Pro Tools is Now Subscription Only

[andypryce]

That's not necessarily true. e.g. I stopped paying my Arcade subscription two years ago but I can still load any song that uses it and it will still play. I can't load it into anything that didn't have it when my sub was active and I can't edit it any more but it still works where it always worked.

And that is why subscriptions do not benefit customers.

Not in the Protools Case. If you cancel the Sub you have nothing.
You need to have perpetual license for that, which Avid not selling anymore. Only what stock is left at retailers.
Perpetual is also a problem with Protools. You pay yearly maintenance and update fees. If you miss it a month, you either has to switch to Sub or find an expensive reinstatement license. You have no luxury of not wanting that years updates if it gains you nothing.You just have to keep paying to not lose your right to update.

[pixel85]

- only amateurs are updating right away after new update is released. Especially in case of C12 where new licensing system could mess up license on eLicenser.

BWAH!

Shame cos you made other good points. Just for fun, consider this scenario:

1. You are a pro. A new version of a DAW is released that has a feature that would REALLY help you out.
2. You still have access to the older version you know works.
3. er, that's it.

You can argue "but the new license system" - it was clear to me in a few days that no-one had an unsolvable problem with that.

I don't need to consider such a scenario now. I was there a few weeks ago
1. Cubase 12 has been released with features that would speed up my work (nothing like a 'gamechanger' tho). I continue to do my job in C11 - I could do that for years without those features and I survived. I was in the middle of a few projects, and I can get priority projects ("needed for yesterday" type) at any time. I saw comments on Steinberg's forum.
Why I should jump to a burning train while I can wait a few weeks or months until all major bugs are fixed and then do an update. This is exactly what I did, during the weekend, just in case.

2. I suppose you didn't read Steinberg's forum then. It was an absolute shitshow. Some people had issues where they couldn't run either C11 (or another previous version) or C12. It didn't surprise me at all: transferring licenses between two systems while servers are sweating like a pig. What can possibly go wrong?

3. Yeah, it wasn't an issue before C12. I heard that some people had issues with eLicenser. I had once or twice spent a moment to repair/reinstall eLicenser but that's it. The thing is, people are portraying Cubase updates like something that they need to get immediately because of some major bugs. Like I said, no problem with getting older versions. One of them will surely work and if not... then maybe it's time to consider changing DAW to another?

[pixel85]

These two paragraphs read like contradictions. Years ago I decided against Cubase when looking at DAWs, because updates were buggy, and they literally left bugs in a version they promised to fix.

So where is the contradiction? You found Cubase useless because of bugs and you went with a different one that works for you instead of continuously updating Cubase with the hope that the next version will fix issues. You did the right thing.

Plus any paid upgrade no matter how "frugally" you spend, paints and bares witness to the fact that almost none of us are using DAW versions 10 years old. You're already more or less in a subscription model if you don't consider the software baked when you buy it. This is the cold reality of it. I'm not in favor of subscription models for composer DAWs like Cubase, Logic,Live, DP etc. but the fact is Pro Tools is distinctly a different market, if you're operating a 200K recording studio with 100-200$ hr. rooms then less than $2K a year for Pro tools is nothing. That's all there is to it, it's a different market than game, film, commercial, electronic music composers and home studio musicians.

I think you're missing one thing: with a perpetual license like in the case of Cubase, you have a CHOICE to not do an update and you can still use it and work with it.
tbh I worked with PT only for a short period of time, several years ago. I was surprised how poor this DAW was. Every few minutes I've been missing feature that are making life easier and were available in other DAWs for years.
But people can and do work with such limitations, so why users of other DAWs can't?
DAWs are packed in features for years. All of them are good enough to make music in comfort.
Updates are like a luxury product now. None of them brings game-changing features. You can buy updates when/if you want.
In the case of a subscription, you don't have such a choice. Pay or bye bye.

And I agree that PT is a different market. I never said otherwise. I shouldn't even comment here because I'm not using it, but I suppose most of commenting here is in the same position

[noiseboyuk]

Pixel - the great irony is that I keep reading 12.0.0 is more solid than even 12.0.20. I've not updated since. So with Cubase, even the supposedly safer "wait for the first update" can bite you on the ass. Bloody Cubase.

