Is the Market Finally Saturated?

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Maybe the next big thing in this market will be to add 'cloud this' and 'cloud that' as layers over existing products. Looks like the trend already started ...

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I think the trend will ultimately drive people towards less quantity and more quality (the opposite of the cloud models)
Most people will eventually work out that they don't use 80% of what they own and its just clutter and distraction. Check the last 10 songs you made and see what % of the synths/fx you own were actually used- go back a year or so....

Unless someone brings out something really game changing I just cant see what is going to make someone buy a new synth if they already have the current crop of usual suspects, they are all so good and we have it all covered....
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mevla wrote: Sun Aug 18, 2019 6:26 pm Maybe the next big thing in this market will be to add 'cloud this' and 'cloud that' as layers over existing products. Looks like the trend already started ...
I hope the next big thing will be augmented and virtual reality 8)

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exmatproton wrote: Sun Aug 18, 2019 8:49 pm
mevla wrote: Sun Aug 18, 2019 6:26 pm Maybe the next big thing in this market will be to add 'cloud this' and 'cloud that' as layers over existing products. Looks like the trend already started ...
I hope the next big thing will be augmented and virtual reality 8)
Fathom is supposed to go down that route at some time, as I recall it. It would be very cool doing the Minority Report thingy with oscillators and wavetables and what's not.
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SLiC wrote: Sun Aug 18, 2019 6:42 pmMost people will eventually work out that they don't use 80% of what they own and its just clutter and distraction. Check the last 10 songs you made and see what % of the synths/fx you own were actually used- go back a year or so....

Unless someone brings out something really game changing I just cant see what is going to make someone buy a new synth if they already have the current crop of usual suspects, they are all so good and we have it all covered....
In order to use one has to learn first. Going through the user manuals, the videos, taking notes, trying out things. It's actually very close to studying, with the added benefit that the more of that one does, the more solid become the questioning about getting anything new.

I went through a phase of get-get-get, then I stopped and started to actually use what I have. I have so much to learn and all the synths and plugins have so many ways an options. But then everything benefits from this learning as one gets more familiar, even just a bit, creative possibilities expands.

Sometimes when I see a plugin I do not know, or even one from a vendor I like that I do not have, I can feel this urge of getting it, but it's curbed quite easily, and in a nice balanced way simply by reflecting about the things I've learned so far from what I have and most importantly, all there's still left to learn and incorporate creatively.

Cheers.

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The market is not saturated if you count guitar pedals and eurorack. The situation is this: software, because of piracy and enormous pressure to bring prices down doesn't pay as much as hardware. And software definitely doesn't pay as much as writing code for Facebook or Google. A good and capable software engineer in a US city is going to make between 120k and 180k. In order to make 100k a year you'd have to sell how many $100 synths? $50 synths, etc. A. 10-12k sales for the $100 20-24k for the $50. The market isn't that big.

Hardware pays 2-3x as much and still won't net you Google money, but it does pay enough to steam considerable talent from the software market. Its the economics that is stalling out the industry. If synths all cost u-he money or more there would be a lot more developers, a lot more *good* developers and a lot more innovation. Just my opinion.

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There is lot of similar products,that's saturated,but there will be always interest, would say 'hunger' for new stuff and original ideas :)

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SparkySpark wrote: Sun Aug 18, 2019 10:22 pm
exmatproton wrote: Sun Aug 18, 2019 8:49 pm
mevla wrote: Sun Aug 18, 2019 6:26 pm Maybe the next big thing in this market will be to add 'cloud this' and 'cloud that' as layers over existing products. Looks like the trend already started ...
I hope the next big thing will be augmented and virtual reality 8)
Fathom is supposed to go down that route at some time, as I recall it. It would be very cool doing the Minority Report thingy with oscillators and wavetables and what's not.
Yeah..that would be so much fun.

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This has been said for years. Then ... :shrug: ... Whether it's true, or less, technology and progress have not stopped yesterday.

Hope is allowed, and will be rewarded.
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Has anyone asked which Saturator is the market being saturated with? Is it analog-modelled?
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This is my personal opinion as a developer and might not reflect what other people think.

The current situation:

We are currently facing the same situation as we did with the video-game-crisis in the early 80s. The market was flooded with a huge number of low quality games. It ended up with a big crash and only the big companies which did deliver quality games like Nintendo did survive.
The large number of sales is a sign that many companies have problems to sell enough products to remain profitable.
The mp3-format and file-sharing has destroyed large parts of the music industry. Sadly many talented artists can not make a living from their music. A result is that is not economic for them to make big investments in gear.
The younger generation is not more as enthusiastic about creating music as they were in the 2000s. They are more interested in social platforms and game consoles. The userbase is shrinking and getting older.

The future:

In the longer term many small companies will disappear from the market, because it is not profitable. The larger companies will stop to deliver updates and not longer develop new products.
Some developers will release the code of their products as open-source.
Well-known artists can only generate an income with life-concerts, but not longer with selling their music.

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Markus Krause wrote: Mon Aug 19, 2019 11:39 am This is my personal opinion as a developer and might not reflect what other people think.

The current situation:

We are currently facing the same situation as we did with the video-game-crisis in the early 80s. The market was flooded with a huge number of low quality games. It ended up with a big crash and only the big companies which did deliver quality games like Nintendo did survive.
The large number of sales is a sign that many companies have problems to sell enough products to remain profitable.
The mp3-format and file-sharing has destroyed large parts of the music industry. Sadly many talented artists can not make a living from their music. A result is that is not economic for them to make big investments in gear.
The younger generation is not more as enthusiastic about creating music as they were in the 2000s. They are more interested in social platforms and game consoles. The userbase is shrinking and getting older.

The future:

In the longer term many small companies will disappear from the market, because it is not profitable. The larger companies will stop to deliver updates and not longer develop new products.
Some developers will release the code of their products as open-source.
Well-known artists can only generate an income with life-concerts, but not longer with selling their music.
We're in a big changing point, as I said earlier.
And it's fantastic to see an opinion from a big developer, thank you.

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I don't think we are. The process Markus speaks of has been underway for many years now. Look at the struggles of Cakewalk and Traktion, as well as the disappearance of Orion, EnergyXT and others. It already looks like the hardware market in the late 90s and early 2000s - companies changing hands, being consolidated, amalgamated and bought out by bigger companies. As Devo said "the fittest will survive, yet the unfit may live". It's natural selection, software style.
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exmatproton wrote: Sun Aug 18, 2019 8:49 pm
mevla wrote: Sun Aug 18, 2019 6:26 pm Maybe the next big thing in this market will be to add 'cloud this' and 'cloud that' as layers over existing products. Looks like the trend already started ...
I hope the next big thing will be augmented and virtual reality 8)
I hope the next big thing will be real reality

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But that requires that first augmented and virtual get really big until people realize the real world has advantages... Some kids might never leave the virtual world before they die...

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