KVR Audio

brendanc444 · Post by **brendanc444** » Mon Sep 14, 2020 2:31 pm

Honestly, I loathe them. The idea of paying for a product forever is painful, especially when most updates to digital products are not monumental.

With that said, I am completely fine with paying for a product over time (e.g. Splice) or financed throughout a period of time (e.g. Affirm), although I almost always pay for a plugin outright.

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Mon Sep 14, 2020 2:37 pm

Yes, if then, a rent-to-own option is the best "compromise", and will even make sure that you can pay for plugins you can't afford right now. I really wonder why not more companies offer it, but, hey, the audio software business is always slow to adopt anything (fair enough, I understand the lack of manpower being responsible for a lot of things).

excuse me please · Post by **excuse me please** » Mon Sep 14, 2020 3:01 pm

Well, simple math: let's say a company has €5 per month sub.
They get 1,000 new customers for €5,000. Hallelujah.

These customers could be hanging around at KVR etc. You get the drift. Bugging the living hell out of you, because their MO consists, foremost, of being smug, bored and annoying.

So it is never going to work. Period.

dblock · Post by **dblock** » Mon Sep 14, 2020 3:04 pm

3 thoughts.
1. If you are the type who would rather lease a car every year than buy one every 10-15 years, the sub deal is probably for you. As a composer for TV cues, there's no way I would rely on a subscription model to be dependent on for a host of reasons. This just creates a dependency I wouldn't want to be tied to.
2.On the other hand, this is a great opportunity to level the playing field for people who just don't have the kind of funds he or she needs to own certain tools outright and would simply just like to step up their game and use high quality tools they might otherwise not have access to. By all means go for it.
3. It's fantastic for people who just want to stick their toes in the music water, use great stuff without making major commitments and sticking themselves with credit card debt or putting themselves in a position to have to later go through the hassle of reselling their licenses if things just don't work out. It's perfect for them.
So, not for me personally (at this time) but the subscription model makes perfect sense for alot of people. ymmv.

fedexnman · Post by **fedexnman** » Mon Sep 14, 2020 3:13 pm

As a business perspective , I like to see companies offer 3 options rent , rent to own , or buy .

WatchTheGuitar · Post by **WatchTheGuitar** » Mon Sep 14, 2020 3:14 pm

I found a one year EastWest Composer Cloud subscription was ideal for letting me evaluate all their software to determine that I don't need, want or particularly like any of it.

dblock · Post by **dblock** » Mon Sep 14, 2020 3:26 pm

fedexnman wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2020 3:13 pm As a business perspective , I like to see companies offer 3 options rent , rent to own , or buy .

That would be the most logical to cover all scenarios. It's done with furniture and appliance why not plugins? My guess is we'll start to see that if it isn't already happening with some companies.

Daimonicon · Post by **Daimonicon** » Mon Sep 14, 2020 3:42 pm

I refuse subscription. It's the dev's market. Not the users market. I can see why they do it and understand. But as a user? No way.

audiot · Post by **audiot** » Mon Sep 14, 2020 3:42 pm

Subscription-only is a shitty business model. Dont support this!

No company will guarantee that the subscription price will stay the same and there are no guarantees that you can pay your subscriptions in the future. Okay ... there are no guarantess in life at all, but there must be a reason why big companies like Adobe switch to subscription-only

This isnt done for the users, it's done for the shareholders.

But rent-to-own is fine, in my opinion

excuse me please · Post by **excuse me please** » Mon Sep 14, 2020 3:43 pm

Well, the bottleneck is: if only form of distribution; then companies will stop offering free demos. So everyone has to pay - in advance - to try out stuff. Clever thinking from a company's perspective. Whether it's a good concept, or not, is yet to be seen. I doubt it.

Obviously, another nail to consume for the average customer. The companies get rid of that pita: distribution of free services with little garantees. NB After they embraced the concept of demoware in full flight. That is. It's not that demos always have been a given deal. To speak of it softly.

Sign of the times.

trmupstage · Post by **trmupstage** » Mon Sep 14, 2020 3:48 pm

I will not buy into a subscription for plugins. What if I drop the subscription and later need to access the mixes but the company has since gone out of business? I know Adobe pushes that model too. I've moved off Adobe products completely now. Never will I buy in to subscriptions.

dblock · Post by **dblock** » Mon Sep 14, 2020 3:59 pm

trmupstage wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2020 3:48 pm I will not buy into a subscription for plugins. What if I drop the subscription and later need to access the mixes but the company has since gone out of business? I know Adobe pushes that model too. I've moved off Adobe products completely now. Never will I buy in to subscriptions.

That is the exact scenario I might have had to deal with if I had a subscription when I got a request to make changes on a cue I had finished a long time ago. I would have had to renew a subscription if I had one and discontinued it or as you said if things changed for the company or the prices had gone up. What a mess. I listed the reasons I thought it was perfect for some people in a previous post. As long as you're not dependent on it and have deadlines to meet it might be fine just not for me.

excuse me please · Post by **excuse me please** » Mon Sep 14, 2020 4:00 pm

It just means the user has to replace the subs in their beloved projects or, rent to buy, buy. So it's not that one can "plug away" in their audio land lol

Kind of amusing, if one thinks of what could happen..

WatchTheGuitar · Post by **WatchTheGuitar** » Mon Sep 14, 2020 4:02 pm

audiot wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2020 3:42 pm there must be a reason why big companies like Adobe switch to subscription-only This isnt done for the users, it's done for the shareholders.

I'm pretty sure Adobe's cloud was brought in to defeat cracked/pirated software, but I don't know how successful that's been. I haven't used dodgy software in a long time, from a selfish point of view I don't like the risk to my data or my PC's stability and from a more altruistic POV I understand what goes into creating functional products and although there'll now always be (ever exapanding) freeware/open source options that's no excuse for stealing from people who do charge for their work.

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Mon Sep 14, 2020 4:12 pm

WatchTheGuitar wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2020 4:02 pm
audiot wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2020 3:42 pm there must be a reason why big companies like Adobe switch to subscription-only This isnt done for the users, it's done for the shareholders.
I'm pretty sure Adobe's cloud was brought in to defeat cracked/pirated software, but I don't know how successful that's been.

It was. It seems to be working for them now, so, no real point in discussing.

How do you feel about subscription based plugins?