License model no way !!!

[h2ogun99]

I've been watching and waiting for Bitwig to mature and was excited watching the teaser video. Sadly, this business model does not work and forced me to quickly re-evaluate my enthusiasm.

But if I understand this model correctly, the patient win.

Look at it this way:

1. I purchase Bitwig and roll the dice on what might, or might not occur within the year of my license period.
2. I choose not to purchase a renewal when my license period is over.
3. I strategically wait and time my renewal when I feel it will benefit me most, yet this is still a roll of the dice.

Meaning there will be a sweet spot in the timing of your renewal. If three people purchase BW on the same day and are up for renewal on the same day one year later - the 'feature benefits' vs 'renewal investment' could vary drastically depending on when the three choose to renew. And this is the glaring problem with this model.

What I pay for during my renewal cycle has a value, right?
What you pay for during your renewal cycle will also have a value...and so on.
This allows for two totally different customer experiences that enable easy side by side comparison of value when it cycle is over.
To make matters worse, this allows for thousands of different user experiences based on where they are in the cycle.

So, the simple loophole to this model is be patient and renew stratically.

L

[lunardigs]

Any word on the upgrade price from 1.0 yet? Also, does the the '12 month package' come with the upgrade to 2.0?

[anp27]

Any word on the upgrade price from 1.0 yet? Also, does the the '12 month package' come with the upgrade to 2.0?

All pricing is literally on the Bitwig website. And yes to your other question.

[dnbhallifax]

Well, I paid $399, late Aug of 2014 for BW 1. That cost divided by the months (~28) I've held it, till the release of BW 2 equals $14.25/mo, or $171/yr.

With this new model I should ultimately save here, right? Yes, I understand the whole thing is relative. Although, I have been quite happy with Bitwig.

In fact, without Bitwig and their support of Linux, I would not have been able to depart completely from Windows.
... Now, if you want to talk about aggressive licensing and all other manner of chicanery look no further than our beloved commercial operating systems (including mobile)--I'll say no more here.

Btw, I am a very big proponent of open source (free) software. Yet, for all I can tell and have witnessed, the world of music/pro audio demands an ecosystem (cash flow) to thrive--certainly as it concerns the technology side. If Bitwig can turn this new cash flow into great innovations then I'm okay with it.

All I can say it keep up the good work and keep your company from expanding too fast, Bitwig, and you should be able to thrive and remain honest.

Right, but when you look at basically every other audio company you don't pay the retail price for an upgrade.

$171 a year might as well be $169 a year. You save $8!

If the company had a longstanding reputation to stand behind or they were the only game in town you could maybe justify it... But even then you'd be a sucker to go along with it AFAIC.

[Echoes in the Attic]

I think it's fine. You can wait as long as you like to buy in. Like the site says, if a feature comes along you really want and your free upgrades have run out, then you buy the upgrade. It's like if they promised to release a major X.0 release every year, pepole would be happy and probably pay to upgrade. But this gives the choice to buy in any time. If it gives them the financial support to give us what we want, then great. if you don't need any more features, then you simply don't have to buy your next upgrade. Seems good for everyone.

I just wanna know if samples has fades now and a stretch/grain mode. It was the most hurting device, why didn't they describe updates to it? With all this amazingness, they didn't leave out sampler did they?

[lunardigs]

Any word on the upgrade price from 1.0 yet? Also, does the the '12 month package' come with the upgrade to 2.0?

All pricing is literally on the Bitwig website. And yes to your other question.

I don't think it is. They don't directly address either question. What am I missing?

Ahh ... Nevermind, it's all the way at the bottom of the announcement page.

"The upgrade from Bitwig Studio 1 to Bitwig Studio 2 is priced at 159 EUR / 169 USD."

Sry

[lunardigs]

Well, I paid $399, late Aug of 2014 for BW 1. That cost divided by the months (~28) I've held it, till the release of BW 2 equals $14.25/mo, or $171/yr.

With this new model I should ultimately save here, right? Yes, I understand the whole thing is relative. Although, I have been quite happy with Bitwig.

In fact, without Bitwig and their support of Linux, I would not have been able to depart completely from Windows.
... Now, if you want to talk about aggressive licensing and all other manner of chicanery look no further than our beloved commercial operating systems (including mobile)--I'll say no more here.

Btw, I am a very big proponent of open source (free) software. Yet, for all I can tell and have witnessed, the world of music/pro audio demands an ecosystem (cash flow) to thrive--certainly as it concerns the technology side. If Bitwig can turn this new cash flow into great innovations then I'm okay with it.

All I can say it keep up the good work and keep your company from expanding too fast, Bitwig, and you should be able to thrive and remain honest.

