Yes EXACTLY!
Similar concerns were expressed in my long post a while back:
My concerns were a little different – the work it takes to modify metadata and get Roon to work with my collection like I want it to – but it is essentially the same point. My concern is that the work I put in is not portable either in or out (either would work and both directions are not necessary) and thus I would lose all of that work if or when Roon stops as a service, or they change direction in a way that I cannot follow, or if they are acquired by someone and the software is tied to something I don’t want. But that same concern applies if Tidal disappears or stops its integration with Roon.
Roon says that their goal is to take away the need to do that work. But I do not see that as realistic. Roon is light years away from there being no need to work with the collection and the library to function as many dedicated music hobbyists want it to work. So are all media players - this is not a ding on
Roon – but other media players are much more inter-operable by working better with custom metadata in files.
Even if Roon were to distribute a final version of the software that just works as they go out of business, I don’t want to use an unsupported service that isn’t integrated with anything and which will get more and more stale over time.
One way to reduce the concern about the instability of a Tidal partnership alone is to continue to work on integrating with other streaming services to provide more choices and more “Plan ■■.” Another, which I would really like whether or not more such integrations are done, would be to have Roon Focus be capable of Focusing on custom metatag data within the files, since we could then put our customizations in these tags, and then “import” them into Roon, and thus preserve this work if Roon is not a permanent fixture.
And yes, it would be great to find a way to make our favorites selections within Tidal portable to other streaming services so as to preserve the whole library.
Roon is great now in many areas, and shows great potential in others. But I don’t really love how proprietary and non-inter-operable it is at present. I know there are development priorities, etc., but I fear that users really have not grappled with the chaos that would be created by Roon failing as a business or the Tidal integration ceasing to exist at present. There’s no Plan B.