zebra academic pricing

[tylenol]

I don't really have an opinion one way or the other on academic licenses, but:

edu licenses get void once you've finished studies, you'll loose all your licenses at once (one can of course keep using them, it's in common just not legal, depending on the nastyness of the license)

Decent edu licenses don't do this; I have both max/msp and kontakt 2 on academic licenses, and both acted like normal licenses in terms of upgrading, and graduating. This is also true of ableton live. The nastiness of the license is entirely in the hands of the licenser. I don't even think a worse license like logic's actually expires, you just can't upgrade.

academics typically outrun non-academics in life earnings at the age of 42 or so, so they're generally *way* better off than non-academics

You must mean people with degrees, as opposed to people without them? Because this just really isn't true of actual academics, who have to go through 5-7 years of poverty-level income after undergraduate before they can get a job that typically starts off paying significantly less than what their peers who didn't go to grad school started off with (5-7 years ago).

[mcnoone]

You must mean people with degrees, as opposed to people without them? Because this just really isn't true of actual academics, who have to go through 5-7 years of poverty-level income after undergraduate before they can get a job that typically starts off paying significantly less than what their peers who didn't go to grad school started off with (5-7 years ago).

Sorry, but thats just silly. There is not a degree holder I know, and I know alot, that out of college would take a job with the pay equal to a fast food workers wage, unless it was for 6 month to 1 year internship. You said 5-7 poverty wages! Making a point is fine. Lying to make a point is not, and that is just not true.

[aka_bip]

You must not know a lot of grad students then. He's talking about an academic career, not getting a private sector job right after getting your degree. Seriously, the pay sucks.

[Urs]

You must not know a lot of grad students then. He's talking about an academic career, not getting a private sector job right after getting your degree. Seriously, the pay sucks.

True. I've done that for a couple of years while I developed Zebra 1.0. Kept me up and running and fortunately left me with enough space to get going. However, (talking German universities here) even the most simple career in academics for someone with a degree (diploma, magister, engineer) is almost twice as much as any non-graduate of the same age. For two thirds of the time and basically no mental stress. I've never heard of anyone being sacked from a university job. Academic career is different from private sector in many ways. It's got pros and cons, but non of these IMHO justify a special treatment to give them an advantage over non-academics, or to compensate for any disadvantage.

I'm sorry, it gives me the creeps when professors send me emails asking for edu discounts. How nuts is that? An average professor in Germany earns probably twice of my income, and has bult-in health care plus old age pension. Thinking that working as an academic is "something better" than doing anything else or even "worth subsidizing" is delusional. What makes anyone think that academics or students are in worse circumstances than the rest of the world?!? That's utter bullshit. What about nurses, streetworkers or challenged people?!?

Sheesh.

As I said, the whole edu discount thing is made up by companies to infiltrate elites. E.g. any graphics designer who was pampered by Adobe during his studies and who then starts a successful advertisement company will put dozens of Id/Ps/Ai/In licenses on their company machines. If only 1 out of 5 edu licenses creates 4 more licenses in the future, their calculation worked out. Like any rebate system, it's about customer binding. Make no mistake, companies don't give you the discount because you're poor, they give you the discount because you're potentially rich a year or two ahead. Stuff like that suppresses the freedom of choice.

I find this terrible. Excluding non-academics from any form of such rebate system is a calculating and unfair thing. The reason isn't altruism at all. It's not like they do it because they sympathise with poor students. Wake up. It's about abusing the economic situation of students to enforce long term revenue streams. No more no less. Like it or not, I don't want to take part in that particular game. I have an allergy against it.

Urs

[mose]

I'm sorry, it gives me the creeps when professors send me emails asking for edu discounts. How nuts is that? An average professor in Germany earns probably twice of my income, and has bult-in health care plus old age pension.

Teaching positions in Germany, whether as professor or as grade/high school teacher are coveted positions, to be sure. However, Germany does not have the concept of a small, private, religious university or school, as in the US, where salaries are far lower than their public counterparts with fewer health and retirement benefits for longer hours of work. The teachers are often saddled with debt for years after they graduate. You might want to check the size of the brush you are using to paint this picture.

As I said, the whole edu discount thing is made up by companies to infiltrate elites.

This has nothing to do with "elites" and everything to do with mass marketing to a (targeted) group that is more likely to use the software in a future job than Joe factory worker. I agree with your general premise. If you blanket a large group of people with cheap software so that they have an opportunity to learn how to use it, there is a greater chance to get that customer early and then hopefully keep them for a long time. This phenomenon is well known. It could increase sales with the individual telling their friends about the software and/or getting their employer to buy the software.

I find this terrible. Excluding non-academics from any form of such rebate system is a calculating and unfair thing.

You find it terrible, because you want things to be "equal" (and don't get me started on "equal" vs "fair"). It is fine if you want things to be equal. You are free to make that choice. Marketing, however, is inherently unequal. By your reasoning, I should be getting the same break on toilet paper as the business that buys 1,000 cases of toilet paper. I should be getting the industrial rate on electricity instead of the most expensive consumer rate. Sorry, that just doesn't happen.

The reason isn't altruism at all. It's not like they do it because they sympathise with poor students. Wake up. It's about abusing the economic situation of students to enforce long term revenue streams. No more no less. Like it or not, I don't want to take part in that particular game. I have an allergy against it.

True, it is not about altruism. It's about making money. You could certainly decide to market your products to students, who are not currently a "market demographic group" for your products. It would bring in more sales, and it might attract more long-term users.

