Cash flow is not improved by one-off receipts.
Cash-flow is improved by one-off receipts. Future cash-flow is not.
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It seems that many people who thought $499 was too expensive for a lifetime subscription now think $699 is too expensive. While that shouldn’t surprise anyone, I’m guessing that most of those who avoided the $499 price were never going to buy a lifetime plan. If they were, the usual life lesson apples: wait long enough and the prices of just about everything increase.
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A post was merged into an existing topic: What happens with the lifetime subscribers if the company folds or is sold?
Surely the decent thing Roon should do would be to allow current annual subscribers to upgrade to lifetime at the $499 rate? New subsribers will only know the new pricing model. Where has this arbitrary 30 days grace come from? Personally I feel cheated. It was intention to upgrade to lifetime when I took receipt of my new system, a KEF LS50W, just last week! I appeal to Roon rethink your approach here. Thanks
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Why is this the ‘the decent thing’?
The COO has explained that making that offer will compromise the business cash flow. It could then:
- Put the livelihood of his employees at risk.
- Constrain Roon’s ability to develop the product for improved utility.
- Threaten the future viability of the product for all Roon users, including those who choose to maintain the annual fee.
What he’s done is made the responsible but unpopular decision to put the aforementioned considerations ahead of short term gains. One could argue it’s selfish to ask Roon to do otherwise to placate the feelings of users that couldn’t make a timely decision. I really don’t think that’s the case. But sometimes doing the right thing will cheese people off. That’s the downside of being a C-suite executive.
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Imminently reasonable and completely understandable / we have had so many add ons since being a ~"lifetime"subscriber i am glad that there is proposition which makes both the business model sustainable and provides an opportunity for “lifetime” subscribers to participate in not only continuing enjoying the benefits of Roon software development but providing “lifetime” members to contribute somewhat to the business / personally I am.of the view that this increase is still dis~proportional to what Roon has contributed in terms of audio experience usurped by me in terms of enjoyment as compared to the labour hours contributed by the Roon team
I disagree, it was already too expensive.
Now is insane for a software that is target for entertainment.
I hope someone start a open source free app as happened with XBMC and then turn KODI.
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Can you list some examples? I’m curious to how companies screw this up.
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Danny my experience with Roon has been fabulous so far, I have turned a few folks onto it.
With that said, I joined in July and am still sorting out my system configuration in regards to Roon core servers. I was planning on moving to the lifetime subscription at the difference to the full $499 cost(so roughly $400-420 total) after that was done. I understand the need to decrease for the lifetime overall but we are just asking for a small window for existing users(e.g. 30 days) versus the no notice approach. If we(newer users) miss that window then shame on us.
Thanks,
JC
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When a business opts for lifetime pricing at the outset, there will always be pain when changing the lifetime pricing or eliminating it outright at some later point when the company is fiscally solid and not burning cash on development and customer acquisition.
Roon’s pain is exacerbated by two factors I believe. One, the lifetime pricing was always too low. That’s not judgement in hindsight either. I believe both annual and lifetime pricing hasn’t changed until now, so the delta risk that a lifetime subscriber was taking on was $380, which is 320% or just over 3 years at annual rates. Everyone was risking at least $119. Many lifetime subscribers got in at $449, so the risk was even less for those early adopters. It was much too cheap, especially because Roon was a very polished 1.0 release (that everyone was able to fully test for 30 days). It wasn’t a half-baked launch like something like Google Stadia is today. Roon 1.0 was 80% of what it is today, if not more.
Second, they’ve let the lifetime option last far too long. 4 years past launch to offer a lifetime subscription for a product that is mature, and has been for sometime, is unnecessary.
The combination of these two creates some of discomfort between Roon and it’s annual customers. A lot of that just is the nature of the beast. This is business. There will always be unhappy customers.
However, there is one thing that doesn’t really pass the smell test and why I agree that some of the anger is justified. Neither of the two reasons offered as to why lifetime pricing is still in effect make any sense.
The easier one to debunk is the bundled lifetime with hardware. There’s no reason those can’t go on independent of this decision. I didn’t do a lot of research on what products lifetime is available with, but I believe most of these are in the $5000+ bracket at minimum. This is a small, probably immaterial, subset of Roon customers and I would guess most subscribers are not even aware of these offers. Roon could have easily allowed that to continue while discontinuing direct lifetime plans. This explanation makes ZERO sense to me and I find it to be an excuse.
The day-to-day cash flow reasons are at odds with what the realities are. How many lifetime sales are they going to make now? Not many. If that difference in cash is the reason to maintain the offer I’d worry about the fiscal health of Roon. Not only that, they also say they don’t want lifetime subscribers. Keeping the plan at $699 also makes no sense.
Roon has made a sensible business decision but they want to have their cake and eat it too. Fair would have been to discontinue lifetime immediately as they continually have indicated they would. If they had done that I don’t think anyone could have taken offense to the decision. As currently offered, the customer anger is justified and earned.
- I am an early adopter at the discounted lifetime pricing, and happy user of the product. Even while not being impacted by the pricing change, I am disappointed in Roon’s decision making process.
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down the pay per use annual licence to $ 99 and nobody else cry about increased $$ on lifetime … another black fiday ? 
nice work Roon… I’m a lifetime subscriber…
Mediamonkey; dBpoweramp. Albeit they’re charging 24.95, so you have to take in context.
I think the reason I feel differently than you is because I see Roon’s lens and customer lenses as being one and the same. I certainly don’t feel that way in all cases and for any company. Many companies in fact try to squeeze their customers as much as possible. I just don’t get that feeling about Roon management. They have created an exceptional product at a reasonable price. I want them to thrive and continue to improve the product. That takes more resources than most people realize.
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It’s a niche product at a boutique price…
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That’s a nice way to put it, Mike. In real estate we say that a home is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. We put the value in products. Roon is definitely niche because it’s not for everyone. I don’t see the price as high because I find value in it. No doubt that would be different for those that do not.
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??? Nope. Games have been running on subscriptions for nearly 20 years. As well as having a limited Lifetime purchase. But with Games, the lifetime does not include add-ons or extra micro-transactions.
Being a pedant - you don’t own your tracks - only the right for you to play them
It’s all well and good. Just poorly implemented. Current subscribers ought to be given a small window to upgrade at the price quoted when the annual license was purchased.
Obviously, Roon does not care. They will allow everyone to complain until we get tired of doing so. They’ve accepted they will lose a percentage of customers over this. And they’ll move forward.
Roon gets low style points for handling it this way at all, much less during Black Friday week. Unless there’s a huge wave of feedback, they will stay the course.
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@danny has given sound business reasons for this decision. And he makes sense.
I’m getting slightly irritated about all the sourpuss’ posting on this thread 
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