I never asked for a refund. I asked if Roon has a stated position on how they would respond if they were no longer able to integrate with TIDAL.
When asked what I would like to see them do, I suggested the possibility of a partial refund.
Many of the responses here have been bizarre and needlessly hostile - not to mention completely speculative.
Hostile? Bizarre?
Some of the response could have been friendlier but they were moderated. In my mind, the only bizarre posts have been yours.
You really should operate and make decisions from the assumption that you will never see a refund from Roon if any functionality you rely upon is removed. If that ever happens, you can certainly try to get a refund and you may even get one, but donāt count on it. That way you will never be disappointed.
Otherwise, you have certainly tenderized this dead horse more than enough.
Not sure this is, in fairness, true. Yes, from the perspective of a literal interpretation of the original post, the answer has been given, which is āno.ā So if this were a court of law and the posters were witnesses, the judge would cut anything off after ānoā as being non-responsive to the literal question asked.
However, this isnāt a court of law, itās just a forum where people are allowed to, even asked to, post their thoughts on issues presented. And I think it is fair game to post related rather than directly responsive thoughts. For example, what people would like to see happen, or suggestions around such a circumstance, is not a direct logical response to the question but I donāt see it as out of bounds.
There is a kind of dogma among some of the Roon faithful (word chosen carefully) that any criticism or indication that Roon is not the best thing ever in the history of mankind steps over some boundary. And it even steps over a boundary if the statement is āRoon the software is the best thing since sliced bread but Roon as a business has some work to do.ā
There is a definite feel at times against free expression here. It makes me uncomfortable. As a yearly subscriber I donāt have a direct interest in the outcome of a lifetime purchaser question. But I will chime in when I feel someone is being hushed for no particularly good reason. Thatās not about moderation.
Of course thatās the assumption Iām making. I just donāt understand why people find it so offensive that I would ask if Roon has communicated what they would do in this situation.
These are the behaviours that i have seen countless times in many forums and they are human behaviours. Often Clan like and protective of a personal investment of time, money and effort, not to mention beliefs.
One person has a question, which he is insistant that it gets answered and others are clearly exasperated by its repitition.
Its a forum
We are all human
we have similar interests here.
Just be nice
That is all.
I donāt know that itās repetition of the question so much as repetition of feeling one has to justify asking the question in the first place.
General sequence of eventsā¦
But donāt come back and address the posts in step 2, 3, 4 or 5. This will lead to exasperation. And a repeat of steps 2, 3, 4, 5. Learn your lesson. Apologise profusely for being so silly and donāt do it again.
Seems a fair assessment of forums (not simply this one).
Dogma? Clan-like? Protective? Roon faithful?
What are you guys talking about??? I think the Roon folks here will tell you that I am not some Roon apologist. I am happy to take Roon to task on their shortcomings. Anyway, this thread has nothing to do with how good or bad the Roon product is. Itās not about how good or bad it sounds. Itās not even about how good or bad their business decisions are.
My question is why in the world would Roon refund money to anyone just because Tidal went out of business? Roon does not market Tidal as a ācoreā feature. Access to Tidal by Tidal subscribers is just one feature. Look at their web site. Do you see Tidal plastered all over the place? No, you donāt. Anyone with a brain knows that Roon does not decide if Tidal will be in business tomorrow or three years down the road. This is plain common sense. It is also common sense to figure that Roon is probably not going to give you any kind of refund if Tidal access went away. You certainly could ask, but Roon is not going to come out and offer refunds willy nilly.
I havenāt insisted upon anything. I have pointed out that uninformed responses arenāt particularly helpful to me. I even acknowledged the answer!
I do find it exasperating that people pile on with the same uninformed responses, and treat me as if Iāve done something wrong by asking a question. Iām not continually repeating my question or insisting upon an answer, Iām pointing out the mischaracterizations of my question people have made in the first place!
Your claim that Iāve insisted upon an answer is an example of the exact kind of mischaracterization Iām talking about.
Then perhaps ask that question in a thread of its own? Thereās no need to continue to derail from my question here, which I wonāt repeat lest other members feel exasperated by it.
You mean like me, in my very first post? 
Clearly you canāt ask without offending a bunch of people.
Those without a personal collection who pay a significant sum for Roon to use it exclusively as a front end for Tidal (or another future streaming service) are an odd lot. Akin to sinking thousands of dollars into a house that you are only renting.
AJ
Pat, I apologize if I appeared to jump your bones. My direct answer to your original question is, āRoon has not made its intentions public as far as I know.ā I would advise them never to make such intentions known or to intimate any kind of guarantee outside of their service contract. To do so would be dangerous (for them).
And I would advise you to ignore, or at least deeply discount, any pronouncements Roon may make in the future. Corporations do not always deal truthfully with their public, particularly when they are in desperate times.
Given the tenor of this thread, I would further advise a yearly contract, as you seem particularly risk averse. (And there is nothing wrong with that.)
Pax.
I was suggesting you ask Roon if your hypothetical situation were to ever happen. And when I say ask Roon, I mean privately and not on the forum. Expecting Roon to answer your hypothetical question in public with an answer other than āno, we will not refund any moniesā is folly.
