I guess it’s a question of the value proposition to any given individual.
I don’t know the total Roon subscriber numbers, but I’m going to take a wild guess that the active members of this forum represent a small fraction of the total user base. Much in the same way, the active members of this thread represent a small fraction of the total number of active forum members.
There are thousands of Roon users out there who would absolutely benefit from a turnkey solution and that is the target market for ROCK. Hell, I’m very technically savvy and I have zero interest in managing another computer to run the Roon core, nor do I have any desire to run the core on my primary desktop.
I have a significant number of Roon users who do not post on this forum and the vast majority of them never come here for support. Instead, they call me directly and I help them through whatever problem they may have. In these cases something like ROCK will be a godsend as I no longer need to be concerned with any strangeness that may be going on with their computer. For my clients it will be an appliance that sits there and does what it’s supposed to do. Given that a large portion of my customers fear stepping into the world of file-based playback and streaming something like ROCK has a huge perceived value. They don’t need to know anything about how to make the box work other than how to copy music files into and out of it.
What’s interesting about this thread is that ROCK was never promoted as a must-have for any Roon user. It was just a means to create a highly reliable and efficient Roon core for those who want a turn-key solution. Nothing more than that. Some have made assumptions and inferred benefits that were never even hinted at and that, unfortunately, has led to a lot of confusion.
There are some very cool features in ROCK which may prompt some who are on the fence to take the plunge. I think the Roon guys have learned not to hint at features so it’s likely that little more will be made public until ROCK is ready for release.
While I know the wait has been frustrating the product has evolved significantly in the past 8 weeks. While it may not be for everyone it’s shaping up to be a very well-considered product for a large number of Roon users.