From what I read, all the licensing issues got solved pretty quick (sure I may have missed some). I don't think it's a good idea to migrate mid-project, so I waited for some relative downtime. As it was it all worked first time for me.

[husker37]

Yes, there is a substantial difference between maintenance and subscription actually.

Yes, of course there are qualitative differences but in terms of certainty of expense, one is much the same as the other. i.e. You can choose not to subscribe and pay for upgrades as they appear, just as you can choose not to pay for a maintenance subscription (look, even the word is the same) and get your updates more regularly. But that way they are taking your money twice - once up front and then a second time for your maintenance subscription. That works way better for them than it does for us.

Under the subscription model, once you stop paying your monthly/annual fee, you have no way of using the software.

That's not necessarily true. e.g. I stopped paying my Arcade subscription two years ago but I can still load any song that uses it and it will still play. I can't load it into anything that didn't have it when my sub was active and I can't edit it any more but it still works where it always worked.

And that is why subscriptions do not benefit customers.

Until it does. e.g. As a freelancer, I had to pay several grand for Adobe CS4, and then another grand to upgrade to CS6 a few years later, even though I very rarely actually needed my own license. It was a huge expense for comparatively little benefit. These days I can just pay for a month when I need it and ignore Adobe the rest of the time. As much as I hated the idea at the time, the reality is that it works really, really well in my favour. I'd estimate I have probably only had to spend one-tenth as much over the last 10 years as I'd spent in the 10 years before that and well less than half what I'd have spent in upgrades under the old system.

In addition, companies are charging more for subscriptions than they would annual maintenance. Sometimes 10%-15% more. Its ridiculous.

I'd suggest that's a bargain. e.g. If you have to pay $1,000 up front for a perpetual license, then $100 per year in maintenance, you'll have paid $2,000 over 10 years. OTOH, if a subscription is $115 per year, then over 10 years you will only pay $1,150, saving you $85 per year.

Of course, we're sort of caught in the middle, having bought our software before subscriptions, so we don't cop it so sweet but further down the line, users who never had to pay for a perpetual license will be better off.

We actually migrated totally off of all Autodesk products (almost 400 licenses) when they moved to subscription only, and moved wholly to Solidworks.

What a write-off that must have been, followed by a big initial investment that you won't want to walk away from if it doesn't work out. OTOH, if you'd had subscriptions, you could just walk away at any time without having to take that hit. It would have been as easy as letting Netflix lapse and signing up for Paramount+.

Your experience has been different for sure, but I have yet to talk to one customer that likes the idea of subscriptions. Businesses just don't like them.

If businesses didn't like them, Autodesk and Adobe would have gone broke 10 years ago. And the situation since the company I worked for moved to subscription is that we are always on the very latest versions, not 3 or 4 versions behind, as was common in the days before subscriptions.

Bad Edit. I can't "KVR" well today.

[husker37]

Yes, there is a substantial difference between maintenance and subscription actually.

Yes, of course there are qualitative differences but in terms of certainty of expense, one is much the same as the other. i.e. You can choose not to subscribe and pay for upgrades as they appear, just as you can choose not to pay for a maintenance subscription (look, even the word is the same) and get your updates more regularly. But that way they are taking your money twice - once up front and then a second time for your maintenance subscription. That works way better for them than it does for us.

Under the subscription model, once you stop paying your monthly/annual fee, you have no way of using the software.

That's not necessarily true. e.g. I stopped paying my Arcade subscription two years ago but I can still load any song that uses it and it will still play. I can't load it into anything that didn't have it when my sub was active and I can't edit it any more but it still works where it always worked.

And that is why subscriptions do not benefit customers.

Until it does. e.g. As a freelancer, I had to pay several grand for Adobe CS4, and then another grand to upgrade to CS6 a few years later, even though I very rarely actually needed my own license. It was a huge expense for comparatively little benefit. These days I can just pay for a month when I need it and ignore Adobe the rest of the time. As much as I hated the idea at the time, the reality is that it works really, really well in my favour. I'd estimate I have probably only had to spend one-tenth as much over the last 10 years as I'd spent in the 10 years before that and well less than half what I'd have spent in upgrades under the old system.

In addition, companies are charging more for subscriptions than they would annual maintenance. Sometimes 10%-15% more. Its ridiculous.

