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

[_leras]

It's not that hard to leave Bitwig. Once you stop paying for upgrades and the last version you paid for becomes unusable due to the many bugs contained in it. That thing about being able to use it indefinitely isn't really the case IME.

Just the fact that they go out of their way to assure you can never really save any money on upgrades via price fixing was enough to convince me they only care about the money long ago.

That is simply not true. The current version I am on 4.3 something has been very solid for me. No bugs I have noticed, no crashed. It's also a dream to work with. If it were never updated again I would still love working with it.

What do you mean you can't save money on upgrades? They have sales fairly regularly and you can then hold the plan and start it whenever you like. Seems pretty flexible to me.

[Echoes in the Attic]

I was wondering at some point if Bitwig the company would ever have any other products aside from Bitwig Studio. It seems from this thread people don’t think they ever should? Or would people be ok if they released a vst or standalone product? Wouldn’t that also take developer time? I mean is it really fair to expect an entire company to never have more than one product (with different license levels)? Honestly curious what people think.

[pekbro]

Value added content is a must for the monthly subscription plan, make no mistake.

[Benutzername]

Just seen in a comment on Youtube:

What they could have done is: "Hello customers. We have created a collection of spectral devices that we are really proud of. We had planned to add these devices to 4.4 but our financial situation is really bad at the moment because of the overall situation. Please support us by buying these devices as an add on. You will gain early access and it will help us a lot to keep the dream of Bitwig alive. Don't worry, we will add these device later in another update for all of our users as a small thank you for staying with us in these strange days. Nobody will be left behind. Sincerely your Bitwig team".

If tight money really is the issue then I think that something like this would have been a very honest way to ask the users for help. A kind of "early access" system to support the team sounds like a very good idea to me to raise some money and I might have bought the devices just to support them.

That wouldn't have been a good idea at all.. would have spooked people from buying a yearly update thinking they were about to fold..

Sure, but people are thinking this anyway. The only difference is that the same people now think that it is well deserved instead of offering help.

[machinesworking]

I was wondering at some point if Bitwig the company would ever have any other products aside from Bitwig Studio. It seems from this thread people don’t think they ever should? Or would people be ok if they released a vst or standalone product? Wouldn’t that also take developer time? I mean is it really fair to expect an entire company to never have more than one product (with different license levels)? Honestly curious what people think.

The problem is the wording, lack of communication and overall effect of being essentially lied to. They announced a plug in exclusive to Bitwig when every other plug in they’ve made has been part of the Update plan. The subscription/update model is not cheap and people have used the ability to hold off on it until something good comes along as a way to extend it past a year etc. Sot it’s backfired a bit. I’m on my third year of owing Bitwig and only bought the update plan once. I’ve squeezed another year out of it by waiting until something juicy is implemented etc. So it’s not working that well for them in my case and others.
Their logical option is to drop it, go with a $200-250 upgrade every couple years, or up the price of the update plan.

Basically I think what we’re seeing here is the result of a failed business model. The update plan does not generate the kind of burst of income that a traditional upgrade cycle does. They have not been able to consistently add must have features at some insanely faster pace than the competition, so people are more willing to wait out even two years between update plans, which leads to Bitwig generating less money than Ableton, Steinberg, MOTU etc. do with their +/- $250 upgrades every three years etc. another option would be to have an update plan based on big features rather than a set amount of time. You get all all updates for v3, when something like the Grid pops in, the next version is v4.

So they broke their cycle and changed the wording to reflect their new policy of selling some embedded plug ins separately. They pretty much took the worst road they could have. There would have been mild outrage if they announced it before hand or raised the price of the update plan, but nothing like this.

[tempsperdu]

Perhaps Bitwig is planning to sell-out and this was a desperate attempt to demonstrate ways to enhance profitability in order to entice Francisco Partners, etc.

If they entice Francisco Partners they are a dead duck, just look at the final demise of the company that used to at least have some respect... NI

[Echoes in the Attic]

I was wondering at some point if Bitwig the company would ever have any other products aside from Bitwig Studio. It seems from this thread people don’t think they ever should? Or would people be ok if they released a vst or standalone product? Wouldn’t that also take developer time? I mean is it really fair to expect an entire company to never have more than one product (with different license levels)? Honestly curious what people think.

The problem is the wording, lack of communication and overall effect of being essentially lied to. They announced a plug in exclusive to Bitwig when every other plug in they’ve made has been part of the Update plan. The subscription/update model is not cheap and people have used the ability to hold off on it until something good comes along as a way to extend it past a year etc. Sot it’s backfired a bit. I’m on my third year of owing Bitwig and only bought the update plan once. I’ve squeezed another year out of it by waiting until something juicy is implemented etc. So it’s not working that well for them in my case and others.
Their logical option is to drop it, go with a $200-250 upgrade every couple years, or up the price of the update plan.

