The Question Of Price And Value

I was asked to give this post its own thread…

On a side note, I would like to pose some questions that may be relevant to this discussion. I don’t have the answers to these questions, but maybe someone else will.


Is the fact that ReNoise users have been part of the development process, an obligation or a privilege?

Are you a Renoise user cause you want to participate in the development of a new program, or are you a ReNoise user cause you love the program?

Is it amazing privilege to say you played a part in the development of some cool ReNoise feature (that might to be used by Moby or other powerful artists - if you happen to be Moby, you know who you are…) or is it a chore you have to muddle through?

If someone like Moby voluntarily mentioned his excitement about this hot new program called Renoise, should that entitle the developers to sell it for $200 or more?

Does the Renoise development team owe anything to people who have purchased the program, to use it for their own musical ends, aside from reliability?

Should users who have been part of the development process be entitled to special benefits as a result of that?

Are the users entitled to complain about the price or upgrade of a program that can produce amazing music for 45 to maybe 65 dollars?

How does the amazingly low price play into the sales plan?

Aside from the current price of ReNoise, what is it worth to you?

If Renoise were to become your central sequencer, and you devote your life to music, are you a selfish penny pinching bastard even to complain if the program were being sold for $200?

Is 45 to 60 dollars the actual value of Renoise, or simply what people are currently willing to pay for it?


Just thought I would toss this into the mix…

Blessings,
Damon

Ps.
Let us not confuse opinion with truth, or taste with fact.
Let us not allow our small bank accounts to bias the direction of this topic.
Just because I am poor does not mean businesses are obligated to diminish the value of their products.

Is the fact that ReNoise users have been part of the development process, an obligation or a privilege?

Privilege.

Are you a Renoise user cause you want to participate in the development of a new program, or are you a ReNoise user cause you love the program?

Because I like the program, which I’d hope is why most would use it.

Is it amazing privilege to say you played a part in the development of some cool ReNoise feature (that might to be used by Moby or other powerful artists - if you happen to be Moby, you know who you are…) or is it a chore you have to muddle through?

For the “giving feedback, ideas, suggesstions” types of people, I don’t see how it would be a chore…

If someone like Moby voluntarily mentioned his excitement about this hot new program called Renoise, should that entitle the developers to sell it for $200 or more?

The developers are entitled to sell it for whatever they want. It’s an economic decision, and the endorsement from Moby probably won’t effect it that much.

Does the Renoise development team owe anything to people who have purchased the program, to use it for their own musical ends, aside from reliability?

Just goodwill and communication.

Should users who have been part of the development process be entitled to special benefits as a result of that?

Maybe credit (as in “Starring Bruce Willis as Anne”, not “Mastercard”). If Renoise was sold on a larger scale, t-shirts and things wouldn’t hurt, for those who helped significantly.

Are the users entitled to complain about the price or upgrade of a program that can produce amazing music for 45 to maybe 65 dollars?

As long as they’re nice and respectful.

How does the amazingly low price play into the sales plan?

I don’t know the sales plan.

Aside from the current price of ReNoise, what is it worth to you?

Are you asking what the most I would pay is? Or, like, what limb I would choose to sacrifice? :)

If Renoise were to become your central sequencer, and you devote your life to music, are you a selfish penny pinching bastard even to complain if the program were being sold for $200?

How serious and devoted to music I am shouldn’t have anything to do with it. Not saying that Renoise at $50/200 is comparable, but if I have billions of dollars, and the price of a Geo Metro goes up to $500,000, even though I can easily afford it, I wouldn’t be a penny pinching bastard for complaining, because a Geo Metro isn’t worth $500,000.

If you don’t feel Renoise being sold at $200 should be the asking price, there isn’t anything wrong with that. You might be wrong, too. There’s nothing wrong with that, either.

Is 45 to 60 dollars the actual value of Renoise, or simply what people are currently willing to pay for it?

