after all, i am 'the grim' and as such i like to see things from different sides, not just the 'rosy, everything is great side' but also the darker side, gives a bit more balance, and then i can decide where i stand as apposed to blindly following the 'everything is rosy, everything is great' side. as i said it doesn't really matter much to me, and i look at it as that i have already come out on top with the lifetime updates for $99, i got the 2 lp plugs for nothing (even though i don't use them . . . i have heaps of other plugs i don't use) so that covers my $99 expense . . . if lifetime ends tomorrow, i win , if lifetime continues and sonar gets it's act together and becomes my number one daw, i win , if not i have already won
 
anything is possible, and when dealing with companies, my opinion is a company is a company is a company, i don't subscribe to the thought that cakewalk is somehow some supernatural company which is different than any other company, i would find that type of thought foolish. a companies number one priority is to itself, full stop, now you can spin that and say 'but they must look after their user base first and foremost, keep them happy to stay in business etc etc' i say phooey to that, their number one priority is to themselves. anything is possible, they could end lifetime updates anytime after they feel that those who brought in got more than they would have on the old system and rationalize it, excuse it as having given value, after all they didn't say it would last forever, only until sonar became something else. would it worry me if at the end of the year sonar morphed into a new product rendering lifetime updates void? not in the least, i have already won as stated i like to believe anything is possible, anything can happen, after all we are dealing with a company, a company which is no different than any other, to believe otherwise is folly. and as we all know from dealing with various companies, it's not a matter of anything can happen, but anything will happen, it's just a matter of time (literally with lifetime updates)

I am being accused of making false statements. I do not appreciate this at all.
I am out.
 

I'm very happy I chose the Lifetime updates.  Thank you.

I am not native English speaker, so can someone "translate" real meaning of:

you can buy another 12 months of updates for at least 50% off the regular price of SONAR.

As Russian, I interpret at least 50% off as that you pay at most 50% (I mean "off" with 2 'f').
The discussion is around "fact" people have to pay at least 50%.
 
The first interpretation means the warrantee you never pay more than 50%. So let say this May they are free to make it 20%, next 40%, may be later 50% but not 55%. The second interpretation fix the lower border for the regular year price (with possible discounts).
 
What is right?

I would follow your reasoning too, azslow3. I'm Dutch, if that matters. I still think it's the correct interpretation and also what Anderton has been saying.

azslow3
I am not native English speaker, so can someone "translate" real meaning of:

you can buy another 12 months of updates for at least 50% off the regular price of SONAR.

As Russian, I interpret at least 50% off as that you pay at most 50% (I mean "off" with 2 'f').
The discussion is around "fact" people have to pay at least 50%.
 
The first interpretation means the warrantee you never pay more than 50%. So let say this May they are free to make it 20%, next 40%, may be later 50% but not 55%. The second interpretation fix the lower border for the regular year price (with possible discounts).
 
What is right?

In English it means the smallest discount will be 50%. A larger discount is possible. 

ampfixer
The price increase is documented and has a set value. You get 1 year, and after that it's half of retail to get another year of fixes and upgrades. That is documented and can't be argued. Whether or not Cake does specials is still an unknown.
Coolbass is absolutely correct and not making any false statements. There's nothing to dispute, facts are facts. Once the discounts happen then we can talk about how great they are, not until.

Most reasonable people would bet that his statement turns out to be false in the sense that every year, Cake will offer (at some point) a greater than 50% off full retail price for a year of membership/subscription/upgrades.  Betting against that would be a suckers bet based on historical and the statements made by Cakewalk as well as what the market seems to accept.  

Okay, let's take this offline. 
 
If anyone wants to put his money where his mouth is and bet me that the Mac version won't come out, discounts for renewals won't be offered, or that lifetime updates will be abrogated, PM me with the amount of the wager you want to make. I wouldn't mind picking up some extra bucks without having to do any work 

The perspective that gets lost in the shuffle sometimes is that "year-to-year" implies a delta. For a non-Cakewalk customer, $500 for SONAR Platinum is an awesome deal... it includes over a decade of material and content. Quite a bit of stuff. The "problem" is that the year-to-year delta is not even close to 10% over a new buy (how many of us racked up extra DP licenses during the X-series?), but there are other issues associated with this model.
 
A portion of the people most likely to renew regularly (and most likely to be "professional" users, meaning that they generate revenue from SONAR to support the cost of the program) bought into the lifetime updates, so that revenue stream is diminished.
 
For hobbyists, especially those with limited time to learn new things or deal with beta testing, having a program which drastically changes on a frequent basis is not appealing in the slightest, let alone paying for those bug fixes.
 
The "Your DAW is not a game" sticky title is SO applicable to SONAR (not just Windows 10). People do not buy software to record music for the "thrill" of mouse clicking and "dealing" with the computer, but to make music. People do not want to spend 90 minutes of a 2-hour window "figuring things out." Time is the most precious commodity in life, and respecting another's time is impressive. Requiring people to invests hours just to stay "up-to-date" is disrespecting their time, and implying they have "nothing better to do." The upgrade cycle is like an ever-churning "game" in many ways for me. I know, I know, no one is "required" to update, but human nature will lead someone to install what they paid for (a big impetus behind this marketing strategy).
 
Interestingly, on a customer service call recently (potential fraud flag from buying Geist 2, no less), the rep began asking questions that led to the fact that he had gone to school for music production. I ended up talking to him for 40 minutes on various things (he was new but gnashing at the bit to get started). From the DAW side of things, I highly recommended that he join this forum because there is an awesome group of folks here, but I was unable to recommend SONAR specifically.

mettelus
The perspective that gets lost in the shuffle sometimes is that "year-to-year" implies a delta. For a non-Cakewalk customer, $500 for SONAR Platinum is an awesome deal... it includes over a decade of material and content. Quite a bit of stuff. The "problem" is that the year-to-year delta is not even close to 10% over a new buy.

 
That's a valid point; in a way, that $500 is almost like a loss leader. However, it's not a scenario where $500 buys you a razor blade but you then have to spend a lot more on razors. People don't have to renew, and if they don't want to deal with frequent changes or yearly update pricing, they can simply wait a few years and then update. Although waiting a few years may sound problematic, the large population of people still using X-series and even older versions of SONAR show that not updating isn't a showstopper for many people.