How do you feel about subscription based plugins?

[chk071]

I’m a developer and there used to be a really good subscription service Microsoft did called Technet and it was great value in its day, gave you access to the latest versions of most of their products for about £200 per 18 months, saved a fortune over buying the individual products back when they needed to be upgraded for a fee most years. So, I’ve definitely seen positive models for subscription. Similarly I think sticking £80 in Ian Amazon’s pocket once a year is pretty good value if you watch much on Prime or want stuff delivered quickly.

So it’s not the model that’s the problem, it’s all down to your perceived value of the specific individual sub.

Office 365 is great value as well.

[WatchTheGuitar]

Office 365 is great value as well.

Yeah, seem to be able to whack on another 12 months worth around BF time for about £50. Definitely cheaper than the old legit office upgrade cycle.

I think the sort of company that would do well to consider offering subs is someone like Waves because it's less bullshit than their wup system. I think if they got in a team of UI experts to update their tired interfaces then offered everything in their system for less than PluginAlliance they'd get some people swapping over. Especially if it meant no more dealing with Waves Central and those horrible monolithic VSTs.

[ghettosynth]

Office 365 is great value as well.

Yeah, seem to be able to whack on another 12 months worth around BF time for about £50. Definitely cheaper than the old legit office upgrade cycle.

I think the sort of company that would do well to consider offering subs is someone like Waves because it's less bullshit than their wup system. I think if they got in a team of UI experts to update their tired interfaces then offered everything in their system for less than PluginAlliance they'd get some people swapping over. Especially if it meant no more dealing with Waves Central and those horrible monolithic VSTs.

If it weren't for work I would never use Office. Even then, I don't use it that much. I certainly wouldn't pay a subscription fee to use it at home.

[chk071]

The thing is also compatibility. When you get a .docx file, you simply can't rely on other programs which open it. The formatting will ALWAYS messed up. Which is kind of obvious, because, for full compatibility, you'd need the opening program to have exactly the same features, implemented in exactly the same way like Microsoft Office. Which isn't the case with any other software.

MS Office is the best Office suite anyway though, apart from that. Its ease of use, and operation is simply unmatched, which is why it's still the king.

If you just need to write a letter, or an invoice every now and then, Google Docs or Libre Office will suffice. For the translation work I've been doing, it's pretty essential to have MS Word.

[dionenoid]

I think the sort of company that would do well to consider offering subs is someone like Waves because it's less bullshit than their wup system.

Uhm, Waves already does subscriptions.

[WatchTheGuitar]

I think the sort of company that would do well to consider offering subs is someone like Waves because it's less bullshit than their wup system.

Uhm, Waves already does subscriptions.

lol so they do, well they’ve obviously done a fine job promoting it.

[dionenoid]

I think the sort of company that would do well to consider offering subs is someone like Waves because it's less bullshit than their wup system.

Uhm, Waves already does subscriptions.

lol so they do, well they’ve obviously done a fine job promoting it.

And they do a fine job asking more for a years subscription than the sales price of a bundle

[WatchTheGuitar]

yeah, $99 for everything for a year would be fair, but it does look overpriced

[Dirk Diggler]

It's a horrible business model. And I won't support it.

And the waves plugins at least work without subscription, you just don't get updates after the 1st year, but the older apps that would not be a concern.

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/home-p ... we-ask-why

Last month Avid announced its 4th quarter and financial results. It’s not something we often report on here at Pro Tools Expert but one stat jumped out at us, that there was a 54.9% year over year growth in subscription revenue growth in the fourth quarter.

It has begun

[fmr]

https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/home-p ... we-ask-why

Last month Avid announced its 4th quarter and financial results. It’s not something we often report on here at Pro Tools Expert but one stat jumped out at us, that there was a 54.9% year over year growth in subscription revenue growth in the fourth quarter.

It has begun

And that means what? Are they going back into green territory? Because they were working in the red.

And frankly, in what concerns DAW as a compelete working (and compositional) environment, I find Pro Tools very week. Its MIDI implementation is still very primtive, when compared with their big competitors. The same about their VI support, etc. They can only really manage to compete in the audio field. IMO, of course.

[kelvyn]

As a business model it’s easy to understand why a company would go subscription. It’s just unfortunate that some companies
have decided to use this model as a way of blackmailing a loyal user base into subscribing by only updating software for subscribers - Yes we know who I mean - There are positive alternatives that EVERY company could employ... Subscription, rent to buy and the continuation of buying outright product. Why most companies don’t offer all these options is a bit of a mystery to me where the only conclusion is greed that negatively impacts their user base.
PA, Slate, Waves seem to have got the balance mostly right - apart from rent to buy - but it’s a dangerous development if all companies jump on the subscription band wagon.
In my eyes Izotope for people like me who already own all their software have begun their own demise.

[dionenoid]

https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/home-p ... we-ask-why

Last month Avid announced its 4th quarter and financial results. It’s not something we often report on here at Pro Tools Expert but one stat jumped out at us, that there was a 54.9% year over year growth in subscription revenue growth in the fourth quarter.

It has begun

These numbers (in the same article) are pretty impressive, and scary :

In fact Avid has stated that as of December 31st, 2020, they had approximately 296,000 active, paid subscriptions to the creative software solutions. Of these approximately 190,000 are Pro Tools and it’s the fastest-growing subscription product line that we have, 60,000 are Media Composer and 50,000 are Sibelius

This means that some 200.000 ppl are doing a subscription to a dinosaur daw.

yeah i know it's the industry standard bla bla bla

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

This means that some 200.000 ppl are doing a subscription to a dinosaur daw.

How many would subscribe to a non-dinosaur, then? Ragnarok.

[mike_the_ranger]

I don't like subscriptions. Rent-to-own is another story. But I'd like to "own" (yes, you never own software, I know) the product I bought and will be able to use it whenever I want on a probable offline. No changes on the system and the software should run forever. The only subscription I'm into is ProTools for obvious reasons.