I think it’s a reasonable price. It’s real competition at the moment is Madtracker and a bunch of free stuff. Many people here might find Renoise a perfectly complete alternative to traditional sequencers, but most other people, regardless of product-awareness, will still want those traditional sequencers, and with Tracktion at $200 and FL Studio at $99 - $149, not to mention the “mini” versions of Cubase (SE) and Sonar (Homestudio). Renoise would need to make some additions to it’s interface to even be a competing product. Add a piano roll, audio track recording, a much larger actual resolution for the patterns, and some interface additions that will help people adjust, and it could probably be marketed in the same vein as Fruity and such. In it’s current incarnation, though, is a specialized program, and it’s niche mostly lies within those who have used, or would otherwise use, other trackers.

IMHO, the best thing to do right now to make Renoise appeal to a wider audience would be to make it work as a VSTi (and/or rewire, if paying the license becomes feasible). If people could use Renoise within their sequencer as a sort of “super sampler” instrument, I think more people would see and understand the value in it, and be more open to trying it. There would probably also be more total converts (imagine reading “I just got Renoise to add drumtracks to my Sonar projects, but these days, I spend more and more time just using Renoise by itself” on KVR or something).

Anyway…

I only asked the price to value question, because there are many products that are very expensive because people are willing to pay for them. I have not skied in years, but when I used to ski, the local ski pro would tell me that your typical $20 pair of sun glasses are equal in quality to the $120 swanky brand named glasses.

Even in software, sometimes price is not set at actual worth, but at a price they know people will pay for it, due to name recognition. The software version of the Virus synths are like $800. Are they really worth twice the price of Reaktor? Probably not, but they can charge a fortune cause of the virus name and hardware reputation.

So, despite the fact that a product may have a ground zero value, the price is still driven by what folks are willing to pay for it. One of the oldest marketing schemes is to take a product that does not cost much to manufacture, and give it an absurdly high price, knowing that people will see the high price and think they are getting something special. There is a name for that in the car business, but i don’t know what it is. :blink: But I am just trying to generate productive debate in the off chance someone may actually say something that we all find useful.

Blessings,
Damon

What do you mean?
If you mean which it is more, it’s a privilege for both devs and users. Stressing the word both. I’m not sure how it could be an obligation, unless you mean the devs have been obligated to listen to the users. They haven’t. Renoise owes alot of itself to it’s users. Maybe not as much as it owes itself to it’s devs, but it wouldn’t be what it is now if either were absent.

It’s more to do with it being the software I use the most, than with participating in it’s development. But in all likelyhood it wouldn’t be the software I used the most if I, or more to the point, others here who have contributed with their ideas, reports, etc, didn’t have the attention of the devs.

It’s neither. That we can have something appear in Renoise after suggesting it is just plain COOL. It’s not amazing.

The worst thing one can do is to step back and expect adoration (i.e. we’re giving you this amazing privilege of parttaking in development).
That’s a surefire way for relationships to go sour, and I have the impression that all the devs want to be as close to the users as they can, to prevent any kind of gap from appearing. It’s been a calm conversation (more or less) between devs and users so far, and I hope that never changes.
Nothing passes unless the dev team wants or likes it, or at the very least sees a need for it that they would want or like to still. Most features, atleast to begin with, were introduced after there being a discussion on here that encompassed what seemed to be a high percentage of this boards’ inhabitants.

No. And that’s not to say that they couldn’t be charging whatever they like for it regardless, but Renoise isn’t made to fit just one targetted group of ‘professionals’. If it were, I wouldn’t use it, even if I was part of the demograph.

I don’t know why you use words like ‘owe’, but yes, IMO they owe it to us to let us know where they are in development, and they’ve been very good at following through with that.
When it comes to reliability, manuals, support and stuff like that, I wouldn’t expect any of it. It’s under a $150-200 price tag, and isn’t bug heaven. The attention given to these things in Renoise seems way over the top for a $45 app.

It depends on their involvement. But sure. A great big stuffed heffalump toy wearing a Renoise t-shirt would probably be in order for people who’ve been of extraordinary help.

