This is incorrect. We have paid millions to TiVo for licensing this data. This data is absolutely not free for commercial use. While some of the data may be public domain, the collection of data is not. Some of the data is very much copyrighted, such as album covers, photography, lyrics, and all the reviews/bios. In fact, it gets massively complicated, as different entities own the copyright in different geographic regions, so where the content is viewed can impact who is paid and how much.
We use data from many sources, not just Rovi. They mostly cost us. Hell, even “free and public” MusicBrainz costs us. It’s not terribly expensive, but it’s not free for commercial use (the way we use it).
We actually mention this explicitly in our privacy policy which you agree to when you start Roon the first time. We log where you are and what you viewed, so we can indeed pay those copyright owners.
It’s a recurring cost, repeated every month, determined by usage of core decodes.
There are only so many bios and reviews that have been licensed for redistribution. Multiple data sources have the same reviews and bios. Remember, all those must be negotiated with the copyright holder (the author usually). The difference in Roon is that we show you more than word to word what someone wrote.
Support, updates, bug fixes, etc. Yes, even bug fixes. If you buy software outright, you have to deal with any issues. Did you forget what it was like long before SaaS? Updates for bugfixes weren’t free. SaaS has made software better because software developers all chase that renewal.
Plus, our cloud services that power recommendations, radio, etc… We ingest terabytes of data daily from labels, from metadata services, and from the streaming providers. All that cpu, storage, and bandwidth costs us daily.
The only reason we don’t lose money on most life timers is because they buy other things (gift codes, Nucleus), and do referrals.