You’re correct if there’s no refund. The ‘solution’ provided by Danny is nothing more than creating the illusion you’ve paid for a year, and then your lifetime subscription will begin (which you’ve already paid for as well). But even if the lifetime subscription were to begin right now, you wouldn’t know the difference in terms of money spent. You are correct there, I didn’t think that one through. lol
However, suppose you’re 2 months into your yearly subscription, and you’re moving on to the lifetime one. That still means you’ve paid the full yearly amount for just 2 months of Roon happiness. Someone with a monthly subscription would only have paid for 2 months, so he’d loose less money for the exact same product and time period, which is Roon forever.
One could argue that this is due to your own failure to make an early decision for a lifetime subscription. If you sign a one-year contract for any other service, you can’t easily bail out while you’re 2 months in. Same goes for Roon. BUT… the thing here is: you base your decision on the pricing of that exact moment. Your thought process might have been: “I’ll pay for a yearly subscription, wait for a year, see if I like the product, and then pay for the lifetime subscription”. If you’d known in advance that the lifetime subscription price would be much higher next year, you might have gone for a monthly subscription. Your ‘way out’ here (or better: ROON’s way out!) is to pay for the lifetime subscription right now (for the lower price), but that ruins the original thought process. And ROON is happy, since they’ve bound you to their service for a lifetime, they got money for a lifetime subscription AND for the 10 months remainder of the yearly subscription. Now, there’s a thought.
I may well have left already if they had, but unlikely. I judge how an increase is managed regardless and would have commented if felt it was excessive if done yearly. I expect things to raise inline with inflation so you don’t get these big hikes like this although this year would have seen a huge hike regardless I feel. I am not against an increase Roon has to make a profit to survive and pay its employees a decent salary. I said this but to say it’s trivial is just not true it is large one off increase and that makes it harder to swallow especially when the QoS is not rising inline with it. I missed out the large elephant in the room, that I now can’t use the product when my internet is down which does makes me look hard and long if it’s is the product for me. It’s not what I originally signed up for that’s for sure.
It would make more sense to actually charge the $699 at the end of the current annual subscription. People would feel much better about it.
2 Likes
AceRimmer
(Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast!)
338
Totally understand and I have been sans Roon for a week myself as my internet went down with the last hurricane here.
But although I have found many ways to keep playing music( besides my physical media) still none offer the same in house convenience and completeness of Roon.
So…I will be likely going for the lifetime before the end of the year.
But that’s just me, obviously everyone use case will be different and they have to weigh up their options individually.
Yes, of course. You spent $100 you didn’t need to spend. Or, $120 had you gone lifetime two months ago. But, you can’t change your past decisions. Go for lifetime now at US$699.99 if you want to before the price goes up.
Jack Welch, the boss of General Electric, died fairly recently. But back in 1985, when he was young and healthy, he had a heart attack. Big crisis, doctors operated twice, the priest gave him the last rites, somebody asked him, what are you thinking now? What are your last words?
Have to say that is true. Hopefully ROON with some added income due to the price increase will get back to the behavior that once made it stand out. Quick user feedback, highly committed to bug fixing etc.
When I see what they did with ROON radio for example and leaving it for years half-finished, that’s definitely not the standard they were used to achieve.
Raising the subscribtion price? When I would get $ 0,05 for every time the Roon app in my iPad Air crashes I would have the subscribtion for free.
You might get the notion that I would like to pay for the subscribtion when it is fully functional.
None of the other apps on my iPad crash so it might be Roon who has to solve this issue.
I look forward for crash free software first.
KR, Edwin
Hi Edwin, nobody forces us to use Roon. That is the point of trial, see if you can like it, with ups and downs and if you are willing to pay. Today in a 45 minutes walk ARC did crash 7 times. But it is no big deal for me. The benefits are bigger. But that is not a rule. So everybody has to judge for their own. I get your frustration and if I could not take it I would just cancel my subscription. My best friend still uses Spotify, no crash and free.
If you’re an energy company declaring profits in the UK, you’re going to get stiffed from next April by the windfall tax. A little short-sighted IMO. Energy companies are expected to invest in low carbon renewables. Kinda tricky if the government has stolen most of your profits.
Not wishing to stir the pot, is your network properly sorted? I’ve not had a single issue with Roon in ~2 years of membership. I’m on totally Android, herself totally Apple.
I appreciate that they’re making a metric F***-ton of money right now. We want to persecute them for record profits, yet they got no support when making record losses. BTW, I have no affiliation with the energy industry. Swings and roundabouts…
Same goes for Roon. BUT… the thing here is: you base your decision on the pricing of that exact moment. Your thought process might have been: “I’ll pay for a yearly subscription, wait for a year, see if I like the product, and then pay for the lifetime subscription”. If you’d known in advance that the lifetime subscription price would be much higher next year, you might have gone for a monthly subscription. Your ‘way out’ here (or better: ROON’s way out!) is to pay for the lifetime subscription right now (for the lower price), but that ruins the original thought process. And ROON is happy, since they’ve bound you to their service for a lifetime, they got money for a lifetime subscription AND for the 10 months remainder of the yearly subscription. Now, there’s a thought. 
