[Poll] Is subscription based licensing for you?

[Compyfox]

Hi compy :, that's the concern isn't it? Say your DAW is 10 dollars a month, then a vst company is say 2 dollars a month, then another vst is 2 dollars a month, a sampler is 2 dollars (using two dollars because that is very low imo) and your vsti's are 2 dollars each it could add up up fast. If everyone went with subscription 20 dollars a month would be minor and that would be 240 dollars a year (1 dollar more than Samp Pro X2 upgrade now which the last upgrade was over three years ago).

It's not only that.
We all surely have to cover fees like apartments, electricity/gas, a car, data connections, food and clothes, maybe luxury like a digital video provider). Now add to that the fees from hosts and plugins.

So unless you earn a certain amount of money over the course of the month, this is adding up real quick an can spiral out of control. It's like taking a loan and paying it off over the course of several months. But you know that you struggle, and it's even adding to the pressure if you can't keep the tool you buy for in the end.


Unless, and this is the strong point on this, you really only need something for a couple of weeks, or you want to test samples without limitation (think EWQL's collection, Chris Hein, 8DIO, etc). The latter is especially interesting since demos are usually very limited or nonexistent. In this case, it's a manageable route.

While other things can be covered through sales, street prices and saving up money rather than "constantly paying" for something and running into the chance that the company doesn't deliver (think video games with the infamous "Season Pass" - a model I downright hate, since software won't be sold "finished", but rather "patched" with hidden fees - and this is happening also in the music software realm as of late).


Of course, the other possibility with big companies hooking up smaller ones and bundling specific tools might be a possibility, but to be honest... I want to decide what I get in terms of tools - and when. Not somebody else doing this "for me".

[fedexnman]

I hate the music streaming services too. For software I rather buy the license if it dies when the computer dies or OS updates that's on me .

[Greenstorm33]

I think one advantage of having a cloud-based subscription service like CC is that rather than selling major version upgrades to make money (assuming this is already a thing they do), companies can release incremental improvements as soon as they're developed. This is advantageous for professionals who would buy each major version upgrade anyways (you receive improvements sooner rather than later, and I believe in the case of CC the cost is either less or about the same), but it still really sucks for hobbyists and other people who wouldn't mind being frozen at a specific version of the software (in which case you'll end up paying more and/or ceasing to have access to any version of the software as soon as you stop paying). I'm not defending the model and since I'm not a pro I'll certainly never subscribe to any audio software services, but I do think this is one place where it might benefit at least some people.

[mutantdog]

I know in other markets the subscription model has become very popular, the likes of Netflix and Spotify provide a service people want to pay for. Crucially though, these are cases where you get a lot of varied content for not much money. As far as i can tell, Photoshop has moved to a subscription model which appears to be successful too. In this case though we are talking about the industry standard application in a marketplace with few competitors.

The market for music production tools however is crowded to say the least, i can't really imagine people leaping onto a new DAW just because they can pay for it in instalments. Likewise the knowledge of ongoing support and free .x updates adds a lot more value to devs following the traditional model. I could maybe see NI pulling off some sort of Komplete subscription (though i doubt they will ever go that route) but otherwise there's just so much choice available for every type of plugin that there's no reason to want to stick to one dev in the way these models encourage.

This is ultimately a niche industry. The loyalty that certain devs seem to inspire in their userbase has been earned, nevertheless the choice to buy that amazing new compressor or upgrade to Uber-Synth2 is one that can be made as and when. With so much variety and innovation coming from all over the place, it seems like any creative artist would be crippling themselves by putting all their money into one or two subscription services.

[Bombadil]

Hell, no. Not in this lifetime. As I am a Logic user, I get fairly regular updates. The last one, 10.1, was a major update, one that other developers would make you pay for. When Logic 11 comes out, it will probably cost as little as Logic 10, though there is no upgrade path when you are only paying €179 for the software, which is an unbelievable bargain. All you need to do is buy their hardware, and I started using Macs way back in university when I worked in a lab, and did my theses. So, I was Mac-branded fairly early. Apple would have to do something seriously screwed up for me to move to a PC, in which case I'd probably move to Reaper. Any plugin developer would likewise see the last of my money if they switched to this obnoxious model.

[Robmobius]

I'm glad to see that most people hate the idea, and hopefully devs are listening.

To be fair, Slate said there are the two options so I don't mind it so much. But would never pay for monthly subscription for any software.