[Fixed in 4.4] Weird bug: latest "Spectral Suite" update not included in upgrade plan

[Held]

Possible scenarios:
1) Bitwig is a bunch of evil dicks. Unlikely because you probably would have seen a lot more evidence of this before now.
2) They are stupid and they never saw this coming. Unlikely. It's a small company, everybody probably knows what's going on. Stupid people can't make such an excellent product
3) It was an accident. Unlikely.
4) It was a bit of a desperate move. They didn't meet their business plan, sales are down, they need an infusion of cash for the next big thing. Maybe.
There may be other plausible explanations, but I can't think of any

Here's some evidence for 1): They left their old company and started a direct competitor which is basically an incomplete copy of the original with some additional (admittedly nice) features. That's definitely a dick move.

So the writing was on the wall, for anyone who paid attention (which I didn't).

[liquidsound]

Bad Karma

[xbitz]

or Bitwig has stabilized its position in the DAW market they would like to hire more developers, but no one knows because of their very poor communication

[Dostoyevsky]

Possible scenarios:
1) Bitwig is a bunch of evil dicks. Unlikely because you probably would have seen a lot more evidence of this before now.

Here's some evidence for 1): They left their old company and started a direct competitor which is basically an incomplete copy of the original with some additional (admittedly nice) features. That's definitely a dick move.

So the writing was on the wall, for anyone who paid attention (which I didn't).

maxresdefault.jpg

[liquidsound]

or Bitwig has stabilized its position in the DAW market they would like to hire more developers, but no one knows because of their very poor communication

“Poor” at least implies they did but… when?

[xbitz]

or it was a simple media hack to change the trends

who knows, only the Bitwig guys can see the full picture so not worth guessing, it can be a "I may have lost an eye, but I gained a dragon." in long-term meaning

[Bobby L'Avenir]

I always try my best to focus on the positive but damn, 31544 views of this thread in 3 days. By this time next week this will be the most viewed thread on the entire bitwig kvr forum. Bitwig, you need to say something.

[jclosed]

I think its quite clear why the grid etc is not add ons.. the faq says the reason for add-ons "This way, we can keep the upgrade plan affordable..."

Soo it's quite clear there is a lack of funds and they choose to sell some of the stuff as add ons to keep the upgrade plan at the same price level.

Soo I guess the amount of stuff that becomes add ons depends of the amount of funding they need. Soo in the future the next grid might as well be a add on.. who knows.

But as many stated, it would make more sense if they made vst of some of their products, with what they have they could make something in the line of kilohearts snapheap or whatever if they wanted to.

This is exactly what bothered me.

If they are short on money they could have done two things:

1. They could have reached out to the users and announced that they have to increase the Renewal price and the reason why they do that. Everybody (certainly here in Europe) as seen the cost of living going up. The baker in my street has to increase his prices to compensate for the increased cost of running his shop. You can easily understand that the same goes for a software company that's based in Berlin. Their operating cost have been increased too.
Sure - People would gave groaned and in general be not very happy with it, but they would have understand and accepted it. Especially if that would mean that Bitwig is not split in two "tiers" (the "suite" version for the better situated, and the "standard" version for the poor suckers).

2. They choose the route they have chosen now and got that huge backlash. And in my humble opinion that backlash was for a big part well deserved.

The situation now is that people that supported the development of Bitwig by buying the Renewal/upgrade plan every year will no longer do that. I certainly will stop doing that. I love Bitwig, but I want at least something in return for that support. Let me explain with a simple sketch of what would have been happening if payed-for add-ons where introduced a year or something ago. Note - This only for illustration. That has, of course never happened (until now).

"Old" situation: You pay the €170 renewal/upgrade plan, and for that money you got stuff like
note expression, audio comping, convolution (this is only an example). Everybody happy.

"New" situation: You pay the €170 renewal/upgrade plan, and for that money you get everything except stuff like note expression (pay walled), audio comping (pay walled), convolution (pay walled). Nobody happy (except the more wealthy people).

