Reply To: Free Sonar Tier

[superabbit]

On SoulfulKeys said

The point I was trying to make about BandLab and Cakewalk is that you’re still looking at Sonar as a standalone product when you have to look at it as a feature. It’s like the air conditioning in a car, car manufacturers aren’t trying to sell you the AC separately, it’s a feature that makes the car more appealing to the buyer. Sonar is a feature BandLab uses to sell their Membership subscriptions, not the main product itself.

 

It’s not about Sonar dominating the DAW market again, it’s about keeping users inside BandLab’s ecosystem as they level up. It’s an ecosystem retention tool, not a standalone money-maker.

This.

Automobile air conditioner comparison is a good one: your car’s manufacturer doesn’t care if you never turn the air conditioner on as long as it helped them sell you the car. Is air conditioning now standard in vehicles? I haven’t bought a new one in 40 years. If not, then maybe the heater.😊

To us, the BandLab membership package is something that we get along with the subscription to our (formerly in some cases) favorite DAW. A $9.95 Sonar-only sub would be more attractive.

To BandLab, the Cakewalk DAW’s are extras that they toss in when you subscribe to their package of services. The Cakewalk name adds a whiff of legitimacy, the DAW’s are made by people who were experienced in the industry long before BandLab came along. They aren’t just slapped together crap. Maybe they’ll get their membership, check out the DAW’s and be pleasantly surprised at how capable they are. Or they’ll never even bother to install them. Who cares as long as the company gets their monthly or yearly fees?

I think the Cakewalk DAW’s will be around as long as BandLab believes that they help sell memberships. How long that will be, I have no idea. Does Adobe care about Audition’s market share? Does Adobe think that being able to use Audition is anyone’s primary reason for subscribing? Probably not, but they keep it in the lineup anyway because it lets them claim that the package covers every kind of content creation.

The Cakewalk DAW’s don’t live or die based on how many YouTube tutorials they inspire or how many influencers talk about them or even how many people use them. They live or die based on how much the people in charge at BandLab believe they help them sell memberships.

At some point the BandLab restaurant might decide to start selling their tasty Sonar salad dressing in bottles, but I don’t know how important that scenario is to the restauranteurs.😏

-Erik
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superabbit.bandcamp.com

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