FastBikerBoy
Are we getting X4 and Sonar? 

No, you get X3, X4 and X5 and nothing at all (according to some). Just pay me now if you like, or yesterday and I'll make you a member of The Bapu 5/4 club.

I have no issues with the term 'member' as long as people remember that mine is the largest ;).

bapu

FastBikerBoy
Are we getting X4 and Sonar? 

No, you get X3, X4 and X5 and nothing at all (according to some). Just pay me now if you like, or yesterday and I'll make you a member of The Bapu 5/4 club.

Now I'm confused, I get X12 and membership of the Bapu 1.25 club? Do I get a plastic card to carry? If so I'm in.....

CakeAlexS
I have no issues with the term 'member' as long as people remember that mine is the largest ;).

Cuz you paid two years up front?

FastBikerBoy

bapu

FastBikerBoy
Are we getting X4 and Sonar? 

No, you get X3, X4 and X5 and nothing at all (according to some). Just pay me now if you like, or yesterday and I'll make you a member of The Bapu 5/4 club.

Now I'm confused, I get X12 and membership of the Bapu 1.25 club? Do I get a plastic card to carry? If so I'm in.....

You get a tin foil hat. Gudunov?

Beepster
Thing is I've been putting off some serious personal work over the past couple days first digesting what was happening (because I initially thought the worst but READ the info before flipping out) and then trying to disseminate pertinent info and answer questions based on that literally 15-20 minutes of reading (then 2 hours of putting together the new features thread I posted) to those who seemed to be not getting it.

I think most people really appreciate your efforts.  I know I do.  But really, this isn't as simple and clear-cut as one might like to think.  It has been presented as an act of altruism by the company -- completely eliminating the established release model and replacing it with something that really is quite different -- as a better deal for the customer, don't you know?
 
It is certainly Cakewalk's prerogative to do that or anything else they want to do with the product and/or pricing.  But it is also a prerogative of the customers to fully understand it.  And certain aspects of this program still do not seem clear after hundreds (or thousands) of posts.
 
To me, the short version is that essentially they have announced "X4" under a different name.  As a "major release" it certainly has some meat, but it feels a little lighter than X1, X2, and X3.  The company justifies this by saying you automatically get 12 months of subscription and there will plenty of goodies during that time, so it is all good.
 
That works for me.  However, many people have followed a pattern of skipping some releases,  For these people, the world really is a lot different now.  This new model puts a real penalty on people who prefer to skip releases.  For example, let's say one purchases the upgrade today.  And let's say that Cakewalk delivers some of that promised content next December.  In that case, the skip-release customer gets the December function, but no support and no patches.  And for those who have every intention of remaining on the membership program, not only does the price go up by $50 next January, there really isn't any commitment that 2016 would include a major release.  In other words, one could find oneself paying $350 over 2 years and never really getting what would amount to "X5".
 
The bottom line is that this is a move by the company to force people to keep paying and not skip releases.  Again, that is their prerogative and everybody has a year to judge whether that makes sense to continue.

cparmerlee
The bottom line is that this is a move by the company to force people to keep paying and not skip releases.  

How are they forcing me?
 
Are they charging my credit card each and every year without my authorization?
 
IMO you've got it wrong because you see it that way but have no facts to back it up.
 
Skip all you want. Just remember this (copied from the compare products page of the New SONAR, highlighted in case you missed it when you read that page )
 
"And every version includes 12 months of membership meaning you will always get the latest and greatest version no matter when you make your purchase."
 
So I can skip out now or after 12 months and then pay the going rate to upgrade ANYTIME and get EVERYTHING that was delivered from the time of my current version (X3e) and that moment in time. And of course I will get 12 moths of upcoming releases.
 
And that is why the only thing that has changed in the new model is that there is no X4, X5 etc. It just SONAR from here on out.

cparmerlee

Beepster
Thing is I've been putting off some serious personal work over the past couple days first digesting what was happening (because I initially thought the worst but READ the info before flipping out) and then trying to disseminate pertinent info and answer questions based on that literally 15-20 minutes of reading (then 2 hours of putting together the new features thread I posted) to those who seemed to be not getting it.

