iZotope discontinues many plugins (iZotope and Exponential Audio)

[vurt]

nice!

[PAK]

Well this kind came to something in that support emailed me back promising to put loyalty coupons for Stratus and Symphony in my account. They are now there but tbh between them they still want me to pay approx £100 just to get back products I already own (as I have no need for the surround functionality) so maybe I will just wait till they have a $10 sale

Izotope's own offers are often worse than what you can get elsewhere. Apparently they'd rather you go via 3rd parties..

Plugin Boutique already offers an "Any EA Product Crossgrade" to Stratus for £49, and Symphony for £69 (£118 total). The 3D version crossgrades are £212 and £265 (£477) though.

I doubt they're in danger of seeing many EA user upgrades at these prices, especially given growing user awareness of exactly who they're dealing with and what it likely means regarding future support.

[PAK]

They are moving to cloud-only, subscrition-only, software as a service.
Exactly what Adobe did.

You're gonna get the deniers all upset.

I don't know.. The best argument against it is this is not the graphics market and such an approach won't work. If they want to shake down investment gamblers, with their "AI and cloud, SAAS" buzzword salads, then good luck. At least going sub only would properly start the clock for the inevitable outcome. So, in some senses, I'd rather they just get on with it..

Of course, it's easy for me to say as I don't use any Izotope or Plugin Alliance products. The only loss for me would be Reaktor and Kontakt, both of which I use less and less (I saw where all of this was roughly heading ages ago and bailed early.. )

The reason Photoshop subs succeeded was the level of market dominance combined with the lack of viable alternatives. IMO the only product they have, with anything close to that hold, is Kontakt. But it's a lot weaker than it once was (the biggest library devs choosing to create their own software) and the lacklustre update to version 7 is, in some senses, a shot in the foot which serves as a warning to its users..

[Knutorius]

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(https://ibb.co/Bjts8qK)

[ghettosynth]

They are moving to cloud-only, subscrition-only, software as a service.
Exactly what Adobe did.

You're gonna get the deniers all upset.

I don't know.. The best argument against it is this is not the graphics market and such an approach won't work. If they want to shake down investment gamblers, with their "AI and cloud, SAAS" buzzword salads, then good luck. At least going sub only would properly start the clock for the inevitable outcome. So, in some senses, I'd rather they just get on with it..

Of course, it's easy for me to say as I don't use any Izotope or Plugin Alliance products. The only loss for me would be Reaktor and Kontakt, both of which I use less and less (I saw where all of this was roughly heading ages ago and bailed early.. )

The reason Photoshop subs succeeded was the level of market dominance combined with the lack of viable alternatives. IMO the only product they have, with anything close to that hold, is Kontakt. But it's a lot weaker than it once was (the biggest library devs choosing to create their own software) and the lacklustre update to version 7 is, in some senses, a shot in the foot which serves as a warning to its users..

By deniers I mean that those that deny that this is the direction the big players are trying to go and that it is there plan to try to eliminate perpetual licensing. Not that it's a foregone conclusion that it will succeed in some particular way.

That said, I'm not as optimistic as you are. Soundwide is already three big(ish) players and I wouldn't underestimate their ability to bring other players into the fold. Adobe succeeds and can keep prices high because they are essential tools. Yet, none of the media streaming services that we all pay for are "tools." It may be enough, at least initially, to be compelling at a low enough entry price for the basic tools to get their subs up. At least to new musicians just entering music production.

With all due respect, the people that run these companies and invest in these companies are not stupid. I suspect that they're well aware of the differences between themselves and Adobe and have a strategy in mind that they believe will succeed. We have already seen multiple companies introduce subscription models and Avid has eliminated new perpetual licensing.

Moreover, we are already seeing some of the fallout. The plan itself has collateral damage, the products that we will lose access to as they continue to evolve their products to become increasingly cloud based.

Regardless of eventual success or failure, we are seeing clear movement in the Adobe direction. I too which that they would just get on with it. In any case, I'm off the upgrade train for most of these products. I will use what I have until it doesn't work anymore or until I don't need it.

[Compyfox]

While there is a trend towards "Cloud Services", there are just as many counter arguments against it. Contrary to popular believe "subscriptions" are not the "cheaper route", and with the "always online/random checks" (see other companies, you're also not really treated well either.

There are still many offline studios, and people that want to go offline again. And as long as that is still the case... in order to not loose out on customers, you have to also offer "offline" solutions like Perpetual Licenses.


If we talk about Adobe, they don't really care. There are plenty of alternatives to Premiere and After Effects at this point.
If we talk about AVID's recent move... this will backfire and people move to the competition.

It's the same old / same old.

If anything... if this drives people to support more indie devs, and them actually creating amazing stuff in return, not to mention dropping prices as a result... I'm all for it.

[ghettosynth]

While there is a trend towards "Cloud Services", there are just as many counter arguments against it. Contrary to popular believe "subscriptions" are not the "cheaper route", and with the "always online/random checks" (see other companies, you're also not really treated well either.

To be clear, you're preaching to the choir. I have no interest in subscription models for software for my hobbies.

If anything... if this drives people to support more indie devs, and them actually creating amazing stuff in return, not to mention dropping prices as a result... I'm all for it.

