Anderton
To try to put perspective on things...it so depends on what you want to do and what you need to do.
Totally, obviously there's many people still using much earlier versions of Sonar and are perfectly content with it getting them from point A to Z. Coincidentally, I was content with 2017.06 and Id thought Id stay with that for some time as I didn't really see any new features I wanted or needed since, guess this pretty much happened without my choice as it turns out, LOL. My bigger dread perhaps more so now is moving to Win10.
If I move to a secondary DAW system, my criteria may be more based on sustainability, using this as a lesson, it may be which product supplier is least likely to go belly up and remain consistent in the long term. and yet still introduce new technologies and features, I think Sonar was doing this well for the 30 years it lasted. I would think its a somewhat costly business to support effectively and efficiently, if your offering innovation, good support and have a first class team of developers and programmers employed. You would have to be consistently attracting new clients to buy your products, and/or maintain income through high subscription costs, and/or have other primary and more profitable product lines to help sustain the DAW software product line, which may actually represent a net loss.
I guess in terms of sustainability, Pro-Tools may be a good but costly option, sustained by their Avid mother product lines, and having established their "industry standard" foothold. Studio 1 may be a cheaper option, sustained by Pre-Sonus and its integration with their hardware product lines, as long as these remain prosperous. Im not sure where Steinberg's CuBase fits in here, i.e., in terms of other product lines that may sustain their DAW software products, perhaps they may have a large enough user base and update costs to maintain them , Im also not sure of Ableton or other smaller DAW suppliers sustainability (or other corporate affiliations), perhaps they're actually small enough to survive, or their technologies will be bought out by corporate giants eventually.
Having recently tried out free Pro-Tools/First and Studio 1 versions, I thought Id died and gone to DAW hell in both cases, LOL. Having started with and always stayed with Sonar, perhaps in part it was a familiarity bias and resistance to change habits.
Im sure with Gibson, it was a losing proposition to sustain Sonar, even with costs of their instruments skyrocketing, Im not sure how many struggling musicians can afford to buy them these days, and there's only so many "rock stars" to sell to who can afford them, in any case I dont imagine they could justify maintaining an unprofitable DAW software. As good as it is, Cakewalk/Sonar has been stomped on by the corporate giants, as happens with most smaller companies, to take that share of the market away from the small guy. Then I guess all are at the mercy of having to constantly adapt and integrate with changing MS and Apple operating systems and where they decide go with them, and not to mention ever changing physical computer hardware technology advancements, these must represent significant costs, aside from the continued development of the DAW itself. I guess there's probably few DAW suppliers that will weather this storm in the long run, if that's the only product they have to offer. Perhaps its all part of a bigger corporate strategy to take back this part of the market from small software developers and home music producers, by overpricing DAW softwares and too take them out of realm of the small guy, and yet on the other hand people are producing music from their smartphones these days.
Its likely the only way Cakewalk/Sonar could be resurrected, and still be a leader in introducing innovative technologies into their DAW regularly, as in the petition thread, is if some corporate giant like MS takes it under their wing as a pet project to cater to what may be considered us, the last devoted and elite group of Sonarians, destined to extinction.
As for me, since Im not relying on this as a career, or need to conform or be assimilated to industry standards Ill be perfectly fine continuing using what may be the last version of Sonar and using Win7 OS, for as long as it allows me to do what I want and need to do.
Cheers