[Poll] Is subscription based licensing for you?

Anything about MUSIC but doesn't fit into the forums above.

Would you buy products that use subscription based licensing?

Yes, if the annual fee is less than 10% of the product's normal value (10 years).
7
7%
Yes, if the annual fee is less than 20% of the product's normal value (5 years).
1
1%
Yes, if the annual fee is less than 25% of the product's normal value (4 years).
0
No votes
Yes, if the annual fee is less than 33% of the product's normal value (3 years).
0
No votes
Yes, if the annual fee is less than 50% of the product's normal value (2 years).
0
No votes
Yes, if the annual fee is less than 100% of the product's normal value (1 year).
0
No votes
Yes, and money isn't really an important factor.
4
4%
No. If given the choice, I'd prefer classic licensing over subscriptions.
62
58%
No. I don't care if classic licensing is available, too. I boycott any dev who uses supscriptions.
25
23%
I only subscribe to fish.
8
7%
 
Total votes: 107

RELATED
PRODUCTS

Post

:lol: :party: :borg: :band2: :band: :band: :band: :harp: :tantrum: motherfucking fuckworld. :pray:

Post

I think the "Angelic" emoticon here at KVR is my favorite. That's some serious speed-harp going on there. Jeebus Carlos!

Post

This poll is incredibly biased. Instead of focusing on money make an option would you like to pay per month for more frequent updates as they happened or what once a year, etc etc
High Quality Soundsets for Lush-101 | Hive | Electra 2 | Diversion | Halion | Largo | Rapid | Dune II | Thorn | and more.

TTU Youtube

Post

I voted "No. if given the choice ...". But I'm not worried about it because Pro Tools aims at different users than I. Cakewalk IMO is trying to have a "pro" market share while Steinberg has two products with different targets (Cubase pro which is a possible upgrade if PreSonus f**k S1, and Nuendo which I don't care about).
I think it will still there many choices. I won't upgrade Sonar anymore, but I still have S1, Reaper and Cubase (elements).

There are also Live, Bitwig, Samplitude, FL Studio ..etc, if what I have won't do it for me, so I'm staying cool 8)

If all of them go the subscribtion route and I won't be able to use my computer for music, then I think I will start using the synth and sequencer in my Casio PX-5S :scared: But I really don't think I will have to :D

Post

Tjgoa wrote:This poll is incredibly biased. Instead of focusing on money make an option would you like to pay per month for more frequent updates as they happened or what once a year, etc etc
But subscription vs perpetual is about payment (and ownership), no? Why is subscription necessary for faster updates? Melda and Cockos for example spit out very frequent updates without subscription.

Post

It looks like more and more companies are choosing to go the "subcription route". They are emphasizing the alleged advantages that such a system has for the users and trying to convince them of how much better it is compared to buying a full software license and owning it.

This doesn't only happen in the realm of audio software. M$ have taken this route with Office 365.

When you look behind all the marketing arguments, there is only one target those companies are pursuing: increasing the revenues, making more money, and gaining more control over users that formerly were not willing to pay for each and every upgrade, for whatever reason.

I, for my part, want the freedom to choose when I pay money for a software. Any subscription model does not give me that freedom.

Post

Well you can always stop subscribing...

That said, the Slate one is a bit more reasonable, closer to renting than something that you must keep up at ongoing rate or be penalized downstream (vs the Avid one)

Biggest problem isn't how you pay for it, is when they go south/get bought, or god forbid, your credit card for whatever reason, you're SOL. And you lose control to stay with the older version most likely. No support for older version and you don't own it = you lose them or forced upgrade even if you keep paying.

No thanks to Adobe jump started this whole bloody thing.

Post

paterpeter wrote:
Tjgoa wrote:This poll is incredibly biased. Instead of focusing on money make an option would you like to pay per month for more frequent updates as they happened or what once a year, etc etc
But subscription vs perpetual is about payment (and ownership), no? Why is subscription necessary for faster updates? Melda and Cockos for example spit out very frequent updates without subscription.
It is not surprising at all that Avid went subscription based. Like with any mature software there's going to be point where further development is kind of pointless as the software already does so much. Adding additional features is superficial at best as most of the people would not care about them anyway. In that case the company has to make a choice: expand to new markets with new products or try to lock your customers in and try to nickel and dime them any way you can. PT being in a monopolistic position obvious can do the latter one.

Plugin developers like Melda can always come up with additional plugins and products if they want to. PT on the other hand is a fairly complete and there's not that much Avid could add to it to make upgrades appealing further down the road.

All that talk that subscription model somehow benefits the customer and helps to develop products in a more efficient way is horse sh1t .
No signature here!

Post

All your subscriptions are belong to us.

