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Izotope Music Production Pro - Subscription Now...

That puts you in the corner and as a client I despise it with all my being.
Yes, I agree. But that's the great thing about free markets: if enough people despise a business model and/or product it will eventually die. But it takes time for that democratic process to work its magic.

I wouldn't be surprised if Adobe ends up in that situation.

rgames
 
I don’t see “only” implied or expressed anywhere in iZotope’s marketing.

iZotope are introducing a subscription product.

One of the advantages is having tools that are always up to date.

They don’t say they will stop selling perpetual licenses.

And as far as I know they don’t plan to stop selling perpetual licenses.

I partner with iZotope in my day job so I’m obligated to say also:

“My opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect my employers.”

I can ask their marketing team if there is any public messaging on this topic during our meeting this Wednesday.
In my original post I said it "looked like" they were going subscription only. As in, I can't find any mention of being able to purchase their pro products anywhere, can you? I only see a subscription offered. That implies they will not offer their pro products for sale.

I hope I'm wrong; I like their stuff and don't want to subscribe.

Yes please do talk to the marketing team. Tell them their loyal customers are not pleased and many will not continue with them if they go sub only.
 
...Frankly, I think Adobe have done a pretty bad job on the development side since moving to the subscription model. There are much better options emerging...

rgames
Agreed. They update their software every 5 minutes - including constantly tweaking the UI, which is confusing, but I don't think it's appreciably better than 5 years ago. As long as they are fat and happy they have little incentive on their sub model. I feel like sub models benefit the companies way more than the regular users.
 
Adobe's revenues have grown 25x since they went to a subscription model about seven years ago.
Yes, but that also may be due to the fact their software never had true competition in the pro market, they made subscription the only way to get it, and the world's population is always increasing. If there were creative suites out there equal to Adobe's, only then would we have a clearer picture of who's subscribing to Adobe because they want to, and who's subscribing because they have to.
 
The value proposition of Adobe (50 bucks a month for everything they make) and something like Izotope (30 dollars for a few plugins) is way out of wack. I hope the Post Production Suite doesn't end up with the same fate.
 
The value proposition of Adobe (50 bucks a month for everything they make) and something like Izotope (30 dollars for a few plugins) is way out of wack. I hope the Post Production Suite doesn't end up with the same fate.
I could be wrong, but, in tech, once a company goes to a subscription model, it generally doesn't turn back. Instead, it'll double-down until it succeeds or goes out of business. If one subscription is modestly successful, then they'll double-down and do other subscriptions/bundles.

Over time, they'll work to wean everyone off the stand-alones with slow updates/fixes, fewer features, and high list prices (hi, Plugin Alliance!), as well as tons of marketing.

And, if the company survives, it'll somehow return with "lifetime" subscriptions that'll look strangely like the then-defunct bundles you could buy outright. Only it'll be online/cloud based so that if you pay and the company goes out of business, you'll probably lose access.
 
I could be wrong, but, in tech, once a company goes to a subscription model, it generally doesn't turn back. Instead, it'll double-down until it succeeds or goes out of business. If one subscription is modestly successful, then they'll double-down and do other subscriptions/bundles.

Over time, they'll work to wean everyone off the stand-alones with slow updates/fixes, fewer features, and high list prices (hi, Plugin Alliance!), as well as tons of marketing.

And, if the company survives, it'll somehow return with "lifetime" subscriptions that'll look strangely like the then-defunct bundles you could buy outright. Only it'll be online/cloud based so that if you pay and the company goes out of business, you'll probably lose access.
A few years back I was all in with Cakewalk Sonar. Then they offered a $199 "lifetime" update - I smelled something fishy but I bit.

A few months later they sold to Bandcamp, and it became completely free.

Needless to say I felt completely ripped!!! It was a last minute cash grab before sailing off into the sunset with users' money...such incredibly poor business practices. Shameful. I'm still resentful all these years later...
 
In my original post I said it "looked like" they were going subscription only. As in, I can't find any mention of being able to purchase their pro products anywhere, can you? I only see a subscription offered. That implies they will not offer their pro products for sale.
There are "Advanced" products for sale here:


I still think it's a good idea to ask for clarification about the future, nonetheless. In the meantime, I'm going with a "wait and see" approach.

