Joel - I think reasonable that I (lifetime susbscriber here) would need to pay which extra which should at the least recover costs incurred on new software and R&D development - MQA is patented delivery solution for audio and I have no issues from them expecting licensing fees to recover costs and create an additional revenue stream
The issue is I suspect is that not all Roon clients would commit to pay extra for the MQA solution - I hope there business model where we can pay like a “add-on” fee for additional features, however this maybe problematic as it may not be sufficiently economic for both you and MQA in terms of numbers of users paying.
How much would I pay? I would be happy to pay a figure that is equal to paying for a new MQA enabled DAC or more if I can play it via Devialet (happy not to have MQA in my musical fidelity DAC in the other room). But I do respect that it has to be commercially viable business model for both ROON and MQA and I think the economics maybe better with passage of time with customer demand - TIDAL streaming has been an excellent boost for MQA branding in the broad sense. I am waiting to see how the market unfolds before I make my spend in this area, suffice to say I think it is best hi fidelity solution which incorporates streaming which is absolutely brilliant in my opinion (muck like watching 4K content on Netflix as opposed to blu ray player) - I rarely listen to my large SACD / DVD-A collection and can’t wait to listen to this on TIDAL.