Waves Audio Debacle & Why Subscriptions Don't Work
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- Опубликовано: 29 мар 2023
- This whole situation with Waves Audio has been quite the sh*t show to watch, but I have sat on the sidelines for an extra day or two to see how it would all play out. Instead of rushing to an opinion, I wanted to see what was really going on with this situation. Have we been played? Was this all planned out ahead of time?
I have some thoughts but, they aren’t what you might think. Give me a little bit of your time to spell it all out. After you watch this, leave your thoughts below in the comments. I’ll answer every single one of them, I promise.
Now, if you don’t watch this whole video, don’t bother to leave a comment. That’s just rude and lazy. And if you use pirated software / cracked plug-ins and/or have never spent more than $100 with Waves, please don’t bother to comment. Talk to Jesus and ask him why you’re such a cheapskate. ;-)
**Disclaimer, I used to be a Waves Brand Ambassador and I am one of the few working professional audio engineers that I know personally who thinks that Waves makes a bunch of great stuff.
My thoughts and opinions are solely mine and are only put here in hopes that they’ll give you a slightly different perspective. They are based on my experience in the world of professional audio every day for the last 25+ years. As incredible as today’s digital plug-ins are, across the board, I think this whole industry could be even bigger than it is currently.
CHECK OUT MY STUDIO: www.SecretCoveStudios.com
LISTEN TO THE PODCAST: www.FaderJocks.com
#wavesaudio #wavesdebacle #subscriptionmodel #WhySubsciptionsDontWork
I bought the Mercury bundle on sale in 2012, it was $3100. Now I own almost every Waves plugins. Their change in policies on the first day threw me for a loop.
You and me BOTH. It just doesn't make sense that a company this large, with a history in the industry that's as long as theirs, would make a mistake this big without realizing what they were doing.
great information.......
Thanks! Make sure to check out some of the Waves plug-in tutorial videos here on my channel!
This was the most interesting and sensible reaction I've heard on this issue, thanks!
Thanks! Glad you dug it.
Thank you for your video. Completely in agreement with you, I need two licenses (two seats). I have my desktop (when working at home) and my laptop (for gigs and when I'm outside). I'm not going to deactivate and activate on both machine everytime I need it. They are crazy. Too bad. :( But again, I don't need to have 220 plugins, I only need the 7 or 8 that I use everyday.
It’s one of the greatest things about Plug-In Alliance, IMO. Honestly, I don’t think that Waves would lose business if they gave us THREE seats, like PA. I think they’d probably win even more customers. They convenience of that one feature is totally worth the price of admission.
I've only spent a few hundred dollars maybe 4.. and I was so pissed I took my old midi controller over the bed post 😅
🤣😂😂🤣 Now, THAT would have made for a hysterical reaction video!
I only use a few plugins. I do not want to pay a subscription. I want to own the plugin out right. Just like, Microsoft 360, I own an older version of Word. Works fine for my use.
I agree. Unless the price is so low that I don’t even have to think about it, I prefer a perpetual license as well.
Making the subscription plan cheaper might make some happy, but going full subs and not being able to ever own the plug-ins will be an issue for many, mostly hobbyists. Life happens and you can’t always get to your music as often as you want, so you’ll want those plug-ins at the ready whenever you have time. And people aren’t going to want to (or remember to) sub and unsub every time they have a lull in music time so it would be just something else draining their pockets that they’d never own. Giving the option for both is good, but they’ll probably just end up taking features from the perpetual buyers and making those sub-exclusives to entice people to get the sub, like Izotope did. But no one will ever own those features either.
Having both options was definitely the way to go.
I am done with them. I think it was simply lazy executives going for a cash grab and not giving a sh*t about their customer base... They must have expected backlash, but probably not as much as they did. For me... An apology and backtracking isn't enough. Damage done. I cannot trust them anymore. They've always been the greediest plug in manufacturer, but they're not the greatest anymore. Not by a long shot... I have committed to never buying another waves product again, and I don't plan on updating my current ones. I am simply going to build up my UA catalog. They've been doing it right. DSP perpetual licenses, Subscription for Native plugins, and now just announced Native perpetual licenses (great timing right after the waves debacle). Gives everyone options. Their plug ins also kick waves butt in terms of sound quality.
The UA plugs are really good, for sure. And now, with Spark versions, it allows me to have access many of them when I go mobile without having to pull my Satellite out of the studio rack.
I'll be your shill too waves
LOL If only it came with free stuff! 😉
The actual reason for subscription plans was based off of how easy it was or still is to crack or pirate. It started with Netflix as a answer to mass digital share of Video as a answer to illegal torrent downloads. Daw audio production brand did all sorts of things like physical licence dongles to online registration downloads, but subscription is the easiest way for software and digital media to be shared. This is the reason things are going subscription, it's all about controlling the product and minimising cracking or pirating.
Sadly, as cheap as $25/mo is, I don’t see them putting a dent in piracy. There’s no real difference in what hackers can / need to do to crack software whether it’s subscription based, license / serial code based, or dongle based.
I still stand by the idea of making it so cheap that it’s actually MORE work to use a cracked version. If this were ‘All You Can Eat’ at $5-10/month, they might have a chance of minimizing the effort made to crack, distribute, and obtain the pirated version.
With that Netflix / streaming business model as the proof of concept, yes, you might thwart pirates and those who use pirated software. But not at $25/mo. At $5-10/mo., I could see a subscriber base amassing into the millions (heck, at $5/mo., I’d probably keep two extra seats on hand myself simply as a convenience).
Operating “at scale” would be a great strategy for completely cornering the market for audio processing plugins, but I don’t see any software company currently in this vertical making that play. You can go down in price but going up is always a barrier to customer satisfaction.
Yep, Waves did their mea cupla less than an hour after I posted my podcast episode!
Damn, exactly why I waited to push a video out. I saw this coming. I might be wrong but, like I said in the video, I believe it was “baked in” to the plan all along. There’s a marketing term for this kind of move (other than “sh*tty” 😉) but I can’t remember what it is at the moment.
@@BrianStephensOfficial They "New Coked" it up.
Totally!!! 👍🏻👍🏻
Check Analog Obsession! ;)
I’ll bite. Got a link?
@@BrianStephensOfficial ruclips.net/video/XMmbD_xA9RI/видео.html
10:30 This isn't really a great marketing tactic. Being talked about in a negative light is better than not being talked about at all, but if you're an established brand, bad publicity is JUST bad publicity.
In a normal, rational world, I would agree with you completely. (I know I live by that adage myself) But for whatever reason, in this upside down world we’re living in now (thanks to algorithms), it seems like even bad press leads to positive results. When you add the change of heart / redemption story to this mix, it seems to be a valid marketing play long term (as someone else said in another comment, it’s the “New Coke” playbook all over again.)