These Que Wi-Fi & Bluetooth speakers are a lot like the QFX ones (no relation) we sold recently, which are themselves a lot like the original Wi-Fi speakers: Sonos. The Wi-Fi speaker market is starting to get crowded.
That’s bad for companies like Sonos, who pioneered the technology, but good for you, the consumer. It means there’s more competition, lower prices, and a wider variety of feature sets. For instance, these Que speakers can’t do L/R stereo functionality in the same room, but they are cheaper than QFX or Sonos options. So if you don’t care so much about that feature you can pay a little less with these and get basically the same product. Basically.
This process is known as “commoditization,” which sounds a little dirty but just means moving from a monopoly (like Sonos) to a “perfect competition.” If you’re an NPR nerd you may remember a Planet Money podcast from a few years back that mentioned this phenomenon in reference to short sales of GoPro:
There’s a reasonable chance that in three years somebody makes a GoPro-type camera that’s just as good as a GoPro, is just as attractive to my 14-year-old kid who mounts it on the bike, and costs $50. And like most technological devices, eventually the price collapses to the point that it’s a toaster.
This podcast aired in March of 2015, and predicted that GoPro stock would fall as more companies entered their market and commoditized the technology. And what happened?
GoPro stock crashed from ~$40 to $8 in the subsequent two years. Ouch. Pretty bad if you’re a GoPro stockholder.
But pretty good if you’re an action camera purchaser. You can now choose from a bevy of brands with different features (and lower prices) than you could just a few years ago.
We seem to stand at a similar technological tipping point with Wi-Fi speakers. Unfortunately Sonos is a privately-owned company so you can’t short it to make a quick buck. But you can buy these Que speakers to save one.
