What you refer to as ”elitism”, i refer to as catering for a specific customer group.
Why my friends aren’t using Roon? Basically because it is still too complex to setup. It has absolutely nothing to do with cost and whether Roon can be leased of purchased.
With the risk of being ”elitist”, Roon costs less that the average power cable in my friends setups. Of course i am talking about those in my social habitat that care about how music sounds, not merely that it does…
Maybe current subscribers can invite friends with a longer trial code…maybe 30/45/60 days? get your friends hooked with a decent trial…poison them so speak with the roon cool aid 
If people want friends to subscribe to Roon you need to understand what’s stopping them. This will be different in every case.
Have they ripped their CD library yet, Can you help them get that process going in a practical and advisory way? It’s a daunting task for the uncommitted newcomer.
Do they have any decent Hi Fi, do they even want any? I know plenty of music lovers who don’t have a stick of Hi Fi equipment. They go to gigs and play CD’s in the car, that’s it for them. Roon is not for them just now.
Are they seeing value in subscribing to Tidal as an addition to or instead of their music library? If they haven’t ripped a library of music Tidal could be the answer for now. No ripping to do, no drives to maintain etc. But for them, the Tidal app may we’ll be enough.
Personally I think Roon will only appeal to the enthusiast who will qualify themselves by already having invested in some listening equipment and content. If people won’t do this, they won’t buy Roon, they are just not that interested.
If people have invested in Hi Fi previously, they will see the value for sure in most cases. Here I advise letting your friends experience Roon for themselves.
Once you have overcome the above and a library ripped, Roon is a no brainier. IMHO.
Thoughts Chris
Certainly one must have a reasonable library of ones own to contemplate a server / library program.
Otherwise most are satisfied with iTunes, Spotify, Tidal etc - as these options natively support mobile and home use equally (this is where roon has to catch up) - even Synology and probably QNAP have apps that can stream to local or mobile phones/computers) and for the most part can stream to HiFi (Airplay etc) or other speaker systems at worst case BlueTooth connections.
As much as we would like to believe most people are not audiophiles or even for that matter hifi enthusiasts, despite listening to tunes either at home or on the go.
I have friends in all camps and some are holding off due to time to get a window for a decent trial, don’t have the inclination to have a server or even others who are musician friends who have had enough of music all day and don’t want to listen to more when they get home 
Happy customers make for great marketeers. I like the idea that an existing customer could issue an “invite” to family and friends that would get them special treatment - a longer trial period or perhaps an initial slight discount. I’ve seen other online businesses leverage this approach quite successfully. Of course, it would only work for those that would benefit from using Roon, but who would know better and help them get started than a friend or family member.
Could not agree more. It was a long time ago for me when I ripped all of my CDs and every one that I purchased after that was immediately ripped and then put up collecting dust hence forward.
I always had a high end sound card with a very good pair of speakers. My problem was 2 fold. 1 was my rips are WAV files. Roon handles these files excellently. 2 was having access throughout my house through a common architecture. WAV files eliminated a lot of options for me.
MD
If I was to follow the path of the replies to this thread, I would give you the ridiculously glib response that it’s the easiest thing in the world to set up, and that set up has been discussed in another thread. 
It’s a shame this discussion didn’t really focus on the interesting topic of why our friends may or may not be using Roon.
I’ve shown it to quite a few friends who are really into music - a few working professionally in the industry in various roles - and yet none of them have tried it despite being quite enthusiastic about it and me sending them the information…
I think cost is just one of a few key reasons, which might be worth a proper grown up discussion in the future…
When some would-be subscribers are put off by the two existing funding options, for them to be told “Just get a lifetime subscription” - one of the two aforementioned payment options, garners a certain…frustration.
Well… In the case of my friends (mostly mid-forties) I think it’s mainly emotion. When I show the incredible ease, DSP options and discovery functions Roon offers, one friend objects that it’s all nice, but that it can never replace the charm of putting on a CD and physically taking out the booklet. To him, whatever computer/file based music system is (perceived as) cold and clinical.
Another friend has better gear than I have and is always obsessed with finding the weaknesses in my system. Now that I have Roon, he thinks he knows where the problems come from: it’s Roon (even before I had Roon😉), sounding too digital, too cold and clinical. Roon decreases the quality of my music. Even when I say it’s bit perfect, he doesn’t believe me.