Yes, maybe. The barriers to entry keep getting raised. KVR raged on and on and on about how they wouldn't buy products that didn't have resizable GUIs and how devs who aren't keeping up with Apple are lazy. If you don't adopt something like iLok you will have to be constantly concerned with piracy. Of course, even then it's not guaranteed. Sure, you can roll your own, and that's now something else outside of your core expertise that you will have to be good at. You have to have advanced preset management these days and don't forget MPE support and all of the things that KVR goes on and on and f**king on about.

I mean, the definition for "amazing stuff" has changed. Years ago people thought that Pro-52/53 was amazing stuff. Now that's pretty much an undergraduate thesis project at best.

[noiseboyuk]

Urs made a great comment on this the other day (I forget the thread - if someone knows, please do quote). Of all the subscription services out there, how many are actually working for the company? There was an implication that they are seen as a quick way to make a buck, whereas for many he suggested the opposite is true and will soon be out of business.

Economically, the world is in a downturn, and people need to cut their regular outgoings. The film and TV market has had an almighty shock this year, subscriber numbers overall are dropping as the number of companies in that market has exploded, diluting each's market share. Comparing music streaming, film/TV, gaming and in our case music production, each scenario is specific to that sector. While there is some overlap, each have their own unique market forces. But it is clearly unsustainable economic nonsense to imagine that cash-starved musicians are going to want to subscribe to a dozen different music-making services, which would be crippling financially.

The model is really built around just ONE subs service per customer. "You get all this great stuff for only the cost of a cup of coffee per day" or whatever. It doesn't work if you're buying 12 cups of coffee per day. I guess this is a rationale behind Soundwide - only the biggest games in town will be able to offer a compelling chance of being that ONE service for the customer. Only by mass consolidation will smaller companies have even a chance at being one of the subs survivors.

I guess I'm tagged as a denier with where this is all inexorably leading, because I don't see the evidence that it works. Adobe is the example always quoted, which happened a decade ago. Avid is the next example, but their situation is much more nuanced and complex that usually stated. They no longer sell Pro Tools perpetual licenses, but they stopped even trying to persuade their existing license holders (ie me) to transition to subs. There used to be crossgrade deals, but those have gone. Now they offer regular inducements to get past license holders to get those permanent licenses up to date. That's because they hit the wall of market reality - there are a lot of customers who will never switch.

The idea that everything will go subscription (the perpetually quoted "you will own nothing and be happy") is a market fantasy. This is partly why in 10 years we have hundreds of subscription service offerings, but not even a handful that make that their exclusive offering. I still own a license to Adobe Audition CS5.5 which works on my PC, but not my MacBook. Solution - I bought Acon Acoustica for something like £35 in a sale, and it does the job perfectly. As opposed to getting the latest version at a mere £240 PER YEAR. That's market reality. Acon saw a gap and have cleaned up.

I subscribe to zero music-making services, and I never will. I'm not alone. A market abhors a vacuum, which is why perpetual licenses still overwhelmingly exist. As I've said repeatedly, there is very little evidence that the undeniable trend towards subscription offerings will turn into subscription-exclusive offerings.

(Cue the next 20 posts saying I'm a denier. You all carry on.)

[revvy]

tl;dr

(no idea if you’re a denialist or not )

[noiseboyuk]

tl;dr

(no idea if you’re a denialist or not )

Well you could always try the whole reading thing. Who knows, it may work out well for you?

[Psyclapse]

My instinct is that a very high proportion of Adobe customers are professionals & corporates. Whereas with VSTs, loops, samples and even DAWs the vast majority of buyers are probably hobbyists. I think that's an important distinction when considering what investment customers consider reasonable.

For most hobbyists spending a couple of hours each weekend playing around with music buying into the 'never-never' of subscriptions just doesn't make a lot of sense, unless they are reasonably well off from their day job.

[jens]

I don't think it is so much business vs. hobbyists rather than - as someone else mentioned before - relevance vs. irrelevance.

After all it's just a couple of random plugins, for crying out loud (and in the case of Izotope they aren't even coded very well compared to their extensive competition - use too much CPU, don't sound very good, don't work very well (looking at you RX-developers - check out Spectralayers and bow your mediocre heads in shame) But I am pissed off more at myself for not being able to resist their upgrade deals several times even though I have no real use for their turds.)

What Adobe offers on the other hand is a vast collection of industry-standard tools for a broad range of tasks and applications.

[Psyclapse]

What Adobe offers on the other hand is a vast collection of industry-standard tools for a broad range of tasks and applications.

Sure. We're saying the same thing then aren't we? That comparing Adobe with a music subscription is like comparing apples with oranges. Its not a sensible comparison. So its not reasonable for music vendors to expect the same success that Adobe achieved.

[jens]

Yes, absolutely!

[Teksonik]

in the case of Izotope they aren't even coded very well compared to their extensive competition - use too much CPU, don't sound very good, don't work very well (looking at you RX-developers - check out Spectralayers and bow your mediocre heads in shame) But I am pissed off more at myself for not being able to resist their upgrade deals several times even though I have no real use for their turds.)

Quoted for posterity.