Basically I think what we’re seeing here is the result of a failed business model. The update plan does not generate the kind of burst of income that a traditional upgrade cycle does. They have not been able to consistently add must have features at some insanely faster pace than the competition, so people are more willing to wait out even two years between update plans, which leads to Bitwig generating less money than Ableton, Steinberg, MOTU etc. do with their +/- $250 upgrades every three years etc. another option would be to have an update plan based on big features rather than a set amount of time. You get all all updates for v3, when something like the Grid pops in, the next version is v4.

So they broke their cycle and changed the wording to reflect their new policy of selling some embedded plug ins separately. They pretty much took the worst road they could have. There would have been mild outrage if they announced it before hand or raised the price of the update plan, but nothing like this.

I agree with most of that. Except is it really a failure if people don't buy an upgrade plan every year? We can't tell unless we know what their business goals were. From the start I've always seen it as that it would be very unlikely I'd upgrades soon after my plan ends, as it would be quite a coincidence if some features were released that I just had to have within months of my plan expiring. It seems like part of the problem may have been the precedent they set by including new devices with every update so far included in the plans so far. And not the best business model, but terms people are throwing around like abuse are pretty over the top, more likely plans not working as expected and therefor changing, as opposed to deceit.

[kultschar]

Is it not deceit changing the agreement terms with no announcement and not honouring active plans?

[pekbro]

Ironically, I probably wouldn't mind paying a monthly sub similar to the Presonus Sphere thing.
They would have to make it worthwhile content-wise though, I'm doubtful they could manage
that currently. Much like with netflix and similar, monthly subs are super easy to manage on the
users side imo.

[drewfx]

And not the best business model, but terms people are throwing around like abuse are pretty over the top, more likely plans not working as expected and therefor changing, as opposed to deceit.

The problem is not that they chose to change the plan going forward - they are certainly entitled to do that. It's that they are trying to change the terms of the plan retroactively AFTER they've taken people's money. People who paid already are entitled to be upset - because Bitwig didn't deliver what was paid for.

[machinesworking]

I agree with most of that. Except is it really a failure if people don't buy an upgrade plan every year? We can't tell unless we know what their business goals were. From the start I've always seen it as that it would be very unlikely I'd upgrades soon after my plan ends, as it would be quite a coincidence if some features were released that I just had to have within months of my plan expiring. It seems like part of the problem may have been the precedent they set by including new devices with every update so far included in the plans so far. And not the best business model, but terms people are throwing around like abuse are pretty over the top, more likely plans not working as expected and therefor changing, as opposed to deceit.

Yes, it's failure if you cannot generate enough money with the update plan to include embedded plug ins that were previously alluded to (being generous here) being included in the plan. They changed their model mid cycle, even had a sale on their update plan right before the change, it in fact does come across as deceit. It's far more likely that they are not able to generate the same amount of money companies like Steinberg and Ableton etc. do with traditional upgrades. What we've had is essentially a promise of generous updates to the program that we pay in advance for, upgrades offer them all at once in a big package. We have as customers been willing to support Bitwig with money up front, for things we don't know will be included in the future version. It's how their model is not a subscription, and how it kinda falls short of both a subscription and a traditional upgrade model.

IMO they chose the least likely to generate income path, update plans promise on vaporware, not out of malice but by the very nature of developing software, whereas upgrade cycles deliver all at once, which is obviously a more enticing proposition. Subscriptions circumvent the irregularity of update plans by not allowing the end user to use the software until they renew the subscription, it's the worst, but it generates steady income for companies like Avid and Adobe where people are embedded in their environment.

All that said, I think Bitwig is hemorrhaging slightly, they needed to generate more money than the update plan was giving them, and they chose the least likely path to doing so without massive backlash. Personally I think they should have slowly dropped the update plan, and just released upgrades like everyone else does. Cockos, MOTU, and Ableton's DAWs are all on upgrade cycles, they typically release 2 or more updates to the program during the upgrade cycle. I haven't seen Bitwig do anything different than this, they have every couple years a major update, and a half dozen minor ones.

I'm not being facetious here, for instance DP11 has had two major updates in the year since it was released, with massive new features, same with Live and Reaper. Development cycles and beta stages do not magically change because you install an update plan instead of an upgrade cycle, but somehow people aren't seeing this, including Bitwig apparently because they looked in a completely different tragically more sketchy to the end user, direction for a solution.

