Waves - What can we do?

[Ploki]

+1 elxsound

ramseysounds and Forgotten:
this is why companies can get away with shady business practices. if consumers eat up every bullshit they serve and even defend it, there really isn't a reason to change anything.

[Forgotten]

+1 elxsound

ramseysounds and Forgotten:
this is why companies can get away with shady business practices. if consumers eat up every bullshit they serve and even defend it, there really isn't a reason to change anything.

Where did elxsound bring up “shady business practices”? All I saw in his post was a well-reasoned commentary that represents the way this conversation probably should have gone.

I don’t think appropriating another person’s reasonable dialog to support use of the specific language you have chosen is a very fair way of engaging with him.

[ramseysounds]

+1 elxsound

ramseysounds and Forgotten:
this is why companies can get away with shady business practices. if consumers eat up every bullshit they serve and even defend it, there really isn't a reason to change anything.

so there it is - no reason to change anything

[Ploki]

Where did elxsound bring up “shady business practices”? All I saw in his post was a well-reasoned commentary that represents the way this conversation probably should have gone.

I don’t think appropriating another person’s reasonable dialog to support use of the specific language you have chosen is a very fair way of engaging with him.

i literally said this a few post up:

Driving plugin price to the ground will hurt more boutique developers and market competition and consumer in the long run.

also i didn't appropriate his response at all. Do you even know what that means?
I merely agreed with him on the points he made...

You hadn't had a reasonable reply at all - you nitpick the legality of the issue and hand, or the language i'm using, although i clearly stated

big companies have a way to be on the legal side of shady practices

I can also say "fishy", "dubious", "suspicious" if you dislike shady so much.
Waves is not the first to come up with this, nor would be the first to get sued for it...
https://risnews.com/promotional-pricing-right-side-law
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-23/ ... s/11141452
https://money.com/macys-jc-penney-lawsu ... al-prices/

[Forgotten]

you nitpick the legality of the issue and hand, or the language i'm using

Well correct me if I’m wrong, but you tried to support your accusations by citing laws designed to regulate equity and commodity trading, so I think it’s a lot more than “nitpicking”

[Ploki]

what?
i just pasted you 3 links of companies getting sued for this exact behaviour.
Codex: regular price 199$

price january 2020: 29$
price may 2019: 69$
price april 2019: 69$
July 2018: 29$
August 2018: 89$

i can't find a single month in the internet archives that Codex wasn't on sale.

so lets say that the highest "sale" is 89$ and codex is sold for that most of the time: then they're lying about the actual discount of the product which is misleading and indeed has legal consequences.

[ramseysounds]

i can't find a single month in the internet archives that Codex wasn't on sale.

...which is excellent news for consumers! Get over it and get over yourself

[elxsound]

i can't find a single month in the internet archives that Codex wasn't on sale.

...which is excellent news for consumers! Get over it and get over yourself

Well, not necessarily.

It might not even be newsworthy.

Going back to one of my questions (that I'm sincerely asking), is Waves software actually worth more than the sales price?

Lets look at Codex... Where does its actual price sit in an already crowded wave table synth market? $199 was never a realistic price in anyone's reality. U-he's Hive 2 is less than $199 and I'll just say for the sake of argument, that "IMO" Hive 2 is superior to Codex.

Waves certainly did not set out to make the ultimate wave table synth, but again "IMO" they did seem to want to cash in on the craze for wave table synths. I don't even think their entry in the market at any price point hurts independent developers because its a value-based synth... Again "IMO" its a good synth for its price, but without the namesake of Waves, would it garner the same attention?

If anything, we're just seeing what happens when a company has enough money on hand, and an aggressive marketing campaign, they push out mediocre (IMO) software and make more money. That's not something a lot of other developers have the luxury of doing.

[VariKusBrainZ]

In the UK consumers are supposed to be protected against this type of tactic

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... oft979.pdf
Below quoted from following link

https://www.lawdonut.co.uk/business/mar ... icing-faqs

What specific unfair trading practices are banned when dealing with consumers?

In total, 31 unfair trading practices are banned outright when trading with consumers. They include:

falsely claiming accreditation - for example, claiming to be registered under an accreditation scheme when you are not
advertising special offers just to bring in customers when you do not really expect to be able to supply the products (so-called bait advertising)
pretending that an offer is only available for a very limited time to pressure customers into an immediate decision
promoting a product similar to another manufacturer's in a deliberate attempt to make the customer think that the product was made by that manufacturer
advertising that directly encourages children to buy a product or persuade their parents to do so
pyramid schemes
bogus competitions
unreasonably pestering customers (eg repeated, unsolicited phone calls)
supplying products without being asked for them and then requiring payment (inertia selling)

[Forgotten]

what?
i just pasted you 3 links of companies getting sued for this exact behaviour.

So sue Waves rather than whine about it on an Internet forum if you’re so concerned about their pricing.

[Rockatansky]

i can't find a single month in the internet archives that Codex wasn't on sale.

...which is excellent news for consumers! Get over it and get over yourself

It isn't. Because the WUP and transfer fees are not determined by the price the users purchased the plugin at, but by the number Waves totally made up as the "regular" price, which is a lot higher.

[noiseboyuk]

I know I’m still okay paying more to Fabfilter for their work, but how do others feel comparing using Waves to using and paying more for something like Fabfilter or even some of the creative gems from Zynaptic?

On the one hand there's a lot more psychology then science in the appeal of many plugins, which don't differ substantially from one another. For all the basics, Waves is perfectly good, it even excels with a few products. On the other hand, there's a ton of stuff where others offer considerably better either sonically or UI, or indeed has totally different functionality. For noise reduction, Waves just isn't in the same league as iZotope. For something like Unchirp, there really isn't any equivalent anywhere else. If it serves a genuine purpose for me, I don't mind paying way above Waves' prices.

If nobody ever released any more EQs or compressors, I'd be entirely happy (indeed I might not even notice). But there is still a ton of innovation to be done with sound. If I were a smaller developer, that's what I'd be focusing on - something genuinely different. Its an extremely mature and crowded market out there, and the price cuts are the inevitable consequence.

Finally, for users - stop looking at plugins as an investment that you can resell. Their worth isn't in the resell value, it is in what it can do for you.

[ramseysounds]

for users - stop looking at plugins as an investment that you can resell. Their worth isn't in the resell value, it is in what it can do for you.

This; 100%

[Ploki]

how does that change the fact about value?

[Mushy Mushy]

how does that change the fact about value?

Value doesn’t exist other than in the mind of the consumer. It is completely arbitrary.