alanyost
If they'd have sent me a letter in the mail, I might have read it--or maybe something saying IMPORTANT or similar on a subject header.

Well...
 

There is a 30% discount at the moment.
Support for X3 was discontinued as of Jan 2016.

I never upgraded every year, I would miss a version now and then, but they supplied incremental releases for bug fixes.  After a few of those, things were generally pretty stable,  which is why I always waited for a bit to upgrade.  Just got an email from customer service who promised me they will be soon offering something to X3 customers who 'missed the boat'.   So will be checking emails from cakewalk a bit more carefully.
 
Thanks for the help.  
 
 

35mm
Seems a bit crazy that a few months later you don't even get a discount for X3.

TBH I don't have stats, but I suspect the number of people in the OP's position is pretty small. Apparently the number of remaining X-series users who hadn't upgraded after all these years was small enough that it wasn't worth it for stores or online fulfillment companies to maintain a lot of different SKUs for a small number of potential customers. 
 
Cakewalk extended lifetime updates to twice what was planned because of people asking for an extension, and gave plenty of notice about the new pricing changes. It's understandable that some customers would not keep up with what's happening at Cakewalk if they're satisfied with what they have, but computer-based recording requires some degree of engagement with the companies that make your software if you want to stay on top of what's happening. For example with end-of-life products, you may not be able to find drivers past a certain point, so you better download them while you can.
 

alanyost
Yup, guess so.   Didn't know about that.  If they'd have sent me a letter in the mail, I might have read it--or maybe something saying IMPORTANT or similar on a subject header.    Don't have any complaints about X3,  been working pretty well minus a few lock-ups now and then so can keep using it, but its been a couple years so thought I'd investigate the next release.   BTW,   I just found out from a friend that Sibelius did the same thing to its customers,  appears it now costs about $300 a year to keep it updated.  Hadn't looked into that yet, but if that is the case,  I will be switching back to Finale which generally just charges a $100 or so for version upgrade.

Sibelius asks 99 bucks a year to stay current unless you let your support (and the grace period) lapse. There's also a deal where you get three years for 220 or so.

Hmm,  I don't think I got any of those announcements.  Checked my Inbox and deleted folder for the past couple months and they weren't there.  Perhaps I didn't 'subscribe'...   Anyway,  thanks for the help folks.  Can't believe I got all these responses in such a short time. 

Since you've been with X3 for this long, you might as well hold off for a bit longer, wait for a special, and pounce on it. Checking back to the SONAR home page once a month should be sufficient to catch any of the longer-term promotions, but you could miss out on flash sales.

 Re Sibelius:
 
That could be.  Don't recall the fine print when I bought it---will check into it but I probably let the thing lapse, if there was a lapse clause in there somewhere.  

Anderton
TBH I don't have stats, but I suspect the number of people in the OP's position is pretty small.

I know several users with X2/X3. From what I know, they are not "music noobs" like I am, they use Sonar continuously and plan to continue (otherwise why bother about control surfaces for it ). My conclusion why they have not upgraded: Sonar was already good for mixing at X level and Platinum is not a dial breaker for something else. So I am not sure about stats.
 
CW is the first company in my registrations which a priory guarantee there will be no discounts for old customers More usual are promotions for "all customers" (including free/$1 products), as can be seen in Deals board (and my mailbox). But I must admit, CW is very creative in price politics last years (in both direction ).

Anderton
Since you've been with X3 for this long, you might as well hold off for a bit longer, wait for a special, and pounce on it. Checking back to the SONAR home page once a month should be sufficient to catch any of the longer-term promotions, but you could miss out on flash sales.

Thanks,  I'll try to keep a lookout.   But "this long?"   I think I bought X1 or x2 around 2011 and x3 in 2014.  It's 2017 now so I am right on track :)-----I still use Office 2010 and have an old phone and still have a landline.  Too hard to keep up with everything.