Reply To: Not Deal – Wasn’t expecting Sonar Free dealbreaker this early

[peter]

The old saying in the business world is, if you’re not paying to use the product, you’re the product, is almost always true.

The way that Meng has heavy-handedly required activation for free product and then stopped it for Cakewalk by BandLab should be of major concern for anyone who plans on opening Cakewalk by BandLab or Cakewalk Sonar project files a year from now without paying for a subscription. That’s what stopped me.

Now, Sonar is failing so bad they’re taking their strategies all over the board. Based on a hint from the social media manager (Ashwin), BandLab is probably going to release a perpetual license version. My business experience leads me to believe that it’s too late for that product to succeed. They’ve too badly damaged the brand. But if they release a perpetual license, they’ll very likely kill off the free version so that it won’t activate anymore.

Even so, I would probably pay for the perpetual license version. No, I would never use it to make new projects. I would buy it to open up my existing projects from Cakewalk by BandLab. There is no chance whatsoever that I think it’s a smart idea for anyone who wants to be able to open up a project created today three years from now, that Sonar is a safe or smart bet. It is neither.

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