Splice rent to own Serum plan, what do you think?

[chk071]

Because what I want was clearly stated ... a cheaper price for the customer who pays the full price, upfront - as compared to the customer who (currently) pays the exact same price despite taking his sweey damn time.

Why would there have to be a difference in price in your opinion? Usually, someone who pays in installments would be charged more due to the bigger logistic expense. I don't really see that here with this system being automated. And even if it would mean a bigger expense, it's merely a decision the one selling you the product would have to take. Not you as a customer.

[Compyfox]

But this is the thing, Daags!

I'm not defending the other users in here, some commentary is really childish (like usual, guess that's just KVR). Splice and Xfer clearly stated that the price won't be different. But what makes this different and "not similar to each other" is the "Rent-to-Own" system, and the extra hoops you jump though.

Again, I do understand your frustration, but let's take a look at the current facts:


Bought directly via Xfer Records:

• you invest 189USD upfront (with or without VAT is not shown on the page without signing up)
• Exchange rate according to "daily value"
• you get instant access
• the copy protection is a serial
• First stage of support: Xfer Records

Bought via SPLICE:

• you invest 10USD/month (no VAT applies according to SPLICE)
• Exchange rates fluctuate heavily -- you can get off cheaper in the end, but it can also turn out to be way more expensive (due to PayPal and Credit Card fees/exchange rate fluctuations - especially for non USD currency users)
• you get instant access
• the copy protection is C/R that needs to be checked every three days, a specific app needs to run as background service - you (currently) must use an online rig
• license stops working at the end of the last month you paid or if you don't continue the payments
• C/R will be switched out in favor for a serial once the tool as been completely paid off
• First stage of support: SPLICE

Looking at that alone, the "Splice" users have more hoops to jump through. And if there are issues with your tool-in-question working outright, the first step of support is SPLICE and not Xfer Records.


Again, I do understand the possible(!!!) negative side effects, I also clearly understand that the "upfront purchasers" should maybe get a bonus goodie on top. But like with the "Subscription Service" debates - it ultimately boils down to "instant access" and "no extra hoops to jump through" vs "time limited use on demand, incl. extra hoops to jump through".

Now let's be happy that this doesn't turn into another "anti iLok debate".

[Guenon]

it doesnt make sense that the guy who pays in full and upfront pays the same, effectively subsidising the renter (at least as long as you dont subscribe to the fantastical notion that this is a 'free' service)

It makes perfect sense, as it's such a fair arrangement for everyone involved. Like has been stated, the reward for an upfront buyer is the convenience and robust simplicity of the purchase, with no extra software installed and no hoops to jump through as Compyfox put it. That's nice and simple.

Also, I'm guessing you are slightly confusing this with paying in installments for material goods, like if you - for example - pay for an expensive camera in monthly chunks. The retailer has had to physically acquire the said camera, in full, with associated costs of the manufacturer and the delivery chain, in order to be able to sell it to you. Then they give the device to you, already after the first small chunk of money. However, with immaterial goods and a fully automated system, the intermediary costs and logistics scale very differently. The digital delivery system and the activation services are already in place, it costs nothing to manufacture more copies of the product, and practically everything is automated.

[Guenon]

(Adding to that, it's safe to assume that the majority of those people who choose the monthly payment method are customers who wouldn't have bought Serum upfront. Given that the delivery and activation system is already in place, that's $9.99 more revenue per month per one such customer with little extra overhead. Implying that there's something significant that still needs to be subsidized there, on top of that revenue, via the upfront sales price, in this kind of immaterial arrangement, seems weird.)

[ObsoleteAcc99]

[DELETED]

[chk071]

Indeed.

[ObsoleteAcc99]

[DELETED]

[Guenon]

TheoM, I agree with you 100% there. It would be great to see some of the high end Kontakt library houses offer this route. Spitfire, ProjectSAM, Output, Heavyocity... And so on. Those products get in the $k range very fast when buying upfront, this sort of thing could open up that area for a lot of new customers.

[musikmachine]

you know, all these subs add up. 10 a month on it's own is nothing, but it all adds up, what about if you are subbing mcdsp, slate, eastwest, adobe, and now let's just add another 10 on top, and so on. Oh and the daw too if you use sonar or pro tools.