Sure they are. What better way for them to appreciate the work that goes into developing, than by being ignored, ridiculed and called out when they spew their venom.

It’s not an amazingly low price. And I would hope that they concentrate on development, and not on having an ellaborate sales plan.

I’m sure you’d have to stop development for most to realise what it was or wasn’t worth to them. What I’m not sure of is what kind of answer you expect with questions like these.

Depends. I’d say that Renoise isn’t worth $200 presently. Why? Because it lacks central features that most associate with sequencers. Second of all, $200 has the potential of being a big deal for most people. Either Renoise will ask for $200+, or it will offer something that others could profit from, for practically nothing. The latter benefits a much larger percentage of mankind, and makes Renoise one of the most noble software projects on the face of the earth.

I’d like to see Renoise go open-source donationware. I’d drop $100 every year if that was possible, happily knowing that friends could get their very own copy for free. I’m convinced that if this were to happen, this community would all but explode, and the constant demands and complaints would drown in positivity. Yay!
That being said, I understand why it isn’t open-source in the conventional sense, since that might introduce all kinds of clutter.

It’s not the actual value of Renoise, because there’s no currency to measure actual value in.

(this crap post moved and deleted from other thread.)

QUOTE

Is the fact that ReNoise users have been part of the development process, an obligation or a privilege?

What do you mean?
If you mean which it is more, it’s a privilege for both devs and users. Stressing the word both. I’m not sure how it could be an obligation, unless you mean the devs have been obligated to listen to the users. They haven’t. Renoise owes alot of itself to it’s users. Maybe not as much as it owes itself to it’s devs, but it wouldn’t be what it is now if either were absent.


It was really just a philosophical question. I mean, if Emagic, for instance, invited users to have the same level of input as ReNoise users, would you feel that it was a “job” or a “joy?”

QUOTE

Are you a Renoise user cause you want to participate in the development of a new program, or are you a ReNoise user cause you love the program?

It’s more to do with it being the software I use the most, than with participating in it’s development. But in all likelyhood it wouldn’t be the software I used the most if I, or more to the point, others here who have contributed with their ideas, reports, etc, didn’t have the attention of the devs.


Another philosophical sort of question. What if your favorite artist invited you to be part of the production team. Would you insist they pay you, or would you do it for free?

QUOTE

Is it amazing privilege to say you played a part in the development of some cool ReNoise feature (that might to be used by Moby or other powerful artists - if you happen to be Moby, you know who you are…) or is it a chore you have to muddle through?

It’s neither. That we can have something appear in Renoise after suggesting it is just plain COOL. It’s not amazing.


That is an opinion. My opinion is that ReNoise is amazing. Your opinion is that ReNoise is cool. How would this discrepancy pan out in a court situation? Does ReNoise: Rock, or kick butt, blow, or Jam?


The worst thing one can do is to step back and expect adoration (i.e. we’re giving you this amazing privilege of parttaking in development).


I did not know what to expect when I downloaded ReNoise, and I found my self adoring the program. I don’t know what the development team expected, but they get my “way wonderful” sequencer vote.

That’s a surefire way for relationships to go sour, and I have the impression that all the devs want to be as close to the users as they can, to prevent any kind of gap from appearing. It’s been a calm conversation (more or less) between devs and users so far, and I hope that never changes.
Nothing passes unless the dev team wants or likes it, or at the very least sees a need for it that they would want or like to still. Most features, atleast to begin with, were introduced after there being a discussion on here that encompassed what seemed to be a high percentage of this boards’ inhabitants.


Not sure what more to say on this one.

QUOTE

If someone like Moby voluntarily mentioned his excitement about this hot new program called Renoise, should that entitle the developers to sell it for $200 or more?

No. And that’s not to say that they couldn’t be charging whatever they like for it regardless, but Renoise isn’t made to fit just one targetted group of ‘professionals’. If it were, I wouldn’t use it, even if I was part of the demograph.


If you owned a company that produced a cheap product that would sell for big bucks, would you keep the price down or sell it for what people are willing to pay for it? It helps to put yourself in the other shoes.

