There’s a lot of “if’s” in the OP’s opening statement.
Has there been a better solution in the last five years? Arguably, no.
If you are uncomfortable with paying for a lifetime, go ahead and pay differently. I personally plan to live more then the next five years.
This is only my opinion, but if you look at the history of Roon and before that Sooloos, you are looking at 13-14 years of development and at least from what I see, extremely good industry support with continued native Roon Ready support from both legacy and new OEMs and manufacturers.
Nothing is a given in terms of success, but I believe Roon has a lot of runway left as more devices become available within the Roon ecosystem and their metadata integration continues to improve. While I believe the sound quality is excellent, what keeps me pleased with my lifetime subscription (acquired in 2019) is the metadata that allows me to explore and find new music, and the history and links between artists, performers, and the industry.
I’m with @Vincent_Kennedy. I paid for the lifetime and never looked back. I use Roon every day to listen to my own local library and the metadata for classical is superb—better than anyone else on the market, hands down.
I don’t do Qobuz or Tidal (they have awful classical catalogues) so am ok if those ever go away. I only do Idagio but that’s through a separate app.
There is that rumor that Apple will come up with a great classical app (after they bought Primephonic), but that has yet to bear fruit. And even if that comes out and is as good as Roon in their metadata and search for classical, Roon provides so many more benefits for audiophiles that it won’t change the equation for me.
Let me give an example: VisiCalc.
According to history-computer.com - VisiCalc sold over 1 million copies during its existence. That is a MASSIVE number considering how few personal computers there were in existence at the time. VisiCalc was only around for 4-5 years - again, consider how few personal computers were around at the time. Add to that there was no internet at the time as we know it so you couldn’t just download it on a whim. You had to actively seek it out and buy.
Now we have all of these devices Roon Ready, Roon Tested, Roon whatever… let’s forget Sooloos from 2004. Let’s focus on Roon from 2015.
We are approaching 8 years of Roon official. The only data I can find is that Roon has somewhere around 100k users. Lots of devices capable but fewer users/subscribers than a spreadsheet from 40+ years ago when very few people had a PC?
Food for thought…
If you don’t want Roon lifetime, then don’t buy it. You need to decide for yourself. Nobody is trying to convince you to do anything, one way or the other.
We all did the math and made our decision.
Who said anyone was trying to convince me of anything?
Apparently Joshua_Nelson is just now doing the math…
So apparently not EVERYONE has done the math. Not sure who appointed you spokesperson for “everyone”.
I think Roon Inc loves lifetime subs.
I bought lifetime 6 years ago so compared to annual I am ahead. But if I had bough annual I would have cancelled and stopped using Roon a few years ago as I think it’s not competitive (I prefer Plex/Plexamp as it always works and never needs to be fiddled with, works offsite etc.).
When I tried out Roon in 2016 it was such an improvement for my local library relative to what I was using then, and the lifetime cost such a small fraction of all my audio gear, that it was just simpler to pay lifetime and be done with it. All the gear I had then is long gone, replaced by more and better systems. Roon’s staying power proves that that initial investment was a real bargain.
Printers are a good case in point , they are almost disposable these days - use up the free ink cartridges and buy another - well not quite but .
@danny quoted 250 k quite a while back. They are probably hesitant to quote real number as that exposes their financials
That’s not what they are saying
Don’t conflate ‘doing the math’ with ‘guessing the future’…
I’d say Roon is more akin to Excel, not the first but now the defacto standard.
When I was an accountant we dropped out Apple II and VisiCalc for PCs and Excel because of its superior features.
In addition, it makes little sense to make comparisons with the birth of personal computing. VisiCalc was developed by 2 guys within 2 months in winter 1978/79, a preview was shown in May 1979, and the release was in fall of the same year. I.e., this defines the headstart they had over competitors, obviously an amount that was not impossible to overcome for IBM with Lotus 1-2-3.
Nowadays, many mature applications are so entrenched and have such a long headstart that it is very hard to overcome. Not impossible, but there is nothing on the horizon that can challenge Roon, and it’s not a field that Google, Apple, or Microsoft are interested in, so I don’t expect much to change over the next 5 years at least
Roon has previously posted that a lifetime sub will not always be available.
Once that happens, posts like this one will be obsolete.and then one can agonize over a yearly or monthly subscription.
I went from Apple II and VisiCalc to PC and Lotus123 (and sadly later on to Excel; I always thought WordPerfect was better than WORD and Lotus123 better than Excel…sort of Betamax vs VHS issue, with the survivor not being the ‘best’)
There is a short term financial benefit to Roon for someone to pump 5+years worth of revenue into the business up front. In the longer term there might be an issue with a large number of lifers paying nothing and too few monthly or annual subscriptions. That last point was the justification for raising the life rate up from $499 and introducing a monthly rate.
As to the original point made by @anon63794049 when I went lifetime I took a risk but my 5 years comes up in September I believe. But the Maths doesn’t stop there. If I get ten years out of Roon then the monthly cost to me will be lifetime divided by 120. $4.16 at the rate I paid in 2017. $5.83 at the present rate. So it is a simple calculated risk based on how much I like Roon and my confidence that it will be around for a while. Back when I joined I really struggled with the notion of paying 12 months up front. After using Roon for nearly 12 months and gaining confidence in the product and (just as importantly) the team behind it the decision to spend on a lifetime sub was not nearly as big a struggle.
I bought Porsche 911 5 years ago today it’s worth half.
For me Roon goes up in value year over year.
Both products put a smile on my face😎
But you can’t sell roon, you can the Porsche
I bought a lifetime subscription about six years ago. I knew the risk, but I treated it as a upfront contribution to a company that was doing things that I thought were potentially useful. I thought of it like a kickstarter contribution for a young company. And of course it’s now paid off greatly for me.