Still, it's way cheaper than having to pay for all of that upfront and you can actually make music with it all the time, other way around you could barely buy a DAW or a plugin for that amount.

If it was 10 a month and you owned it once you hit say 20 payments, that would be cool.

You own Serum once you pay the full retail price in installments, 10 bucks minimum as long as you want, you pay 10 to use it that whole month, you can pause payments and continue any time, it's yours in the end.

plug in alliance does a zero interest payment plan, splice should maybe look into that. And if you don't meet all payments you lose. That would be fair.

Still this way is way better.

oh ok that's HUGE.. i thought it was rental... to own a perpetual license when the price is paid? YES PLEASE, can other devs consider this. Way to go, xfer and splice!

Exactly, you own the plugin!

@Daags you need to take it up with Xfer, i take it you own Serum? If it happens with another synth i own i'd say good for ya, i don't care i've had the use and enjoyment of that synth and don't begrudge someone the opportunity to own if money's tight etc.

I'd happily pay this off in 3 months, what's your take on that? I may end up paying more over the long haul especially with the pound post brexit

There are lot's of sales on plugins and i often wait cause i can buy plugins i want for 80% of their retail, what about the people that have paid full price then? I think this is great.

Steve is obviously trying to help people out and not trying to hurt existing customers, i'm curious how other people who already own Serum feel about it?

[Compyfox]

Also, I'm guessing you are slightly confusing this with paying in installments for material goods, ...

I think summed up this is what the "electronics realm" does with their "monthly payment rates" system. Some of them cut away the "interests" or even the VAT, but in return the prices are already higher to boot with. Then again, that's beside the point.


My concern (and I think this is also what Daags is pointing out), is the fluctuation in the finance realm. Meaning: exchange rates for everyone outside of the US (not running on the US currency), and PayPal/CreditCard fees that are a certain percentage of what you pay per month. This can add an additional sum on top. Especially through PayPal's infamously known higher exchange rate fees.

THIS is really a class act. Avid give you a perpetual license if you pay for a one year sub.. other than that, who else does it? Most apps just stop working right?

I think what AVID does now is a little bit different than what they (and SONNOX in really old days) did with their old "rental system". Here you could rent the plugins, and what you already invested rent wise, could be forwarded/subtracted from an actual purchase.

So SPLICE is definitely not the first company that does this, but definitely the first in quite a while again. As if this is a message "the market wasn't ready and dismissive about that back in the days, let's try it again it it would work now".

And look at the resonance so far! I mean, it's not like that this topic (among the infamous "the copy protection to end all copy protections" discussion since the 90ies) has been talked about for years.

I'd be happy to pay the 500 for adobe audition if i could pay the 20 a month till i had reached that value. But you could pay $1500 and the moment you cancel sub, it's sayonara audition.

Yes, this is a big issue with the Subscription Models currently. In fact, it's biggest catch.

Prime (sadly negative) example again, AXIS Plugins. To my knowledge, it asked for initially xyz bucks/month not 40bucks/year. Now what was old Elemental Audio Inspector worth back in the days, about 150-200 bucks? Let's do the math: a monthly fee of about 20EUR for a year would result in 240EUR. So you paid it off, especially if there was no additional plugin release in the subscription model (which wasn't happening for AXIS Plugins since Feb 2014). Stop the payment, license stops working at the subscription time frame has ended.

Subscription models "can be" future proof, if you treat it right. And here I think, Slate Digital found the ultimate Golden Goose. 30bucks/month for 30+ modules at this point, with more coming. And a free iLok2 on top. That is way better than what Adobe offers with their "depending on what and how many tools you use" model.



Times are changing - and finally in a direction where maybe everyone can happy (if we can ignore those that look gift horses into the mouth).

What splice and xfer are doing is a fairly new thing, and I hope it paves the way for other devs in future. I might even hop onto serum myself now, just for the heck of having it cause it's so praised here.[/quote]

[Teksonik]

Bought directly via Xfer Records:

• the copy protection is a serial
• First stage of support: Xfer Records

Bought via SPLICE:

• the copy protection is C/R that needs to be checked every three days, a specific app needs to run as background service - you (currently) must use an online rig
• license stops working at the end of the last month you paid or if you don't continue the payments
• C/R will be switched out in favor for a serial once the tool as been completely paid off
• First stage of support: SPLICE

The above are the salient points for me. The extra layer of support and added third party app that is needed for the time payment version. I don't need a $189 loan so I wouldn't do the payment plan. If I did need a loan that small I'm afraid the least of my worries would be a new plugin. I don't say the plan is a bad idea it's just not for me due to the added Splice baggage.......