Iāve been called worse than odd 
What makes you feel that Roon is better suited to a personal library? Discovering lost treasures whereas streaming services have their own discovery algorithms? The ability to tag your library and curate it as you see fit and leverage it? You could be right that Roon is better suited to it. Roon still offers smarts over and above the streaming players though.
The other view would be that people with a personal library should be relegated to the āpipe and slippersā brigade. Roon seems to accept that their future is capturing both groups.
Personally I do have a library. Generally stuff that will never make it onto a streaming platform. But even stuff that I own I tend to add from a streamer to try consolidate things as much as possible.
Another could argue that the āpipe and slippersā brigade are the old fools ā not meant in a pejorative way ā wasting their time and money curating streaming service tracks/albums that are by nature ephemeral. Heck, per the title of this thread, even the streaming services themselves may be ephemeral.
And, reportedly, the truly young crowd no longer collects or curates. To them, music is just of the moment ā it comes and it goes.
AJ
Does this mean I should stick a CD in a shredder, shred it half way, frame it and try sell it at auction. Iāll claim itās a deeply meaningful piece of art.
Your assessment was interesting. I think Roon does potentially make more sense to the large personal library group. I guess it is the same as data. Thereās on premise (library) and cloud (streaming) data and itās hard to pivot between them.
Qobuz is interesting. They donāt seem to be taking the āstreaming is cheapā approach.
Thanks for the thought provoking post. Something for the mind to mull over. Iāll go fetch my slippers.
As Neil mentioned above, an equivalent of ānowā is clearly included in the clause via the encoding of present tense. An adequate knowledge of English suffices to substantiate this point. However, you are right that the word ānowā is not explicitly included; it need not be.
Arguing these particulars does no good. Whether or not you understand the language has no bearing on the advertisement and user agreement. This is marketing, not legalese.
Letās not get ahead of ourselves, especially if speaking in such specific terms! Music is ephemeral. Curating a library of digital representations is also prone to expiration. One can only go so far in ensuring the safekeeping of data archives - and we do.
I am among the younger generation that (or am I really getting that old?) collects music, digital and otherwise, and I have done so since my early youth. I detest the notion that the āpipe and slippersā folks are those who invest in streaming services. There are plenty of highly convincing arguments against using such services, especially Spotify, but I contend to the fact that the combined use of TIDAL can really fill out a personal library quite nicely in a system like Roon.
My question for the OP:
You are concerned with the future services of Roon membership, which are themselves unpredictable, especially with respect to TIDAL.
Are you absolutely sure that at a future time, say, the time when Roon no longer includes TIDAL, you will not have changed your perspective on owning your own library?
If the answer is no, then perhaps you have another reason to stick around with a lifetime license. Note that if one does not categorically exclude the possibility of building a personal library at some time in the future, the value of a Roon subscription rises.
This is not primarily intended as a set of arguments to convince you to collect digital music, rather, I wanted to note that through focusing on the ability to determine your own future wrt accessing music, you have a way of hedging against this prospective loss of Roonās value, and thereby need worry yourself that much less about the unpredictable future states that lie outside of your control.
(Sorry for the double post, folks, I havenāt yet been able to figure out how to utilize the quotation functionality on mobile.)
Tidal had an outage about 3 weeks ago. I was really glad that 60% of my collection is local. Then last weekend we had a power outage after a wind storm, and even after the power went on, Comcast Internet didnāt get their service back up and running for another 2-3 days. I canāt imagine having no access to a reasonable variety of music during such periods.
I understand that the streaming generation just has a different view of media ownership and that my DVD and Blu-Ray collection, CD collection, vinyl collection, even book collection are becoming obsolete. But I also think that they are a little complacentā¦it really only works because not everyone uses the Internet to the max capacity in the house. I donāt think it will be quite the same when all living generations only stream everything.
And while I am not a survivalist with a bomb shelter in his back yard, I do think our current infrastructure is not as stable or protected as people seem to assume, and that a prolonged inability to access streaming is a real possibility.
Point being, I would recommend that people have some level of local collection.
I subscribed to Tidal Premium for access to out of print classical and jazz music. I use Tidal for discovery, for example, the Live From Here guests that have published recordings. If I like what I hear, I buy the CD and make my own FLAC lossless transfer using XLD on an iMac. Apple AAC is a lot like a '70s Phase Linear 700 to my ears, brittle and amusical. I have very little Apple tracks as a result and donāt like Apple streaming. But thatās my 70 year old ears spoiled by Parasound, GAS, and Dhalqist classic audio.
If TIDAL were to fail, I would continue to use Roon. The only way to be in control of your library is to own physical media and make your own playback transfers. No music disappears when you cross boarders!
have you ever worked with cubos? I did and I donāt like it! App is a pain in the ass, music is to small based and so on. In app buys, some titels allow only streaming for just 30 seconds and bad blues base also
Forget about i itā¦ my humble opinion
Cheers
Armin
P.S. to keeps Tidal alvie Iām ready to pay 30 buck per monthā¦
I spend every month much more money then this in cigars, wine and schnapsā¦ Iām ready to pay for the right musicā¦
you know some one without a veritable cd collection? 
Cheers
Armin