I'd suggest that's a bargain. e.g. If you have to pay $1,000 up front for a perpetual license, then $100 per year in maintenance, you'll have paid $2,000 over 10 years. OTOH, if a subscription is $115 per year, then over 10 years you will only pay $1,150, saving you $85 per year.

Of course, we're sort of caught in the middle, having bought our software before subscriptions, so we don't cop it so sweet but further down the line, users who never had to pay for a perpetual license will be better off.

We actually migrated totally off of all Autodesk products (almost 400 licenses) when they moved to subscription only, and moved wholly to Solidworks.

What a write-off that must have been, followed by a big initial investment that you won't want to walk away from if it doesn't work out. OTOH, if you'd had subscriptions, you could just walk away at any time without having to take that hit. It would have been as easy as letting Netflix lapse and signing up for Paramount+.

Your experience has been different for sure, but I have yet to talk to one customer that likes the idea of subscriptions. Businesses just don't like them.

If businesses didn't like them, Autodesk and Adobe would have gone broke 10 years ago. And the situation since the company I worked for moved to subscription is that we are always on the very latest versions, not 3 or 4 versions behind, as was common in the days before subscriptions.

I think we'll need to agree to disagree. As someone who literally does this for a living for a large company, subscriptions cost us much more in the long term, and do not make sound business sense. As such, we (along with everyone I talk to in trade groups) are moving away from subscriptions and companies who force them on their customers.

[husker37]

Here's hoping Cubase never goes subscription only. I can barely use it, I'd hate to move to something else.

[lfm]

Businesses definitely prefer subscriptions because it allows them to forecast costs when they are doing their annual budgets.

Strong non concur. I manage software licensing for a large (multinational) corporation, and we hate subscriptions. Software maintenance fees are known - the idea that subscriptions make it easier to forecast annual budgets is just not true, if anything, subscriptions make that more difficult. Subscriptions only benefit the company, not the customer.

I also wonder about how professionals would prefer subscription.

-If you have something that works, you don't feel like jeaperdizing anything making an update.

-New features you usually don't know about in advance.

Perpetual license seems perfect to me regarding this. And as long as things are working - if it works don't fix it - as they say.

To constantly pay or it stops working - that is more like abuse.

When Avid went crazy about license model last and stock went from $18 to $5 seems like ProTools is a good part of Avid, even if the change was for MediaComposer as well as I recall. Sibelius route I have not checked. Hardware is silly overpriced in todays environments on computers.

With subscription they get a steady revenue pretty much, think that is attractive from business side of things.

Cyberlink went the same way with PowerDirector, only campaigns on subscription nowadays to keep people there. When I got it 2017 it was campaigns for perpetual and subscriptions did not exist as I recall.

Those that prefer ProTools for audio is maybe due to smooth freezing operations, which also might mean cpu load is so high that you need that sooner than on other daws. Cubase freeze is completely convoluted in my view in that you don't see the audio from instruments that you freeze. This you have real handy in Cakewalk/Sonar for one. Still prefer my good old Sonar Artist 2015 that is less buggy on many things than current Cakewalk, like loop recording and stuff.

[chk071]

Here's hoping Cubase never goes subscription only. I can barely use it, I'd hate to move to something else.

I doubt they will. I wouldn't count out a subscription option at some point though.

Please don't freak out, angstbois.

[machinesworking]

I also wonder about how professionals would prefer subscription.

-If you have something that works, you don't feel like jeaperdizing anything making an update.

-New features you usually don't know about in advance.

Perpetual license seems perfect to me regarding this. And as long as things are working - if it works don't fix it - as they say.

Mostly the argument given is that tiny micro updates all the time allow for quicker bug fixes and faster beta testing that squashes most bugs before they come out. Piling on dozens of updated features and pages of bug fixes on a bi annual basis is always going to be a more likely scenario for new bugs to pop up simply because it's near impossible to attempt every scenario with the time frame given.

That's the selling point, supposedly more stable product, which is likely true, but at a cost. I think Bitwig are the only company that gets "subscriptions" right, it's a $120-160 "update plan" that gives you all updates for a year, and it doesn't expire your license. So you can wait months or even years in between update plans. The caveat is it does not seem like it generates the kind of revenue that allows for constant updates to Bitwig, it ends up being that Bitwig gets the same kinds of yearly updates that my other "every two-three years or so" upgrade DAWs get, where the initial upgrade introduces features, then generally they give an update that adds in even more features 9 months to a year later.