Right, but when you look at basically every other audio company you don't pay the retail price for an upgrade.

$171 a year might as well be $169 a year. You save $8!

If the company had a longstanding reputation to stand behind or they were the only game in town you could maybe justify it... But even then you'd be a sucker to go along with it AFAIC.

Well, until I can write my own music software I guess I'll have to get duped--over and over and over again.

[dnbhallifax]

I've been watching and waiting for Bitwig to mature and was excited watching the teaser video. Sadly, this business model does not work and forced me to quickly re-evaluate my enthusiasm.

But if I understand this model correctly, the patient win.

Look at it this way:

1. I purchase Bitwig and roll the dice on what might, or might not occur within the year of my license period.
2. I choose not to purchase a renewal when my license period is over.
3. I strategically wait and time my renewal when I feel it will benefit me most, yet this is still a roll of the dice.

Meaning there will be a sweet spot in the timing of your renewal. If three people purchase BW on the same day and are up for renewal on the same day one year later - the 'feature benefits' vs 'renewal investment' could vary drastically depending on when the three choose to renew. And this is the glaring problem with this model.

What I pay for during my renewal cycle has a value, right?
What you pay for during your renewal cycle will also have a value...and so on.
This allows for two totally different customer experiences that enable easy side by side comparison of value when it cycle is over.
To make matters worse, this allows for thousands of different user experiences based on where they are in the cycle.

So, the simple loophole to this model is be patient and renew stratically.

L

So what if your last update had a crippling bug?

What then, $169 just for a bug fix?

[T71]

step sequencers are still lacking? (haven't seen 2.0 beta yet).

Yes, proper X0X style step sequencer, optimized for touch, please.

[Hoverland]

---

[LLCoolJeans]

I think y'all are overreacting.

Bitwig essentially made the cost to buy Bitwig much cheaper and the made the version upgrades more expensive while allowing the company to provide better value to the customer by having more frequent feature releases.

The cost increase is only seen in the third year of use (BW is $299 + and estimated $150 for a version upgrade = $450 compared to $509 for three years of BW) and you have at that point you already have many versions of a great DAW that you own, and probably have features you wouldn't have had if they were holding off for major version upgrades had they kept the traditional release and pricing strategies of DAWs.

further, if you you skip a few months between buying a new BW subscription, it can be the same cost per month as BW + a major upgrade.

I am happy to pay a little bit more over the long run to get features faster, and lowering the barrier of entry to this amazing program will help get others on board to the great work flow.

[shorty]

Sad to see another company going down that road.

Sorry, but I can't follow. Bye.

[steff3]

Why are people comparing this to Adobe and subscription models? In a subscription model, when you stop paying you lose access to the program and cannot use any version of it until you start paying again.

That is simply not the case here. You buy it, you use it, you can keep using it. With adobe, when you stop paying the subscription, you literally cannot open the software you were previously paying for. That's NOT THE SAME AS THIS, GET IT? The license has to do with access to updates and upgrades. People are freaking out acting like this is the adobe model. It isn't.

Further opinions on what it IS are, of course, valid -- but let's at least get straight what it really is.

Then call it 'WUPped' - whereas Waves WUP charges seem more reasonable to me. So Bitwig got WUPped ... is that better?

[Chapelle]

I think y'all are overreacting.

Bitwig essentially made the cost to buy Bitwig much cheaper and the made the version upgrades more expensive while allowing the company to provide better value to the customer by having more frequent feature releases.

The cost increase is only seen in the third year of use (BW is $299 + and estimated $150 for a version upgrade = $450 compared to $509 for three years of BW) and you have at that point you already have many versions of a great DAW that you own, and probably have features you wouldn't have had if they were holding off for major version upgrades had they kept the traditional release and pricing strategies of DAWs.

further, if you you skip a few months between buying a new BW subscription, it can be the same cost per month as BW + a major upgrade.

I am happy to pay a little bit more over the long run to get features faster, and lowering the barrier of entry to this amazing program will help get others on board to the great work flow.

Wrong. You still have to pay the $399 first to be able to use the upgrade scheme. The barrier of entry got $100 more expensive.

[poonna]

I would say that the major concern for this scheme is that there's no bugfixes after the update period runs out.

I'm trying to see this from both sides of view. From the development point of view, it is also not technically feasible to keep backporting bugfixes to every previously released version to keep everyone happy.

I think a better way to handle this is:

Freeze the minor version released at the end of update period, but still allow for hotfixes for that minor version released after the end of the period.

For example: If at the end of my 12 months, I'm at version 2.3.2. I should still be entitled to get all the 2.3.x releases (supposedly all the hotfixes within that minor version) after that, but not 2.4.x.

This, I think, will at least eases some bugfix anxiety for propective upgraders.