I take the model as Fruity Loops - or how they used to operate. Even if you opted for one of their $99 "for life" systems they were always offering better synths to go with their DAW and other do-dads (some were quite nice and desirable). After a few years they changed the name to FL Studio and let you upgrade to that - Fruity Loops itself still worked fine but most people ended up upgrading. So the $99 for life deal was true, but orphaned. I'm not saying that is what Cake will do, and I had Fruity Loops for 5-6 years before the new upgrade was offered. Still quite a deal per year for a DAW - $15-20 a year. But yea, a lot of folks were pissed about that. I image in 5 years some of the lifetime buyers are going to be mad they don't get the new Cake DAW ASDIC for free with its mind control user interface.
I would think about it that way - a long term investment which is a lot less when you amortize your purchase over a 5 year period or more. Cake no doubt will use this one-time bump in capturing their current users to continue to tweak the main product - SONAR, but also use this money to work on/purchase other stuff - more synths (purchased separately), more effects, P5 plugin for SONAR (OK, that is my hope and I'd pay extra for a good Matrix feature) and maybe we'll finally see how much these notation wanters are willing to pay for their much beloved notation feature. They won't plunk down Sibelius-type money but $100? $50?
That model makes the most sense to me. For Cake, I imagine they are hoping they can make it work like Imagine-Line is doing. They don't have as big as a base as FL, but then many of those users were crackers. A funny story is how (I don't think they admitted it) but years ago there was a "free update" that caught many moochers - it locked up your projects until you authorized (paid) for your version. It was funny to watch the forums explode with users who couldn't understand their problem until ... So the model can work, but you must continue to bring in new users and continue to sell extra features to them and established users. It is simply incumbent upon Cake to make software people will pay extra for. Their synths are great tools, and some of the PC tools are excellent - the SSL and optical comp are certainly worth paying more for. One or two new great products like those (and a new Matrix!)marketed every year to a known audience should be enough to keep Cake solvent, esp. when they bring in more users to the DAW itself.
One last point - if I was one of those that "leaked" the special offer starting a 30 page thread, I'd be worried about getting anymore special offers. Or maybe receiving a special "Image Line" upgrade sent to y'all only. Or maybe, as other have intimated, it was all part of a "clever plan, my lord," to start a 30 page thread and get the old buying juices flowing.
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