[noiseboyuk]

I also wonder about how professionals would prefer subscription.

-If you have something that works, you don't feel like jeaperdizing anything making an update.

-New features you usually don't know about in advance.

Perpetual license seems perfect to me regarding this. And as long as things are working - if it works don't fix it - as they say.

Mostly the argument given is that tiny micro updates all the time allow for quicker bug fixes and faster beta testing that squashes most bugs before they come out. Piling on dozens of updated features and pages of bug fixes on a bi annual basis is always going to be a more likely scenario for new bugs to pop up simply because it's near impossible to attempt every scenario with the time frame given.

That's the selling point, supposedly more stable product, which is likely true, but at a cost. I think Bitwig are the only company that gets "subscriptions" right, it's a $120-160 "update plan" that gives you all updates for a year, and it doesn't expire your license. So you can wait months or even years in between update plans. The caveat is it does not seem like it generates the kind of revenue that allows for constant updates to Bitwig, it ends up being that Bitwig gets the same kinds of yearly updates that my other "every two-three years or so" upgrade DAWs get, where the initial upgrade introduces features, then generally they give an update that adds in even more features 9 months to a year later.

Well with Pro Tools, I think the annual fee generated a lot of income who alas didn’t translate to many new features either. You get a few over the year, but they are usually very minor. The spring one is usually the biggest - this time Ultimate users got to customise keyboard shortcuts and a search box. For $400pa.

[Trensharo]

Just FYI - Avid stock price is up 500% over the past 3 years. The idea that they’re on their knees is, um fanciful.

That’s not to say they aren’t ultimately in for trouble - they might be. But whatever we think of their strategies, they’ve done ok by them thus far.

As long as Avid has the foothold they have in the Video, Postproduction and Studio markets... they're pretty damn safe. That is where their bread and butter is. Anything they can get in the lower-end of the market is a bonus.

[noiseboyuk]

As long as Avid has the foothold they have in the Video, Postproduction and Studio markets... they're pretty damn safe. That is where their bread and butter is. Anything they can get in the lower-end of the market is a bonus.

Good summary.

There’s a lot of studio-owners on the DUC saying they are leaving PT, or plan to soon. My own perception is that the thought of Avid abandoning PT legacy perpetual at some point in the future has people spooked. Remains to be seen how much of this translates to action.

[jamcat]

Buying software gives the user long-term security. Renting it gives the software company long term security.

[Trensharo]

As long as Avid has the foothold they have in the Video, Postproduction and Studio markets... they're pretty damn safe. That is where their bread and butter is. Anything they can get in the lower-end of the market is a bonus.

Good summary.

There’s a lot of studio-owners on the DUC saying they are leaving PT, or plan to soon. My own perception is that the thought of Avid abandoning PT legacy perpetual at some point in the future has people spooked. Remains to be seen how much of this translates to action.

People say they're going to boycott brands all the time, and those brands continue to thrive.

The thought of something feels good. Saying it almost makes you feel as if you're actually doing it at times. People SAY a lot more than they actually DO, especially when that action comes with high economic costs.

But doing it, literally, is completely different. Especially when your entire business is tied up in Avid's ecosystem. Not just the software, which is peanuts in cost for studios, but also the hardware and other solutions that they have developed.

I think Media Composer is a good example of just how strong Avid is in their primary (target) market segments. Almost no one outside of Broadcast and Box Office uses Media Composer, yet it is still a very profitable venture for them. Pro Tools is similar.

The people who continue to use Pro Tools often do it out of sheer necessity.

Market inertia is not such that Pro Tools looks seems it will be displaced any time in the [quite] near future.

The DAW wars in the "production segments" are simply not affecting Pro Tools to a large degree, and frankly those shifts has shows us nothing except that newer DAWs can and will cannibalize older DAWs that haven't grown to dominate a niche and aren't showing active development in the right (strategic) places.

For example, FL Studio basically cannibalized a ton of ACID Pro users, and Studio One cannibalized a ton of SONAR users. Even in the video space, Media Composer was safe while NLEs like VEGAS Pro and Logic Pro (to some degree, particularly post-revamp) were cannibalized by competitors like Premiere Pro and Resolve.

The solutions that have grown to dominate industry/market segments tend to be relatively safe from the types of disruptions that make users downmarket salivate.