[musikmachine]

^@CompyFox do you get licenses for any plugins with Steve Slate if you keep the sub going?

[Compyfox]

^@CompyFox do you get licenses for any plugins with Steve Slate if you keep the sub going?

To my knowledge, every time Slate Digital "adds to" the "Everything bundle", you get the additional content with the same payments. So as long as you keep paying, you can use everything that is part of the bundle.

This is the main reason why you'll never be able to pay off "everything" with just 30buck/month. But maybe Slate will consider a "fowarding" of a certain amount of funds you invested so far for an actual purchase. And with the SPLICE/XFER deal... who knows what will happen to all the subscription models out there.

[mattetti]

Reading some of the comments, I feel we might not have done a good enough job explaining that we took this approach because we believe in giving access to the greatest tools to the maximum amount of people.

If you can afford the full price right away, there is already a solution for you: buy the full license, get a serial. That approach works great for a lot of people, Serum is reasonably priced and many of you are buying it. But, there are also other folks who can't afford or can't justify spending that much money. These people might have lower income, or they might be hobbyists and aren't sure they will continue making music.

Should a poorer musician be financially penalized for being poor? We don't think so, it's the opposite, we want to find ways to encourage new and/or struggling musicians to express themselves with the top instruments out there. Unfortunately, there are some constraints we need to add, like doing online checks every 3 days via an external software. But at least we aren't hurting financially people who are already struggling or can't make a decision. We did our best to put ourselves in your shoes and try to give you the best deal.

Steve Duda and us (Splice) are betting on the fact that we can grow the market enough so it cover any development, support and processing costs. Let's be honest, when it comes to audio software, the amount of piracy is unbelievable. We can fight it by using extremely annoying solutions such as iLok/eLicenser or we can try to understand why it's so high and figure out how to give a better alternative. Steve Duda, like many indie developers is a one man shop and needs to make a living. Splice is a new and small startup and we need to pay our staff and try to grow. I personally believe that if we can prove that an extremely fair and cheap solution like the one we are offering for Serum will significantly increase the paying user base, this is going to be a win-win for all. And more companies will opt to offer such a solution.

Let me make something else very clear, nobody is subsidizing anyone. We invested time and resources in building a flexible rent-to-own solution, if you rent from us, it's because you can't buy the plugin full price. If you pay us $10/month, even if you don't end up paying the full price, it is better than you downloading a buggy audiowarez version. Speaking of which, some of you might remember Radium and their infamous "try before buy" nag screens. This is basically what we just did, but we did it legally and with a way to financially support audio developers.

My final comment will be about potential plugin price increases. I have very little control over pricing but I do believe that the reason audio software is so expensive is because not enough people pay for it. If more people started paying, then prices could go down. Of course this won't be an overnight thing. But I can imagine that if now Serum is doing amazingly well because 10% of the warez users start paying, then Steve's next awesome plugin might be priced lower since there will be less financial pressure.

I hope this help clarify a few things, and if you like this approach, please help us by reaching out to plugin developers from whom you would love to rent-to-own. You can make a difference.

[EnGee]

@Zexila



paying a lump sum of cash, up front, is different to paying in drabs and drabs over 19 months.

So yes - if I act differently, sure, I expect to be 'treated' differently as a consequence - loathe as I am to entertain your half-witted, bubble-headed notions.

So, what do you want? A medal?

Well... first thing I'd appreciate is for you to eventually work towards at least a high school level of comprehension.

Because what I want was clearly stated ... a cheaper price for the customer who pays the full price, upfront - as compared to the customer who (currently) pays the exact same price despite taking his sweey damn time. Which I don't begrudge him btw. But nevertheless, it doesnt make sense that the guy who pays in full and upfront pays the same, effectively subsidising the renter (at least as long as you dont subscribe to the fantastical notion that this is a 'free' service)

Well, my level is telling me that you are a greedy and selfish person! Sorry, it is my level of comprehension!