Reply To: 1 Million Points for Anyone in Our Community…

[peter]

Because Milton bought up the company being unethical, I will point something out that I could never point out at Cakewalk Forum.

Meng’s family’s business is infamous for using child labor as young as 8 in carrying heavy loads in very dangerous work environments. They’re also known for forced labor, discrimination and exploitation, forced evictions and exploitations of poor land owners for their plantation development. Wilmar is largely considered one of the most unethical large companies in operation today. They’re also infamous for suppressing reports about their practices — so Meng’s censorship on the Cakewalk Forums is very in line with his family business practices.

When people have posted that Meng was doing Cakewalk for Bandlab as some kind of altruistic act, the naivety was ridiculous. It’s like writing that freemium video games like Fortnite — which has made billions of dollars — are charity. No. The idea behind free versions of BandLab’s various software is to bring people into the BandLab ecosystem, where they buy various products and services. There’s nothing unethical about that, but the software being free isn’t some altruistic act. Meng has investors who’ve put millions into the company. It’s a for-profit business. The free software is part of a strategy to win over people to spend money using that software. Their problem is that Cakewalk by Bandlab didn’t attract enough customers, and the much older customers it attracts than BandLab software almost certainly haven’t spent money on loops, plugins, and services like the Gen Z and Gen Alpha BandLab users have.

The posts that keeping up Cakewwalk Forums was an altruistic act is also naive. The company keeps that up because it is a way to save on the costs of supporting customers and also a way to build/expand awareness for the company’s brands. That said, BandLab has been a disaster in social media and brand management of their Cakewalk brand and that forum. It’s a case study in what not to do. Their social media guy, Ash, explained to me in a series of emails — and I’ll be candid, the guy is dishonest as heck — that BandLab realizes that letting their software team manage it isn’t a great idea and made numerous remarks that make clear that BandLab doesn’t plan on either keeping the software team in charge of it long or is going to phase Cakewalk Forums out — which is constantly refers to as the company’s “legacy forums.” If you want to see a less micro-managed version of a Cakewalk Forum, go to their subreddit. They’re not as heavy-handed on censoring people there, so you see a lot of unedited opinions. The opinion of BandLab there is predominantly negative. It’s not pretty.

To anyone who thinks that’s the view of someone who is anti-business, I own a business. I was chosen as a thought leader in the profession by one of the biggest and most respected associations in the profession. I’m quoted as a marketing expert in hundreds of books, magazines, news publications, marketing magazines, etc. I just believe that it’s possible to do business and still be ethical and that the public should not be silent in the face of companies doing unethical things and making incredible human rights violations, like in the case of Meng’s family business. These are not small things, these are some of the worst business practices in the world. His BandLab practices are nothing compared to how his family makes most of their money. And yes, based on how he operates BandLab, I definitely don’t trust the guy.

If anyone wants to read up on his family business, it’s called Wilmar.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-30/wilmar-slammed-for-workers-rights-abuses/8078754

LinkedMusicians Founder. Your friend who keeps the beat.

Check out my music. 

6