Rent-to-own?

[PieBerger]

It's probably already been mentioned, perhaps even by myself, but u-he's current licensing/copy-protection isn't really compatible with a rent-to-own (R2O) model, which forces the following two situations:

1) change all u-their products to a new copy-protection scheme to accommodate both R2O and perpetual licenses. This would make continued development and support much easier, with only one line of products to service, but piss off a lot existing customers who prefer and have bought products off of the back of, the existing model. u-he have a great reputation, built over many years and that's a big old boat to rock for the sake of maybe getting a bit of extra revenue.

2) have 2 product lines, one with the existing copy-protection and another with the necessary R2O framework. This would keep existing customers who prefer the current model happy, while allowing those who want to R2O the opportunity to do so. The downside of course is increased overheads in maintaining two product lines and two different licensing models, either by increased workload in-house or deductions off the bottom line by subcontracting it out to a third-party e.g. Splice.

It's also interesting to note that Xfer and Arturia, who both have a catalogue of products are only offering each of their flagship products, Serum and Pigments respectively. Also D16 have their FX and kick synth, but not their any of their other synths or drum machines. One has to consider if R2O really is the be all and end all, the future of plugin sales, why they don't have their full offering available through the scheme. They're already on the R2O bandwagon so why not have it all? They have likely taken everything into consideration and decided that for all of the extra work and risk, it's simply not worth it to make everything available via R2O schemes.

For me at least, I can't see what's so hard to understand and accept, about a company making a decision not to offer any R2O plans, when there are companies out there who have already implemented them but have still decided that it's not worth it for them, to do it for their entire product line. One could argue that u-he could try it with Diva, which IIRC is their best selling plugin to-date, but what about all those people are really desperate for Zebra, it's their flagship synth, in terms of features and if they can do it for Diva, why can't they do it for Zebra? What about existing customers who already have Diva and Zebra, but they really want to add RePro to their setup but can't afford the 149e upfront, surely it's not fair that you can R2O Diva and Zebra and not RePro and then before you know it, every single product needs to be included and you're back to options 1) and 2)

Using Zebra as a reference and assuming 10e/month for 20 months , for every perpetual license they might sell, they would need to secure 20 subs for the month for the same revenue. Obviously we're not privy to u-he's sales data and I haven't studied the market in enough depth to make the most informed opinion, but my gut feeling is that the demand just isn't that high.

[FarleyCZ]

...all I say is, that during this Black Friday, I was tempted to buy some analog emulations. I love U-he, I own several of their synths and Zebra is and probably always will be my #1 synth. I know Diva and RePro are much more accurate representations of analog stuff ... but it was such a big chunk of money to pay at once, so I went with Arturia, who offer to split the payment. If U-he had R2O model in place at that point, I would have decided the other way. And I think I'm not alone in this. If the potential extra gross is less than a cost of copy-protection system edits, then I don't think there's even a discussion here. It's nonsense in that case. ...but if not, then I believe there's essentially money lying on a floor waiting to be picked up. I don't feel entitled enough to make such a prediction, though. May be that's why companies try that with one product only. To make an educated guess.

[Ploki]

I don't know man, I didnt go with arturia simply because compared to u-he, it just doesn't sound nearly as good - that was the main deciding factor.
I think this touches what urs meant with uncommitted customers.

[XorXisT]

You have cojones, or you don't have cojones.

Entiende?

[FarleyCZ]

I don't know man, I didnt go with arturia simply because compared to u-he, it just doesn't sound nearly as good - that was the main deciding factor.
I think this touches what urs meant with uncommitted customers.

I don't think I'm uncommited. I will buy Z3 upgrade the minute it's online. I just don't use the oldschool analog sounds that much. I wanted it just as novelty thing to play with when bored and THEN may be use it for a detail or two in a track. My main synth still is Zebra, where I can experiment in amazing ways. ...and for someting you just want to play with occasionally, those full prices are a tough bit to swallow at once.

Also ... this is really not nice way to communicate the message, is it? The "cost of development would be too high" argument is fair and solid. But "you're not loyal customer when you don't choose our plugins over others every single time" really is not. I love U-he. And I do have Zebra and Hive to thank for every bit of success my music might have collected through the years, but there is more to plugin buying descisions than only the "want factor".

[Ploki]

I don't know man, I didnt go with arturia simply because compared to u-he, it just doesn't sound nearly as good - that was the main deciding factor.
I think this touches what urs meant with uncommitted customers.

I don't think I'm uncommited. I will buy Z3 upgrade the minute it's online. I just don't use the oldschool analog sounds that much. I wanted it just as novelty thing to play with when bored and THEN may be use it for a detail or two in a track. My main synth still is Zebra, where I can experiment in amazing ways. ...and for someting you just want to play with occasionally, those full prices are a tough bit to swallow at once.

Also ... this is really not nice way to communicate the message, is it? The "cost of development would be too high" argument is fair and solid. But "you're not loyal customer when you don't choose our plugins over others every single time" really is not. I love U-he. And I do have Zebra and Hive to thank for every bit of success my music might have collected through the years, but there is more to plugin buying descisions than only the "want factor".

yeah i didn't mean to be that harsh sorry, just wondering about choosing one plugin over another because of payment methods alone.

[FarleyCZ]

yeah i didn't mean to be that harsh sorry, just wondering about choosing one plugin over another because of payment methods alone.

No offense taken. It wasn't solely because of the payment options. I also fancied the organ, mellotron and clavinet emulations. But if Diva was available like that, I would have silenced that urge I think.

[oonabe]

I don't know man, I didnt go with arturia simply because compared to u-he, it just doesn't sound nearly as good - that was the main deciding factor.
I think this touches what urs meant with uncommitted customers.

I didn't go with Arturia either though I was tempted because of a very fair price reduction for owners of Arturia products.

Either way I ended up getting Sylenth1 - because they offer R2O and I liked the sound very much - and additionally I got ANA2 and Spire, which are some of the synths I would personally pay the whole amount at once for. Diva or Hive were in my case just secondary options.

And I think that's what FarleyCZ meant. If Diva or Hive are your primary choices you would surely have no doubt paying the whole amount at once to get them, but if they are secondary ones, you will most surely spend your money on your primary choices and not in U-he products.

The market of customers who would purchase U-he synths as secondary additional tools for their music might be the bigger part interested in having more flexible payment options to buy U-he products.

But the question is, how big is that market and if the investment would be of any profit for U-he. Is U-he missing a potential win or not by not offering R2O? For customers I don't see any disadvantage by having more payment options.

[pdxindy]

The disadvantage from this customer’s perspective is that I’m losing all the development time that would inevitably go towards such a core change (that offers me no benefit at all)

Instead that development time would otherwise be bringing me new goodies (like Zebra 3 sooner).

[Urs]

Let’s keep the remaining days of 2020 free of this thread.