I think most people really appreciate your efforts.  I know I do.  But really, this isn't as simple and clear-cut as one might like to think.  It has been presented as an act of altruism by the company -- completely eliminating the established release model and replacing it with something that really is quite different -- as a better deal for the customer, don't you know?
 
It is certainly Cakewalk's prerogative to do that or anything else they want to do with the product and/or pricing.  But it is also a prerogative of the customers to fully understand it.  And certain aspects of this program still do not seem clear after hundreds (or thousands) of posts.
 
To me, the short version is that essentially they have announced "X4" under a different name.  As a "major release" it certainly has some meat, but it feels a little lighter than X1, X2, and X3.  The company justifies this by saying you automatically get 12 months of subscription and there will plenty of goodies during that time, so it is all good.
 
That works for me.  However, many people have followed a pattern of skipping some releases,  For these people, the world really is a lot different now.  This new model puts a real penalty on people who prefer to skip releases.  For example, let's say one purchases the upgrade today.  And let's say that Cakewalk delivers some of that promised content next December.  In that case, the skip-release customer gets the December function, but no support and no patches.  And for those who have every intention of remaining on the membership program, not only does the price go up by $50 next January, there really isn't any commitment that 2016 would include a major release.  In other words, one could find oneself paying $350 over 2 years and never really getting what would amount to "X5".
 
The bottom line is that this is a move by the company to force people to keep paying and not skip releases.  Again, that is their prerogative and everybody has a year to judge whether that makes sense to continue.

I have absolutely know problems with valid concerns and it is indeed a somewhat confusing model because I don't think anything like this has ever been tried. In fact your entire post is completely valid and I had many of the exact same questions. I won't rehash all the answer I've gotten, found and posted for other yet again but check out some of my posts in the monster thread. A few of the more recent ones cover large swaths of your concerns. The gist is even if you lapse you're likely not going to miss out on anything crucial. When you re-up it is cumulative so the only things you'll miss out on are extra goodies that have nothing to do with the core program. It's those extra goodies and having the absolute latest release that Cake are hoping to hook you in with on a permanent basis but they're also cool with you just re-upping when you need/want to because hey... that's still cash in their pocket. Andrew cleared up some of that stuff for me and really either way we win AND they win. Just to varying degrees in either direction based on what the customer wants to do.
 
This is really kind of empowering IF it works. Only time will tell.

bapu
"And every version includes 12 months of membership meaning you will always get the latest and greatest version no matter when you make your purchase."
 
So I can skip out now or after 12 months and then pay the going rate to upgrade ANYTIME and get EVERYTHING that was delivered from the time of my current version (X3e) and that moment in time. And of course I will get 12 moths of upcoming releases.

No I don't think that is correct.  As I understand it, you don't get the things that were delivered during the time that your membership was not in force.  Obviously if we are talking about the core DAW, chances are they would put out a new release that is cumulative.  But if there are VSTs or other functions delivered while you were off the air, my understanding is that you don't get those.
 
And please not there is absolutely no software architecture reason why they cannot deliver optional components of the core DAW and require that you pay a make-up payment for those optional components if you let your subscription lapse.  I'm not saying anybody has such motives, but it is certainly something that could be done consistent with the parameters of this plan.  Maybe I shouldn't be giving Cakewalk any ideas here.  :)  My bad.
 
So imagine the list of add-ons that are part of Producer.  And imagine they were delivered a few each month instead of all on the day you licensed the product, you could definitely miss out on part of the product's value. 
 
And I don't think you read my example with the case where a major function is delivered a few weeks before your subscription expires.  You get the download, but not patches or support if there should be any problems with that.
 
Yes, you can certainly decide to go off the air and live with what you have, in self-support mode.  But as I said, a primary objective of this program, IMHO, is to put some pain on people who have customarily skipped releases.
 
I have purchased X1, X2, and X3 upgrades, so I am likely to do the continuous subscription thing.  But please note that was not $150 a year.  That was about $150 three times in five years.  And now we will be talking more like $200 a year.  So that is basically a doubling of the price.