How much longer will Roon offer a lifetime subscription?

What about when you die? Can you pass a lifetime subscription on to your heirs?

Of course not; itā€™s your lifetime, not the serviceā€™s lifetime. It isnā€™t a refrigerator.

I guess you were joking?

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you sure itā€™s not for the life of the product or your life which ever ends first? :stuck_out_tongue:

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Seems a bit unfair. I could buy it today and drop dead tomorrow.

You could subscribe for an annual contract for Qobuz and drop dead tomorrow.
So whatā€™s your point?

If the only deathbed regret you have is that you didnā€™t get your money out of your Roon subscription, then youā€™ve already had a fair life.

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Then again, Roon will have no way of knowing that Iā€™ve died - I can hardly tell them - and my wife knows my passwords and could easily pass them on to her heirs ., so a lifetime Roon subscription might actually endure several lifetimes ā€¦

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30 days money back :money_mouth_face: but you still canā€™t take it with you :tired_face:

In heaven everyone has golden ears and unlimited audiophile quality streamingā€¦in the other place you get MP3 and MQA :flushed:

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Hmm, you reading this, @danny? :laughing:

Seems like cheating. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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You will want to make sure that your death is not officially noted by any regulatory body or press, e.g., coroners, IRS, newspapers.

If you do that, your heirs can rip off Roon until eternity. And you, looking down on this, can laugh and laugh.

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This thread will be the death of me.

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What a strange turn this thread has takenā€¦ Pretty sure that if I drop dead today my family will continue to use Roon (well, up to the point where the PC running Roon stops working :wink:

Pretty sure Roon Labs is not losing any sleep over this use case.

Iā€™m pretty sure the terms and conditions donā€™t require one to log out just before taking their terminal breath :rofl:

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Donā€™t forget to tell your family (with your dying breath) to keep the e-mail active that you used for Roon registration.:smirk:

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Iā€™m pretty sure that all my PC, s will die first.

If I were Roon, and I am not, I would look to pull lifetime at some feature milestone. Iā€™m not sure what that magic milestone is but hereā€™s why I say thisā€¦

Right now Roon is a good product but what it does is not entirely unique and, while there are a lot of Roon ready devices, they are still nowhere near the brand penetration of Sonos, Airplay, and other multi-room streaming protocols. Basically, having a lifetime subscription is a differentiating feature that says ā€œif you invest in us with your time and money weā€™ll stay with you with an endless stream of software updates/featuresā€. That investment we make includes selecting from a limited set of Roon Ready gear and an even more limited set of plug & play Core devices. But the software flexibility to roll your own is really good.

Every other company went the other way. They put the gear out first and said ā€œbuy our gear and weā€™ll probably keep the software updated (as long as you keep buying more gear)ā€.

So, if lifetime is a ā€œfeatureā€ because of the unique positioning of a software company competing with hardware companies then Iā€™d expect that feature to get replaced at some point. The replacement feature would have to be some differentiating feature that locks you in as strong as lifetime and unique enough that it would be difficult for other companies to pull off. Something like trusted metadata (edits) where you can tell Roon which users you trust and then your Core would pull in edits from those users. Roon is the closest software Iā€™ve seen to being able to do this. Then, instead of having to offer a lifetime sub, youā€™d stick around because it was the only way to keep that trusted metadata.

I agree with @c2c2c2 that Roon should be looking to pull the lifetime soon. They are reaching a large enough customer base that it makes sense to start transitioning to a more predictable monthly cash flow which can only happen via a renewing subscription model. But what feature would replace lifetime?

Mobile

/10char

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I think we should leave it to Roon to decide what they want to do with their business model. But FWIW, I wonā€™t be paying a recurring annual subscription for anything if I can help it.

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I agree. I started buying lifetime subs for games and of those purchased have only really regretted it once. Otherwise, all have ended up being cheaper in the long run.

For some reason buying a lifetime membership feels counterproductive to me. There is something about ā€œlifetimeā€, ā€œsubscription and ā€œsoftwareā€ in the same sentence that sounds like a terrible investment to my ears. :slight_smile:

This however is not my point. The software industry is one that evolves rapidly. Just take notice of the available Hi-Fi software solutions around today. To me itā€™s a bad investment if you are in for the best possible user experience. This is because, like the OP, I believe that in the long run an annual fee is way more sustainable for an established software developer than a lifetime subscription. I am not in to the Hi-Fi hobby to safe money, because letā€™s be frank this is a bloody #@&Ā£Ā„$ expensive hobby.
To me an annual subscription of $119 for such an awesome and sophisticated audio experience (1.6 aside) is a no-brainer. I much rather back the developer as well as I can to be part of a sustainable product with a healthy community.

Also, I donā€™t want to be held back shopping somewhere else because of a running lifetime subscription which has yet to reach itā€™s break-even point. In my opinion this also keeps companies honest.

Just my two cents!

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