idea: loyalty prices for longtime purchasers?
Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2009 9:14 pm
I doubt I'm the first person to think about this, but I wonder if/when software companies like Ableton will get on recognizing when a user has been a longtime customer, and give them breaks on upgrade pricing in relation to how long they have been paying for the product.
For example, I bought my first edition of Ableton Live at V4, I could see upgrading to V5 being about $150 to get the new features developed in the previous year. But subsequent upgrades should start to decrease the cost. This helps keep your user base up-to-date, which in turn likely makes support a bit easier. For example, I know a lot of people who stopped updating Live at V5 and are still waiting for the next big jump in the software before they buy it again. That is 3 versions of the software where Ableton has missed out on getting some money from them to support the work of the previous year.
So here I am having paid upgrade feed all the way to V8, but I would still likely pay the same to upgrade to V9 as one of my friends who hasn't paid Ableton anything since V8. If anything I could see the web shop look at what licenses are in your account, and pro-rate the upgrade price based on that. So after something like 5 or 6 years of keeping pace with the software's development, an upgrade to the latest version would be something like $40, maybe less even. That gives me WAY more incentive to keep up with the current version rather than an annual $150 or more hit.
It would also provoke me to upgrade to larger packages, such as adding Max for Live or going to the suite, as the cross-grade cost could also be pro-rated to how long you have been paying for the Live application.
At a certain point I think the discounts would flatten out, like someone who has used Live since V2 should only be paying $20 for each new version of the software. Keeps their loyalty and keeps them up to date with support, so even if they go insane and decide to use ProTools as their main DAW, they'd likely always keep Live updated in the back of their hard drive just in case they want to go back.
Anyway, just a thought I wanted to throw out there to see what people's feedback would be. I think a lot more people would keep their software "legit" if it were cheaper to keep it "legit", while still supporting development.
Thanks.
For example, I bought my first edition of Ableton Live at V4, I could see upgrading to V5 being about $150 to get the new features developed in the previous year. But subsequent upgrades should start to decrease the cost. This helps keep your user base up-to-date, which in turn likely makes support a bit easier. For example, I know a lot of people who stopped updating Live at V5 and are still waiting for the next big jump in the software before they buy it again. That is 3 versions of the software where Ableton has missed out on getting some money from them to support the work of the previous year.
So here I am having paid upgrade feed all the way to V8, but I would still likely pay the same to upgrade to V9 as one of my friends who hasn't paid Ableton anything since V8. If anything I could see the web shop look at what licenses are in your account, and pro-rate the upgrade price based on that. So after something like 5 or 6 years of keeping pace with the software's development, an upgrade to the latest version would be something like $40, maybe less even. That gives me WAY more incentive to keep up with the current version rather than an annual $150 or more hit.
It would also provoke me to upgrade to larger packages, such as adding Max for Live or going to the suite, as the cross-grade cost could also be pro-rated to how long you have been paying for the Live application.
At a certain point I think the discounts would flatten out, like someone who has used Live since V2 should only be paying $20 for each new version of the software. Keeps their loyalty and keeps them up to date with support, so even if they go insane and decide to use ProTools as their main DAW, they'd likely always keep Live updated in the back of their hard drive just in case they want to go back.
Anyway, just a thought I wanted to throw out there to see what people's feedback would be. I think a lot more people would keep their software "legit" if it were cheaper to keep it "legit", while still supporting development.
Thanks.
