Lifetime price increase, $499 -> $699

To say that this thread has run its course seems like the understatement of the year!

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I am a happy annual subscriber who would defend the new pricing model. Danny’s posts offer a honest and clear explanation about the rationale behind that decision. For me personally the 119€ for Roon, the ~300€ Qubuz Sublime Plus, the fire insurance etc. are natural yearly expenses, such as is the annual bonus from the employer. I stick to the “one brioche and a coffee per day” metaphor; for me it’s worth every penny. On the other hand, I have the full flexibility to change trains at any time, given the situation I would become unhappy with Roon and all the HiFi stuff.

However, I am not an advocate against the complainers in the thread, simply because I am not affected by a price rise of an option which I am not interested in. I am sure that quite a lot of customers are in similar situation like me and just keep silent on that matter. That does not mean that they would not defend the rise.

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It is one thing when you’re changing the price that much without prior notice to customers. I asked two Nucleus dealers and they weren’t pre-informed as well, the same surprise as for customers. Now if I was a business partner of Roonlabs I would really question this way of communication. Roon could‘ve done better than this.

For the sake of puzzle solving, I wonder how Roon could’ve gone about it differently? Roon had the need to not give forewarning in order to not have a gold rush on Lifetime subscriptions. Some customers feel slighted by the lack of forewarning. These are diametrically opposed needs or wants. If the ship was sailing in that direction no matter what, how could’ve it been handled differently? Is it just a matter of how the shift was communicated? What would be a professional PR spin to preemptively ease the situation taking two things as fact, that there would be no forewarning, and a segment would be offended by that?

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I tend to think the yearly subscription fee will also be increased sooner than later.

For nearly 4+ years, we have spoken intenrnally about raising the price of the lifetime (or killing it) and about lowering the price of the annual (or maybe something else cheaper).

We finally got around to raising the lifetime after so long. I hope it doesn’t take is another 4 to do something about the annual.

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Great. Now when you reduce the price of the annual we’ll have a whole thread of disgruntled people who renewed their annual “last month, two months ago” etc.

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Remind me why people who haven’t even bought something have a right to say what it should cost?

It’s great that Danny and others at Roon are so approachable via this forum, and a pity that people use that opportunity to offer all sorts of unsolicited advice about how to do business.

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Not to mention people who would see the value of their lifetime subscription as having been eroded.

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Well, you will need a strategy to wring more Juice out of the actual “lifetimers”

To be honest when I finally got round to looking at roon seriously earlier this year - the lifetime pricing was a bit of a no-brainer, I could not see how a lifetime subscription would be sustainable so from my perspective the increase in the lifetime cost was a surprise but more from the perspective that you continue to offer it. If I was in the looking at it now I would still buy, even at $700. It is a great product which costs money to keep running and enhance - someone has to pay for it. As with all software and services it is not perfect but definitely worth the cost. I guess I am in the lucky position of having spent the $500 earlier this year and I am not now looking at $700 - if at the time I had looked the only option was the regular subscription I am sure I would have gone ahead - the advantage from a customer perspective is only committing a small amount of money in one go and can bail out whenever you like…

Good luck and keep up the great work !

Paul

I have put my view earlier on, I am a yearly subscriber and have no worries about the price hike. I did see someone mention that it would be a good idea to give a discount for a lifetime sub for someone who bought a Nucleus or Nucleus +. I concur and think this a good compromise, 1500 quid is no small change and a lifetime membership heavily discounted would, I imagine not lower profits dramatically for Roon. Something worth considering perhaps? Certainly, I would be very interested.

I must admit, I am still considering a lifetime sub, I just hope I can last 5 years, mind, if I kept it yearly and never made the 5th year, who’d be laughing then.

have any ideas?

You might introduce a fee for using MQA.

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Hm.

This sort of illustrates the problem for companies like roonlabs: People are willing to throw huge amounts of money at hardware. But software: Not so much. No perceived value, obviously.

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Ever thought of selling concert tickets? You know what music we each listen to, you know where we live, you should be able to recommend us gigs nearby and make some money out of ticket sales and support live music and musicians.

in the US, there is no money here… the entire industry is locked up by Ticketmaster et al… even BandsInTown and SongKick don’t make any money off the actual tickets – the money is all in ads.

There is a new player, Eventbrite, which has gone for the smaller venues (bars, etc…) – but there is very little to share.

We’ve been in talks with some of the players noted above and heard the same thing from all.

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That’s like 3’s of dollars.

Why not consider lifetimers as early investors (which they actually are). Everybody was free to join, but all I’ve seen here were threads along the line of “will roon be in the market long enough”.

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You could develop a fee based room correction system like Dirac. Something that fits Roon.
I would pay extra for that.

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