The "NEW" Plugin Alliance?

[Mushy Mushy]

To the people who are against subscriptions, is there a price that it makes sense? As an extreme, would you be opposed to the PA subscription for $1 a month? If not, then is it in essence not about subscriptions but instead about the price?

Nope. Even for free I’m not interested.

[lwj]

To the people who are against subscriptions, is there a price that it makes sense? As an extreme, would you be opposed to the PA subscription for $1 a month? If not, then is it in essence not about subscriptions but instead about the price?

Some people will always be against on some childish ‘I don’t like it so neither can you’ trip.

[perpetual3]

To the people who are against subscriptions, is there a price that it makes sense? As an extreme, would you be opposed to the PA subscription for $1 a month? If not, then is it in essence not about subscriptions but instead about the price?

$9.99

[RPH]

Pay to own, period.

[SLiC]

To the people who are against subscriptions, is there a price that it makes sense? As an extreme, would you be opposed to the PA subscription for $1 a month? If not, then is it in essence not about subscriptions but instead about the price?

I never did the 6 plug in deal that they always had on the PA site as I could never find more than 2 or 3 plugs I wanted (I have 2 currently, and one of the updating Thorn) so why subscribe?

[ralfrobert]

This is not just about price, but also the model. Kilohearts's way to do this looks much better to me. For what they do, $9.99 is fine.

[xandde1]

To the people who are against subscriptions, is there a price that it makes sense? As an extreme, would you be opposed to the PA subscription for $1 a month? If not, then is it in essence not about subscriptions but instead about the price?

Around $7.99 per month (even if paid in advance for the whole year) would be fine for subscription only IMO.

[Unaspected]

To the people who are against subscriptions, is there a price that it makes sense? As an extreme, would you be opposed to the PA subscription for $1 a month? If not, then is it in essence not about subscriptions but instead about the price?

The reason I wouldn't buy into it is because it doesn't represent value for money. We have marketing suggesting that value is given by the number of plugins on offer, along with the new higher prices. However, considering I already own all the plugins I actually want from them, I fail to see the attraction from my perspective. There are a couple more plugins that I might buy from them in the future but they have nothing more to offer at present.

If the subscription involved eventual ownership of plugins then it would make some sense. If the model included some kind of reward system. It could even be presented like a game or an opportunity to become some kind of affiliate, like with 2CAudio. (PM me if you don't have an account yet but want a further discount on their current sale )

I suggested previously that they could have offered different valued subscriptions which reward different level vouchers for spending on PA products. The less money you pay, the higher the value of your voucher - and therefore, the longer it takes to earn. Subscriptions of $10, $20 and $30 could be offered with vouchers for $300, $200 and $100, respectively. This way people actually have an incentive whilst wanting to remain locked into the system.

People like choices and games. PA missed a trick.

[DJErmac]

I would never subscribe to any plugin company either.
It just doesn't fit the way I work. I want to be able to open my projects in five years, and I don't want to stick to ONE brand only. And if they think we're all able to subscribe to all plugin companies for ever, they're dreaming...

[Von Naphoven]

I'm not against subscriptions, but as someone mentioned before it adds little value if you already have a lot of the good stuff. With all the big sales that have been happening over the last few months, I've managed to buy the ones I wanted at a fraction of the regular price, sometimes even for free in combination with the voucher you also get. Paying $180 afterwards to get access to the rest of the plugins that didn't tempt me the first time round - even at $20 or so - seems silly.

On the other hand, I've got an EastWest Composer Cloud sub for €240 per year, and the amount and quality of content is just crazy. Buying only a single lib would easily set you back double the amount, so I'm quite happy to pay €20 a month to be able to access everything. Although I assume some people got pissed off there as well if they bought some expensive libs beforehand. Although maybe it helps that EW didn't dump their stuff at throwaway prices before bumping them back up to insane levels and introducing a sub model to 'compensate'.

[perpetual3]

Pay to own, period.

Yeah, forgot to add that.

[ATS]

To the people who are against subscriptions, is there a price that it makes sense? As an extreme, would you be opposed to the PA subscription for $1 a month? If not, then is it in essence not about subscriptions but instead about the price?

Nope. Even for free I’m not interested.

lol

[nachenko]

To the people who are against subscriptions, is there a price that it makes sense? As an extreme, would you be opposed to the PA subscription for $1 a month? If not, then is it in essence not about subscriptions but instead about the price?

That's a very good question. In the PA case, I simply own everything I want already. The only two exceptions are Oberhausen and Lion, but I already own Dune 3, Repro and Synthmaster. I'm geared up. The subscription has no value for me.

Regarding subscriptions, there are a few annoying things about it, and it can be applied to other companies such as Adobe:

1 - it's all or nothing. There are no "pick your 5" or stuff like that. They always say "you can use everything we offer", but NO ONE needs everything.

2 - part of the value proposal is "always up-to-date". But seriously, I don't need new versions or upgrades most of the time, I just need the same software to work as expected. I don't want to install a new, bigger, slower, redesigned version of a program every year.

3 - it's a way to charge more on the long term to the same loyal customers, because some markets are so saturated, getting new customers is out of the picture. So they look for ways to charge more to the same ones.

4 - my experience with big corporations when you want to cancel a service is always the same: bad, slow, annoying and cumbersome.

5 - Finally, the moment you cancel the subscription, you can't open your own projects anymore. This is unacceptable. Roland Cloud and the Yours program was great, because it was some sort of Rent to Own, but they cancelled it. Thank you, Roland.

[Mushy Mushy]

To the people who are against subscriptions, is there a price that it makes sense? As an extreme, would you be opposed to the PA subscription for $1 a month? If not, then is it in essence not about subscriptions but instead about the price?

Nope. Even for free I’m not interested.

lol

Because this:

I would never subscribe to any plugin company either.
It just doesn't fit the way I work. I want to be able to open my projects in five years, and I don't want to stick to ONE brand only. And if they think we're all able to subscribe to all plugin companies for ever, they're dreaming...

Often I come back to projects many years later and I want to ensure they open as they did back then.

A good example is Alchemy. All my old projects still open it just fine but if I was subscribed I’d be screwed. Sure I can render but I’m not about to do that to every single track on every single project “just in case”.

[xandde1]

To the people who are against subscriptions, is there a price that it makes sense? As an extreme, would you be opposed to the PA subscription for $1 a month? If not, then is it in essence not about subscriptions but instead about the price?

Nope. Even for free I’m not interested.

lol

Because this:

I would never subscribe to any plugin company either.
It just doesn't fit the way I work. I want to be able to open my projects in five years, and I don't want to stick to ONE brand only. And if they think we're all able to subscribe to all plugin companies for ever, they're dreaming...

Often I come back to projects many years later and I want to ensure they open as they did back then.

A good example is Alchemy. All my old projects still open it just fine but if I was subscribed I’d be screwed. Sure I can render but I’m not about to do that to every single track on every single project “just in case”.

This is actually a good point about PA subscription service. They offer a plugin guarantee: if any plugin gets discontinued or any partner leave the subscription model current subcribers receive a free lifetime license for those plugins.