QUOTE

Does the Renoise development team owe anything to people who have purchased the program, to use it for their own musical ends, aside from reliability?

I don’t know why you use words like ‘owe’, but yes, IMO they owe it to us to let us know where they are in development, and they’ve been very good at following through with that.
When it comes to reliability, manuals, support and stuff like that, I wouldn’t expect any of it. It’s under a $150-200 price tag, and isn’t bug heaven. The attention given to these things in Renoise seems way over the top for a $45 app.

Do I read you to mean that the team is being more attentive and communicative than is normally expected for a $45 application?
For it that is what you are saying, you would be justifying a higher price due to the attention to detail and over abundance of effort applied to designing ReNoise. Why is a $4000 hand made guitar more expensive than a $120 knock off from China? They both have strings and play like a guitar?

QUOTE

Should users who have been part of the development process be entitled to special benefits as a result of that?

It depends on their involvement. But sure. A great big stuffed heffalump toy wearing a Renoise t-shirt would probably be in order for people who’ve been of extraordinary help.


Back to the philosophical question of weather it is a privilege or an unpleasant obligation to be part of the development process. Is what you are “getting” more than what you are “giving?” Each person has an opinion on this one, and everyone is right here. Some love to be part of the process, some find it inconvenient. Taste is subjective. Some people pay money to do what other people don’t want to do, for free.

QUOTE

Are the users entitled to complain about the price or upgrade of a program that can produce amazing music for 45 to maybe 65 dollars?

Sure they are. What better way for them to appreciate the work that goes into developing, than by being ignored, ridiculed and called out when they spew their venom.


Not sure what you mean here…

QUOTE

How does the amazingly low price play into the sales plan?

It’s not an amazingly low price. And I would hope that they concentrate on development, and not on having an ellaborate sales plan.


I don’t know… How many sequencers are there on the market that can run any VSTi, for less than $45? An ellaborate sales plan could move the price up… Is that why you prefer it not be approached that way? I am trying to approach this from a position independent of my financial means. Cause if i let my means define my views on the topic of price, I would suggest they sell it for $5.

QUOTE

Aside from the current price of ReNoise, what is it worth to you?
I’m sure you’d have to stop development for most to realise what it was or wasn’t worth to them. What I’m not sure of is what kind of answer you expect with questions like these.

If ReNoise were $200, would you still buy it? Assuming that your bank account to cover it?

QUOTE

If Renoise were to become your central sequencer, and you devote your life to music, are you a selfish penny pinching bastard even to complain if the program were being sold for $200?

Depends. I’d say that Renoise isn’t worth $200 presently. Why? Because it lacks central features that most associate with sequencers. Second of all, $200 has the potential of being a big deal for most people. Either Renoise will ask for $200+, or it will offer something that others could profit from, for practically nothing. The latter benefits a much larger percentage of mankind, and makes Renoise one of the most noble software projects on the face of the earth.

Does the fact that ReNoise does the same sequencer things, differently, suggest that it does not same things at all? If you build a car that you can purchase with either front or rear drive, does this suggest that 1 or the other is more or less a car than the other? Is it apples and oranges, or green apples and red apples?


I’d like to see Renoise go open-source donationware. I’d drop $100 every year if that was possible, happily knowing that friends could get their very own copy for free. I’m convinced that if this were to happen, this community would all but explode, and the constant demands and complaints would drown in positivity. Yay!
That being said, I understand why it isn’t open-source in the conventional sense, since that might introduce all kinds of clutter.


I am not sure if it is fair to bias the discussion based on your own financial situation. People who don’t have a lot of dough typically would say anything possible to get the price down. Kind of like asking a cocaine addict if coke should be legalized. The coke addict will probably always say it should be legalized, simply because that benefits his personal situation.

QUOTE

Is 45 to 60 dollars the actual value of Renoise, or simply what people are currently willing to pay for it?

It’s not the actual value of Renoise, because there’s no currency to measure actual value in.