This is only an (imaginary) example, but it illustrates the changes that have been bothering people on this site.

In the old situation people payed €170, but where guaranteed to get all developed stuff. In the new situation it becomes a kind of "dice roll" what they will get and what not. I cannot blame people to be upset about that. I know I am.

The result will be that people that where happy to support Bitwig every year will now hold back with their support. In stead of forking out €170 every year with a certainty they get every piece of development, they now will hold back because of the "dice roll" situation. That same people that where supporting Bitwig every year, will now wait for a year or several years before there is enough (non payed-for) stuff to make sense investing in Bitwig again.

I really like Bitwig but I also think this will not a be positive outcome for those software developers in Berlin. They simply made the (in my humble opinion) wrong choice.

[_leras]

Guys and Girls this is Bitwig a small company, not Apple, Amazon or the like. They are probably scared as f**k for all the heat they are getting and need to contact lawyers and so on for the decision they made.

There are some easy fixes to the issue.

Given all that and what ever they decide teir piroduct is exceptional and there is nothing like it on the Market as it's basically Ableton+FL patcher .
I like Bitwig as it is a lot and would not deny them my full support in the current situation because I 'm positive that they can fix this. If however they'll decide for a way that is unsatisfactory I can just spare the upgrade plan and stay happy with what I have so far.

I wish more people could take this more objective look at the situation.

I really feel for them. They're probably having a pretty stressful weekend and hard conversations.

They've put heart and soul into the tools they create. I'm disappointed that so many people jump to an extreme position because of one poor judgement on their part, without giving them a chance to fix it.

Tik tok minds of 2022 I guess.

[SLiC]

They have had several days to fix it; they haven't even commented on the situation. It is what it is, people will move on eventually, but I suspect there will be quite a few less Bitwig customers and certainly a lot less 'good faith'.

Bitwig have always gone their own way in their own time, they never took a lot of notice of what they initially promised as coming soon (6 years to get the grid, never had the network sharing!) but they delivered other features that no one was asking for (pop up browser, unified modulation) that most of us ended up admitting was pretty amazing, so.... They have still been deaf to some of the most frequent requests, delivering 'bouncing ball' modifiers rather than MSEG etc, but this is Bitwig...one thing I will say that I think most will agree with, it's never dull!

[_leras]

Now Venus Theory should react in a similar fashion and see if that shakes Bitwig out of it's arrogance........

Their arrogance or yours? You are hoping your youtuber heroes will join in the mob attack on Bitwig.

It's hardly that Bitwig are a bunch of millionaires trying to turn the screws on their user base.

They made a poor judgement. Hopefully they will rectify this.

On the other hand you are just lowering the tone.

[RichN]

They have a chance to fix it, they haven't even commented.

They can't, because Dr. Evil locked them up in their Berlin basement. And then he released those new devices, which were meant for update 4.4, as a paid add-on.

[giacometti777]

At this point I don't think its unrealistic to think they will not be viable as a company within the next two years. What would it look like for them to move to a non-profit open source system like Blender? I honestly think its a great fit in so many ways and would match the earnest nerd ethos that got them started. I think we should rally around this and be ready to donate to a new venture as well as pitch them as something worth investing in for large organizations.

[_leras]

They have had several days to fix it; they haven't even commented on the situation. It is what it is, people will move on eventually, but I suspect there will be quite a few less Bitwig customers and certainly a lot less 'good faith'.

It's the weekend in Germany.

I'm sure they are aware of the situation.

[_leras]

@ _leras
“Poorly communicated”…
There was not a single communication about the changes until they were Implemented and also changed the terms without notice.

Nice try. You are not helping them. You are blowing on the fire.

I'm just saying I think people should be more reasonable in their response.

Some people here seem to want them punished and to go out of business.

They're a small company of real people, probably supporting families. It's a gift that they've spent so many years of their lives building amazing tools for us.

I can't believe the lack of perspective of some here.

It's not like they switched overnight to a mandatory subscription service and a stopped us using the software.

Give them a chance man.