Obviously, the problem here is not Roon: they will never seriously consider any computer based music system. To them, it decreases the value of your precious cd collection to a Spotify database.
Then there’s the other side of the spectrum: my neighbour (also mid-forties) and the generation of my daughter, who don’t understand why someone would go through all the trouble of digitizing one’s collection, when there’s Spotify. I understand my daughter is not (yet) too obsessed with sound quality, but my neighbour is older, is a gadget freak and has a good taste in music, so I was a bit surprised learning he gave up playing his cd’s in favour of Spotify (mp3) at home and thinking people who prefer FLAC are more or less insane. To him, it’s a useless excercise, that will never be able to compete with the infinite Spotify database.
But to be honest, I think I’m the minority and he’s the majority. That’s a real challenge for Roon.
In my moms case I told her about it and sent her links and she checked it out but did not think she could do it herself as it looked to her to be too complex, That is why I went to her house and did a demo. Unfortunately, I overwhelmed her the first time and she canceled the trial. I did another demo but REALLY simplified my explanation and she started to GET it. At first she saw no benefit to the background info, she just wanted to play her music when she wanted to. But then I pointed out the inter-connections where one of her favorite singers did collaborations and one of her favorite drummers was on other albums. THEN she was a lot more interested and started to understand the “Discovery” part of ROON. A few days after I went home she texted me and said she bought a lifetime. She is also one that hates monthly subscriptions. Say understands that it is more economical in the long run to buy the lifetime even with the risk of the Program failing. You use it four years and you equal the yearly amount and she doesn’t have to keep track of yet another monthly payment.
She told be that I am dragging her into the “digital” age, LOL, she was reminiscing about her vinyl days…
Of course now for the last week I have been doing tech service calls till midnight walking her through use of ROON, set-up of her new Speakers, and dBPowerAmp to start ripping/re-ripping her music to lossless.
When you can buy an integrated hardware player/speaker that offers up all the streaming services plus your own music for less than a lifetimes license, it’s a hard sell for something that offers way less in functionality, still needs a lot of hardware to workl. Its a niche product to a niche audience. Personally I’m beginning to fall into the same camp and looking for a hardware system that can do it all. Not having the biggest online library of music available to consumers is suicide on a premium product. I find it very hard to justify it to other people.
I dont think the cost or subscription options were the issue at all in the cases of my friends. But I don’t disagree it might put some people off. But I think enoughs already been said about that.
And @koen the people I’m referring to are already streaming music types, not old-school vinyl/CD lovers by any means.
I agree, there are multi-faceted reasons for not making the leap.
I suppose we have to differentiate two groups: one that already streams, but doesn’t buy into Roon and the other that won’t stream until Hell freezes over. Obviously the second group will be a tougher nut to crack.
About my friends -
In the last couples years since High Res has become all that I listen to, I have tried “again” to introduce some of my friends to the enjoyment and benefit of High Res (High Quality) and none of them were really interested in the difference because they were all satisfied with what they have.
The same reason my friends have no interest in Roon is the same reason why none of them could justify a high quality amp and speakers. They never did get into that. They are of the crowd that give me something cheap, convenient and they are satisfied with that.
I on the other hand has always appreciated a good amp, a set of good speakers along with a quality recording and therefore appreciated Roon greatly when I came across it.
As for as my friends - Not.
MD
General question for the group: are you trying to introduce and evangalise Roon to your friends on the basis of?:
a) “Sound quality”
b) A multi-room option
c) The rich meta-data/musical discovery element
d) All three
I’m pretty much exclusively c).
I think that is an oversimplification, there are WAY more “groups” than those two. There are the ones that would stream but the are afraid of tech or change, there are the ones that just cant afford the equipment/software or time, There are the purists (vinyl, “live music” only), and the want it when I want it and no other time crowd (this is the crowd that subscribes when they want to watch/listen and then cancels when they are done, like students using Netflix during the summer when they have time and then canceling when school starts up again), etc.
And yes its a very tough nut to crack.
That was my issue the first time I tried to get my mom interested.
I tried all of that and overwhelmed her.
So I backed of to c) WRT to ROON. She was able to then focus and learn a little about it and started getting it.
I tackled a) at a different time.
Same here, pretty much exclusively option c.
I would never buy the lifetime option unless they promised to give you back the money for whatever portion of your lifetime they are out of business. As much as I like Roon, the lifetime of companies like this can be measured in gerbil years.