Popular Post Dan Gravell Posted July 27, 2018 Popular Post Share Posted July 27, 2018 So here's an opinion from an audio software writer, marketer, business owner... It might surprise some here, but actually the subscription model is no easy ride for software companies. Not small, startup ones anyway - it's notoriously difficult and lengthy to get software making decent revenue based on subscriptions and especially in the B2C space as consumers are much more reticent about subscriptions. Typically, to mitigate this, startups offer annual plans at a discount (or even lifetime, like Roon) to get initial cashflow so the money can then be used for marketing etc. Or alternatively a big chunk of funding but that provides all kinds of other downsides, especially to an early stage company. For the big players though who have it cracked via existing market ownership (like Adobe) it's not just about the bottom line; it's also about cashflow and revenue predictability. I make and sell bliss. It's sold on the basis of the number of fixes it makes to a library because I thought that was the best way to measure value. Up until two years ago it was either finite fix top-ups or an unlimited package. Both got you unlimited software updates forever and also unlimited metadata lookups. Generally I aim for new releases with features and bug fixes every two weeks. I realised the unlimited updates offer was extremely generous; it was an unquantified debt. I realised I had to charge for updates, and the model I ended up with was similar to @The Computer Audiophile's write-up for @jriver. Only, because of continual updates rather than yearly updates, I added a separate subscription for product updates (you also get a year's updates for free). If you don't subscribe, you can keep using the older versions of the software. The remaining issue is metadata lookup. In the case of Roon, if you're not upgrading the software, that's the remaining cost. Maybe Roon users would prefer it if the metadata subscription was separate and optional, and you were able to purchase one time versions of the Roon software. But given how integral metadata is to Roon, I'm not sure how that would work. Ideally, following @wgscott's anology, any music already "Roon'd" would remain "Roon'd" after the subscription ends, but new music cannot be. But that then completely devalues the use and raison d'etre of the software. tmtomh, rodrigaj, Nikhil and 1 other 1 3 bliss - fully automated music organizer. Read the music library management blog. Link to comment
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