However, you are being disingenuous by taking a seemingly altruistic stance and claiming that you refuse to "abuse" the economic situation of students. Either you are marketing to that group, or you aren't. There is no abuse. Nor is there added value to society by your not providing an educational discount.

This is purely a marketing issue. In order to sell more products to more people, the cost needs to be enticing. People get advanced degrees in the process of setting the price at just the right level to attract the most people but still make the highest profit. For students, the price typically needs to be lower than the list price. That's the way it is.

Making the price equal for everyone is a valid marketing technique. It's the least amount of work, because there are no special situations, no extra effort to verify eligibility, no extra record keeping and so on. In an small shop, valuable time can be invested in expanding the products, instead. All other things being equal, one price for everyone might not generate the maximum income, but it can work. If you're satisfied with that, that's all that needs to be said.

[aka_bip]

On this I agree with you Urs 100%. The academic discounts for audio software seem a little ridiculous. I could have gotten a full license of Ableton Live for half-price.. but I felt a little guilty about it and decided to pay full price. I doubt I'm much worse off financially than most working musicians. I have used academic discounts for software related to my studies, but they were much more modest.

[elxsound]

@Mose...

Have you checked the size of your brush? You really interpreted Urs' reasoning as justification for buying toilet paper at the same price that a business buys in bulk? Are you joking? Using basic logic doesn't even arrive at the same conclusion you have, not to mention toilet paper vs. music software vs. buying in bulk, is an entirely different topic (although I would be interested in hearing you expand upon it, for entertainment purposes only).

[ATS]

Whether you are poor or rich you do not HAVE to have Zebra so if you can't afford it just don't buy it. Buy an issue of computer Mag and get Zebra CM, that one sounds good and is holding me till I can save up for the full version.

[xh3rv]

I think this illustrates the idea behind academic licenses, I'm sure there are hundreds of thousands of signs like this all over the U.S. I don't have animosity towards companies that do this (or don't) but really a critical piece of it is, it's an extension of the work and capital that goes into creating product brands.

Branding is a really subconscious thing, culturally the closest thing I think we've got to brainwashing. It's all about creating (generally, emotionally pleasing) cognitive associations. The images that instigate a branding experience fade from memory very quickly, very often we don't even notice them, but with time and repetition things really enter our lexical, semiotic thinking.

We think about Coca-Cola or Pepsi rather than soda, Ivory or Dove rather than soap, cavemen or salamanders rather than twisting metal and shattered glass on the highway.

I don't mean to diatribe against marketing and branding. It's really tough to brand something crappy as better than it is and branding doesn't circumvent being a savvy consumer, but it's something to think about. The recent election cycle in the U.S. had candidates clearly using branding strategies in a way that's more intense than I can remember ever before.

This was an entertaining read (Ironically, I read it while drinking a Starbucks at a Barnes and Noble . . . they do a really good macha green tea) - http://www.amazon.com/OBD-Obsessive-Bra ... 91&sr=8-16

[mcnoone]

I got purchased academic licences for photoshop and illustrator while in graphic design school, but those software are much more expensive than Zebra and many other synths. $200 is not expensive to anyone, if they can afford a computer to begin with. Dealing with education licence might also distract or take time away from the product designer improving the products ability.
Not good for a small run company.

[cwig]

People get advanced degrees in the process of setting the price at just the right level to attract the most people but still make the highest profit. For students, the price typically needs to be lower than the list price. That's the way it is.

Right. Should the unemployed get a discount too? What about people working minimum wage jobs? What about old age pensioners?

[mäxchen]

i dont understand the whole discussion. everybody can buy zebra with a discount -the dinosaur crossgrade. it works more easy as a academic pricing, send a photo to urs and you get a discount. ok, you have to make a photo with the "replace by zebra" picture.
this is like real life. if you want an advantage then you have to do something. it is not enough to be somebody. i think this is fair.

max

[Urs]

I got purchased academic licences for photoshop and illustrator while in graphic design school, but those software are much more expensive than Zebra and many other synths.

Hehehe, I think that students for graphics design are better off with that Photoshop LE thing. It's a good thing not to have all these layer effects and be forced to learn to do them by hand. To exploit a weird analogy, you won't learn how to drive if your car comes with a chauffeur.

That said, I also think that Zebra is not overly suited for learning synths (unless for quite advanced courses). For purely academic use I'd rather suggest something like timewARP or Circle. It is however highly understandable and appreciated that one would rather have Zebra than anything else if the goals are not purely educational

@mäxchen: The whole discussion is about one or two arguments that I repeated from something I read in a newspaper. Which translates to my opinion that students and teachers are commonly not as poor as the system "edu pricing" suggests.

@mose: I agree that marketing is the root evil of, uhm, unfair marketing and I'm sure I could show in a more extensive discussion that my "marketing" is in fact not marketing, but a simple and efficient survival strategy from which both my customers and myself benefit. I would never claim this to be altruistic though (and have not done so). However I disagree with your statement about poor teaching institutions. Germany does also not have the concept of an elite university (see Harvard) and only because the divide between rich and poor is (in this example at least) higher in the US than here doesn't change the common case.

Cheers,

Urs

[mose]

@Mose...
You really interpreted Urs' reasoning as justification for buying toilet paper at the same price that a business buys in bulk?

Excluding non-academics from any form of such rebate system is a calculating and unfair thing.

[mose]

Right. Should the unemployed get a discount too? What about people working minimum wage jobs? What about old age pensioners?

...everything to do with mass marketing to a (targeted) group that is more likely to use the software in a future job than Joe factory worker.