I sent this very question to CW last December, concerned about the 'lifetime update's'

-----Original Message-----
From: "Harddrlver" <harddrlver@aol.com>
Reply-To: "Harddrlver" <harddrlver@aol.com>
Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2016 11:08:58 -0500
To: "CakewalkCustomerService@cakewalk.com" <CakewalkCustomerService@cakewalk.com>
Subject: Re: (Case 335608) Pre-Sales Support
>Good morning.
> Concerning the yearly renewal...I never knew that existed. I'm just getting into the computer daw, having owned Roland Vs recorders all this time.
> If I can ask one last question...
> What's on the horizon? Is Cakewalk going to sell off its platinum line, promising lifetime updates...when there won't be any?...while releasing some brand new version of Cakewalk...say, The Rhodium edition...leaving platinum to wither in the dust? Tech is forever advancing. Rightly so would be Cakewalk. Platinum's what...4-5 years old now?
>
> Sent from AOL Mobile Mail
>
> On Wednesday, December 28, 2016 Cakewalk Ceustomer Service <CakewalkCustomerService@cakewalk.com> wrote
 
Hi Joni,
All of those questions are valid concerns, and none of them are what is on our agenda.
Not only does it save $100 up front, but year-over-year you wouldn't have to pay to renew your SONAR Platinum membership so it also saves around another $200 in renewal costs every year
SONAR Platinum is just under 2 years old. We got rid of versions (SONAR X1, SONAR X2, etc.) so that we could focus on releasing quality features and updates to loyal customers versus having to make a big announcement each year and try to upsell people that "version X is better than version Y". Now we focus solely on making the program better with each month and releasing those updates to all customers with active memberships. It allows customers to get quality features to the program they've already invested in, and it allows our developers to focus on updating one version of SONAR versus abandoning a version to work on the next.
Our Rolling Updates page lists everything we've added to SONAR Platinum since it's inception at http://www.cakewalk.com/Products/SONAR/Rolling-Updates#start
If you have concerns about Lifetime Updates, Membership and Rolling Updates, I recommend checking out the following FAQs:
http://www.cakewalk.com/Products/SONAR/SONAR-FAQ#start
https://www.cakewalk.com/June-2016#SONAR4Life
Your concerns are ones we've heard many times and have included answers in our FAQs for. As an example, here is one that addresses your concern:
What happens if the product name "SONAR Platinum" were to change to something different?
If you purchased lifetime updates for SONAR Platinum, you will get lifetime updates for SONAR Platinum. If we change the name of SONAR Platinum, you will get lifetime updates to the newly named version. It's as simple as that.
I hope that helps!
Best regards,
Sarah
Product Support
Cakewalk, Inc.
http://www.cakewalk.com | http://www.cakewalk.com/support
 

And I also remember the commitment to awesomeness...
 
I think that the BIGGEST mistake was to abandon the yearly big update (it's easy to say now, OK). Because the society now is all about communication, events, breaking news. And people will react more to "The new SONAR has 48 new features this year" than "The new SONAR has 4 new features this month". The first sentence will generate press or web articles for example, not the second. But I liked the monthly updates!