Post

Samplitude gets attacked for it's pricing plans (especially by one member here), they use to have a program where you got to rent Samp and that was quite popular tbh. However this is what the head of North American support for Samp wrote on the pricing structure of Samp. (putting it here because there is a bit of talk in that thread about AVID's subscription program).
Samplitude releases a new version once ever 2-3.5 years, Sonar and PT have new version every year. But Sam at $239 for the upgrade after 3+ years is $6 a month. I can no longer think that Sam Pro X upgrade is expensive. Samplitude is a bargain in my opinion, features/pricing.
THB that is a little misleading because they went from Samp 10 to Samp 11 in less than a year I believe but for the most part it's been within 2-3 1/2 year span which is more like $9.95usd a month to $5.69 a month (keep in mind that this time Samp offered until Jan 15th 30% off the upgrade price so it was even lower). I am not in favor of subscription services but if they priced it $4.99 a month or lower and had many updates I might change my mind.

The question is (as had been suggested in this thread) would it be worth it? Would there be enough significant upgrades to make it worth is or would one be better off sticking with an old version?

For me I say it wouldn't be worth it at this time, there are no true game changers right now seeing how Samp has adopted VST3 and is 64 bit. As long as there is OS support for Samp Pro X2 I could live with things just as they are for easily ten years. However if they dropped support for products not on the subscription I would flee quickly, if all DAWs started doing this I would look into going back to HD recorders.

It sounds like the well is running dry for developers of DAWs and they are trying to find a way to keep the cash flow going and I suspect it's possible the DAW as we know it may be starting to become extinct (dying a very slow death though)...just my two cents.
The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another's world. It requires profound, purpose‐larger‐than‐the‐self kind of understanding.

Post

i flat out refuse to use ANY software that is subscription based.
ImageImageImage

Post

I accept no subscriptions and do not take credits. These are XXI-century version of slavery. How can you accept working hard every month for someone else?
Blog ------------- YouTube channel
Tricky-Loops wrote: (...)someone like Armin van Buuren who claims to make a track in half an hour and all his songs sound somewhat boring(...)

Post

Intermediate standing:

For subscriptions: 9.3% (10.1% w/o fish)
Against subscriptions: 82.7% (89.9% w/o fish)

Post

Hink wrote:It sounds like the well is running dry for developers of DAWs and they are trying to find a way to keep the cash flow going and I suspect it's possible the DAW as we know it may be starting to become extinct (dying a very slow death though)...just my two cents.
The DAW isn't extinct. But the companies making them are going to have a hard time because they continue to try to find ways to disguise maintenance contracts and tie themselves in knots making it incredibly opaque to the customer. And confused customers don't buy.

I'm all up for paying maintenance if it means bugs get fixed and even prioritised over the barrage of new features. I understand the dissatisfaction with the Waves model and the company made a thorough mess of introducing it. But as it stands now, it seems a reasonable trade. You can come off maintenance if you want, but keep using the tools and come back any time with about a 20% penalty on one of the bigger bundles if you need an update. (I think in ye olden dayze you had to pay for the missing years of WUP.)

Avid OTOH seems to have made a thorough mess of the plan, probably because the company sees an opportunity to gouge the post-production people who currently have the money and reason to invest in things like the cloud storage. The whole "no updates for you if you miss a year, you'll have to buy it all over again" thing just screams "if you can, get off this platform ASAP. Sell the licence while you have a chance. Don't walk, run!!!" I

It's practically anti-marketing, and particularly bizarre when you consider that a lot of studios don't like upgrading PT if they can help it – and would probably consider a maintenance contract to fix bugs in PT8, 9, 10 as a reasonable tradeoff.

Post

It's a great model for developer,s a lousy model for the rest of us. I've been watching the Slate thread at GS and it's fascinating how Slate's promotional logic works. "Look, you are going to get all these fantastic but not actually existing yet plugins for twenty dollars a month!" Slate has promised ten plugins a year, so in four years you will have spent $960, but you will have forty plugins dude! In eight years, you'll have spent @2000 bucks, but you will have 80 plugins! What in the world are you going to do with 80 plugins?

I can't really even see why I would want forty plugins. Ten EQs, ten comps, ten?reverbs and ten???? maybe his mic models? And I can't believe that he isn't just going to make a few tweaks and call it a new plugin. Now we know why there was inexplicably no "all in" button on the FD116--he can add it later and call it a new plugin. It's a cable TV model, where a bunch of mostly not very iuseful stuff is bundled into the "package."

In his defense, he's bent over backwards to try to make it attractive to people who are skeptical. And he's extremely confident of his future product. Slate's plugins are great--very effective and nicely priced. I own four of them and use them all the time.

But if this works we'l have more and more subscription models and it will look more and more like cable TV.

Post Reply

Return to “Everything Else (Music related)”