So I don't think it's a bad idea for Bitwig to sell separate plug ins, but that really only works with upgrades, not subscriptions, and not update plans. Those methods are supposed to make up for the cost with inclusiveness, whereas no one gave Ableton flack for introducing Suite, well at least nothing like this.

[Phil B]

Is it not deceit changing the agreement terms with no announcement and not honouring active plans?

They actually didn’t change the agreement terms. They just breached the agreement!!

[machinesworking]

Ironically, I probably wouldn't mind paying a monthly sub similar to the Presonus Sphere thing.
They would have to make it worthwhile content-wise though, I'm doubtful they could manage
that currently. Much like with netflix and similar, monthly subs are super easy to manage on the
users side imo.

I can't stand them, but I'm self employed, so my income per month goes from $8,000 to zero randomly. I would rather wait until I have the load of cash and buy than be fearful of an increased monthly expense. Upgrades are great, people are ambivalent about it, but it's the best, you get a ton of new features up front, and a trickle of goodies until the next cycle which is 2-5 years.

[dlandis]

Some have raised the issue of trust and seem to only want to have a business relationship with a company that operates in what they consider to be a totally ethical manner.

Who said "totally"? And what does it have to do with "ethics"?

it may be begging the question: are there any companies that have enough integrity to trust perfectly?

Ah, I see. You exaggerated so you could make the "counter" argument that nobody's perfect.

I agree - nobody's perfect.

And I agree that many companies have done much worse things than what Bitwig has done.

It's just that neither of those points are relevant to my position.

Bitwig breached their contract with me. It's that simple. I choose not to enter into new contracts with people who breached their contracts with me already when (1) they are asking me to advance the funds again and (2) have not acknowledged their breach and explained how they intend to correct their behavior in the future. It's not an ethics point, it's a business and risk management point that I would lean on in any competitive market with quality options.

To me the fact is clear that they breached the contract. Whether that bothers other people, is up to them.

No, I did not exaggerate, but neither did I write this note with you particularly in mind, Phil; actually, I agree with your position and have argued similarly, though I may decide on a different manner of working this out. You'll remember that earlier I posted the the section of Bitwig's EULA that detailed its "scope" from BWS 4.3.8 along with several quotes from their website indicating that, in fact, based on their own description of Spectral Suite as an add-on, Bitwig had breached their contract with their user base. So, no, it is an error to take my position as anything but in agreement with your own. I have, in fact, previously made all of the same points as you detail above. We may not agree in vehemence (or perhaps we do, I'm not assuming anything from perception of the tone of a forum post), but we entirely agree in our interpretation of the situation.

I was referring to those who seem to have had no issues at all with the company prior to this unfortunate turn of events (those who have exhibited what would seem to qualify as an "implicit trust," though formal use of the these precise words are, of course, lacking) and currently have a wholly suspicious view of Bitwig due entirely to the shameful manner in which the Spectral Suite add-on was released. It is obvious that these individuals feel "broad-sided". And, you will note from my post, I do not criticize their position at all. Instead, I remark that theirs' is a "fair paradigm," which is to say, an understandable and justifiable position.

As far as your understanding of "ethics", however, I am speaking classically and, as such, any breach of contract is at its root also a breach of ethics as ethics is that locus of philosophy that uniquely informs legal theory of all types, including business contract law: this is what ethics "have to do" with it, so to speak. I was focusing in my post on ethics as opposed to contract law for the simple reason that it is currently speculation as to whether there will be a vis a vis conclusion in the courts in fealty with ethical concerns regarding this issue. Since there is currently no legal closure via a court decision, speaking of the opinion of the "law" is a bit premature; a discussion of "ethics," however, is quite cogent and timely.

I hope this helps.

[pekbro]

Ironically, I probably wouldn't mind paying a monthly sub similar to the Presonus Sphere thing.
They would have to make it worthwhile content-wise though, I'm doubtful they could manage
that currently. Much like with netflix and similar, monthly subs are super easy to manage on the
users side imo.

I can't stand them, but I'm self employed, so my income per month goes from $8,000 to zero randomly. I would rather wait until I have the load of cash and buy than be fearful of an increased monthly expense. Upgrades are great, people are ambivalent about it, but it's the best, you get a ton of new features up front, and a trickle of goodies until the next cycle which is 2-5 years.

I can understand that definitely. It just seems these days that the perpetual license is becoming
the least efficient overall for both devs and users. What good is having a permanent lic if you
can't use it effectively after a relatively short time. In particular with companies who are not
going to give you free or cheap upgrades. It might be unpleasant, but all things considered,
the monthly sub can be the most efficient for both devs and users. It also has the side effect
of long term stability for the product itself.