What happens with the lifetime subscribers if the company folds or is sold?

[Grump]

Are you aware that Tidal and Qobuz offer hi-res streaming for quite some time now, including — for example — almost the entire ECM catalogue?

[rrwwss52 (Robert)]

There is no direct answer yet? Some hints, but nothing direct.

[Tony_Reimann]

I doubt you will get a direct answer from Roon. If I was them I would consider it commercially sensitive information.

[Christoph_Longree]

I have to say that the plain fact of knowing that I will still be able to use Roon in the latest developed form in the rather unlikely case the company ceases to exist already comforts me as a lifetime member… the thought of missing out on this great software, should it become unavailable due to a ceased company, already lets me appreciate the invest.

But - more than this - I really think it is extremely unlikely that the company fails - there are way too many connections between big players in the hardware section and other benefits… so many products that advertise to be “Roon Ready” etc… many interests out there in keeping this product alive… also - in the also unlikely case Tidal should cease to exist (a rumor that has been going on for years and always proven wrong) there will be alternative streaming services that can be integrated…

No worries at all here - just a happy lifetime subscriber…

[Sander_vg]

Thanks for the responses! I see the argument of the connection with major hardware providers. I’m still hoping on a response from a Roon representative. Even if they are not willing to comment, I would appreciate that response.

[Henry_McLeod (Henry)]

Then ask them. Actually copy them in on this.

[mdconnelly (Michael)]

It would be fascinating to know what current percent of Roon users also use Tidal. I, for one, do not (being the music collecting dinosaur that I am ;-). But having bought a lifetime subscription to Roon nearly 3 years ago, my confidence in their long-term business strategy has only improved. Qobuz is about to be brought on board and I have no doubt Roon Labs has numerous other tricks up their sleeves for the future.

[RodS (Nuts)]

I do not use Tidal, have 2.5k cds ripped to Nas and about the same number of L.P’s.
That will take quite a while to get through.

[garym]

I’m confused on what they could actually say other than what they’ve already said about releasing a final version not dependent on “cloud” checking on our subscription status so we could continue to use Roon for local music.

Almost any company expects to survive and prosper. And no bankrupt company gives refunds.

I’ve already received full benefit of my lifetime subscription even if they go out of business tomorrow given the annual fee. I’m now in pure benefit phase for every month they survive.

[Christoph]

I have to say that the plain fact of knowing that I will still be able to use Roon in the latest developed form in the rather unlikely case the company ceases to exist already comforts me as a lifetime member… the thought of missing out on this great software, should it become unavailable due to a ceased company, already lets me appreciate the invest.

This is exactly what made me pull the Trigger for lifetime when after I initially opened this thread in October 2015, Danny Dulai, COO of roon confirmed that I can keep using roon in the last developement state, even if roon ceases to exist

[Christoph_Longree]

Considering streaming will be around for a long long time you really can’t go wrong… I actually find it more likely that Roon will abandon the lifetime option sometime in the future - as it would certainly bring more Money to the company… or - to put it the other way - lifetime subscription really is a bargain when u look at it on the long run…

… so now - with the information we already have - I would be more worried about not having pulled the trigger on the lifetime subscription while it was still available

[StefanB (Stefan)]

I have to say that the plain fact of knowing that I will still be able to use Roon in the latest developed form in the rather unlikely case the company ceases to exist already comforts me as a lifetime member

This is interesting. Since I once asked prior making up my mind about which license to go for.
My knowledge till now is …roon does work as long as the core gets informed from roon’s license server that the account got a valid license.
This will be impossible if there’s no license server, or if a non-lifetime-licence timed out.
Would be nice if someone from @support could give a clear statement, since it’ll be a MAJOR argument for or against a lifetime license.

[Henry_McLeod (Henry)]

A clear statement has been given. It is in this very thread.

The Roon team was formed out of the ashes of the Sooloos team, founded over 10 years ago. We still run infrastructure for the Sooloos users that we first signed up in 2006. We are in this for the long haul. We haven’t taken external funding, and we’ve turned down buy-out offers already. This company, this product, is our lives, our love, and we plan to be here for a very long time.

Obviously I can’t tell what will happen in the future, but it would leave a very poor taste in my mouth if our lifetimers were not taken care of… for life

And:

Yah, I get it. So right now, the application obviously logs in to our cloud services, for both metadata and membership checking.

In the unlikely event that we could not maintain those services, we would release one last build that would kill those dependencies, so you could continue to use the application without our infrastructure as a requirement. Obviously the functionality would be reduced, but it would work.

These statements were made back in October 2015 and nothing has changed as far as we know. On the basis of that I went for lifetime part of the way through my first year.

[danny (Danny Dulai)]

Would be nice if someone from @support could give a clear statement

@StefanB – see above at @Henry_McLeod’s post.

[StefanB (Stefan)]

@danny my advice is then to put this into https://roonlabs.com/pricing.html since it’s not obvious at all to upcoming/new users. Not to me in fact.

It’s pretty common that if you subscribe to a service it’ll last until the service provider will be gone (no matter what might have ever caused this). Had this way to often in the past.

From your lines I get it’ll end up similar to MusicIP which became reduced in functionality since their servers quit down, but the software on it’S own remained full functional locally with the foreseable limitations.

Think I’ll put the ‘upgrade for a lifetime license’ on my wishlist 4 santa then
(wife being my personal santa, haha)

thanks a lot for getting this explained …

[Edward12 (Banned: Toxic behavior)]

If Tidal folds , for me so does Roon

Which begs the question, when Roon goes out of business will the software still work?

All the metadata and other features? Not being open source means it can’t live on like LMS/Squeezelite.

[Vectra]

There is a statement on what happens if Roon closes. They would close the need for internet connection and Roon would work as is disconnected.

You can also export some of the metadata in Roon to your files

[Carl]

Hi,

I’ve merged your post into the existing topic.
See Danny’s post higher up in this topic.

What happens with the lifetime subscribers if the company folds or is sold?

Yah, I get it. So right now, the application obviously logs in to our cloud services, for both metadata and membership checking. In the unlikely event that we could not maintain those services, we would release one last build that would kill those dependencies, so you could continue to use the application without our infrastructure as a requirement. Obviously the functionality would be reduced, but it would work.

[Sloop_John_B (John B)]

What happens to Roon lifetime subscribers if

• Apple folds ?
• Microsoft folds ?
• Linux folds
• Intel folds
• Ben Folds folds?

Can Danny et al ensure us that Roon will still work on iPad’s, and PCs if this happens?

If not the least I think Roon should do is give free lifetime membership to everyone on the forum with a moan quotient of 1.76325 or below.

where v is the average amount of words per post, F is the amount of times the words bug, folder support or UPnP are mentioned. M is the ratio of positive to negative comments in a members posts, and L is the 1/emojis used per post.

.sjb