these services later because that's what makes you an attractive
partner which in turn helps you to create an attractive product.
> 
> The middle ground would be to make registration/sign-in explicitly
> optional during setup. I would have preferred it to have been completely
> gone, but that would have been a reasonable compromise.
> 
Yes, I believe that would be the way to go. Have it in the normal
registration flow but allow people to just press "skip". And then (very
important!!!!) DON'T come back with the question later! Offer the option
in an easy-to-find setup menu (opening "My Services" would be a good
chance to explain that now you _have_ to register) but if the user has
opted for "skip" once, the initiative now should be on him/her.


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