Best,

Geoff
 
I think subscription models are hard to sell to us musicians. We like to have our instruments, our external processors, who want to rent a guitar? Same with samples and software.
The desire for ownership is certainly part of the equation.

Another factor is that the nature of the music business is feast or famine, which doesn't support a steady cash flow for subscriptions. We buy gear when we can afford to, and stop buying when income slows. Pawn stores are full of treasured instruments from cash-strapped musicians.

It's true that most of us are not the subscription crowd.

Best,

Geoff
 
Yes, but that also may be due to the fact their software never had true competition in the pro market, they made subscription the only way to get it, and the world's population is always increasing. If there were creative suites out there equal to Adobe's, only then would we have a clearer picture of who's subscribing to Adobe because they want to, and who's subscribing because they have to.
I agree 100%. As I said above, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Adobe goes the way of MySpace.

There are some strong competitors out there right now that are as good/better in every way except widespread adoption.

rgames
 
Looks to me like you can still buy everything if you want. Maybe like East West, they offer you a choice. I see nothing wrong with that. The only mistake would be to go exclusive with subscriptions like Adobe did.
 
There are some strong competitors out there right now that are as good/better in every way except widespread adoption.
I was a hardcore, twenty year Adobe Photoshop user. I now use Affinity Photo, currently on sale for about $30 (I believe). It pretty much does everything PS can do and some of it a lot better. I bought it a year or so ago and haven't looked back.
 
Over time, they'll work to wean everyone off the stand-alones with slow updates/fixes, fewer features, and high list prices (hi, Plugin Alliance!), as well as tons of marketing.
And yet I cannot rid my inbox of Plugin Alliance fire sales, vouchers, etc. So far at least, they don't seem to be showing any interest in discontinuing sales in addition to offering a subscription.

Geoff put it perfectly - feast or famine... Any developer thinking there's endless piles of cash to make in an industry that's default state is feast/famine would be foolish. Offering a subscription in addition to licenses/sales is the smart choice as far as a subscription model goes, and so far that seems to be the move PA opted for. Hopefully Izotope also opt for the smarter road as well... Time will tell.
 
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Yes, I agree. But that's the great thing about free markets: if enough people despise a business model and/or product it will eventually die. But it takes time for that democratic process to work its magic.

I wouldn't be surprised if Adobe ends up in that situation.

rgames
Maybe I'm too cynical, but I wouldn't call a survivorship bias of the most exploitative variants of basically everything in capatilism something like "democratic process working it's magic".

"Free" market is a bit of an illusion too. First-mover-advantage is huge for many things, including Software, and it's not a fair competition when you're going up against companies that don't even have a need to turn a profit because they can re-finance through other revenue streams (thinking of amazon here, but afaik Adobe also makes most of their money not from the CC subs).
 
Looks to me like you can still buy everything if you want. Maybe like East West, they offer you a choice. I see nothing wrong with that. The only mistake would be to go exclusive with subscriptions like Adobe did.
Not quite... iZotope has stated that the Subscription(Pro) versions of their apps will have feature not available in the purchased version... THIS is the biggest problem as I see it.
 
Not quite... iZotope has stated that the Subscription(Pro) versions of their apps will have feature not available in the purchased version... THIS is the biggest problem as I see it.
With the implication that there will be no further upgrades outside of the subscriptions. In about 12 to 18 months, no one will be buying them any more as features are introduced into the subscription products that the old products don't have.

It sounds as if, inside the "Pro" subscription versions, new features and performance improvements will not be signaled by new version numbers.
 
Not quite... iZotope has stated that the Subscription(Pro) versions of their apps will have feature not available in the purchased version... THIS is the biggest problem as I see it.
Yeah re-reading the FAQ it doesn't look good... They're awfully quick to point all of the nots. Plugin X or bundle Y will will not receive the same updates or optimizations as the "Pro" version, etc.
Not something I want any part of...
 
For what it's worth, they're having the same sale they had last year at this time:


Best,

Geoff
 
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