(this crap post moved and deleted from other thread.)

How then do you put a dollar value on a piece of software? Do you compare it to other pieces of software that can accomplish similar goals? Cause if you were to compare what ReNoise can do to all the other sequencers that do the same things, this might suggest that ReNoise should be substantially more expensive than $45.



The point of my post was to delve deeper into these more ambiguous areas, in hopes that we can extract some sort of naturally fair ethic from the discussion. The question of value verses desirability is not a new one. The price of gold rises and falls on a daily basis. I just wanted to get some of the same philosophical dynamics into the ReNoise price debate. I find debate and discussion pleasurable, but this is because i am insane.

The same as with Renoise I guess. Meaning it could be both, depending on which house the moon was in and what I’d had to eat that day.
Are you a registered Logic user? There’s quite the community, with mailing lists and whatnot, that have been just as amazing as anything else.

I assume that the artist in question wasn’t in it for the profit, and then I wouldn’t be either.
I’d still ask to get a piece of the pie if it was meant to be equally distributed, and if I were taken advantage of, let me just say that I wouldn’t favour that artist anymore.
But I think the question you began with is a bit different from this picture. In short, no one here should expect anything except having their voice heard if they are registered. Anything past that is over the top AFAIC.

Sure it’s an opinion. Explained more succinctly I think you’ve taken to debating something that has nothing to do with anything, least of all Renoise, and you insist on using superlatives as if it were a way to slip by the ones who’d normally see your BS for what it is.

And mine too at that. What I meant is that you might want to see this as a convoluted thing. The developers actually benefit from user input. It’s not a one way street. It’s not even a two way street since not everything we as users contribute will be beneficial to them (maybe it even reaches the point where it obfuscates/prevents development), and not every new feature or bug fix can be of benefit to every user (maybe it even reaches the point where it obfuscates/prevents use of Renoise).

Well, I did use my other shoes when I wrote, and I arrived at the conclusion that I wouldn’t charge any more than what someone would give for it, and I won’t support anyone who does overcharge if I can help it. But it’s a choice for the developers how much Renoise will retail at, not for us.

Yes and no. To my untrained, subjective eye, it’s good value to get that stuff, in addition to the application itself. But in reality, I have no basis for comparison, even though the net is overflowing with other trackers/sequencers, because I don’t compare Renoise to anything, and I don’t compare it’s devs to anyone.
Would you spend $45 on a great program with non-existing support, or $200 on a non-existing program with great support?
And what kind of a question is that?

I don’t justify a higher price because of that. Not at all. I mean, I wouldn’t pay ANYTHING for a manual, support or anything else like that, because that’s not something I need personally. The reasoning I have for that is that I feel comfortable with Renoise, it’s intuitive to use because of the background I have with trackers (+ other pertinent stuff), and there is a community here whenever I have questions.
What I am saying is that they have done more with these things than what I expect from a $45 application.

We could probably discuss guitars at lengths, but the knock off is seldom what the handmade guitar is, even though alot of very good US luthiers are outsourcing most, if not all their production to China etc, and having them built to strict specifications for a fraction of the price, which in turn gains them revenue/price advantage.

On a philosophical note, I don’t think everyone is right with regard to the question of getting or giving, unless it didn’t have any degree of seriousness to it.
If, on the other hand, it did matter what every person chose, there would only be one, or a series, of ways to go about it, consequences attached.
Being right in a situation like that (for me) has to do with seeing the needs of others, and not your own. And that’s not something I invented for myself just now to retort. It’s a whole doctrine.
Applied to Renoise’s development, you only have to look at the bug reports related to 1.5. They have asked for help with it, and most who’ve had something to report, have done so, and that’s great.
I feel guilty for not having reported, and even having managed to forget some of the bugs I’ve encountered, thinking that someone else would report it.

They have to be allowed to complain, and they have to be met with whatever reaction awaits their complaint.

I don’t know what your definition of a sequencer is, but AFAIC Renoise isn’t there yet. An ellaborate sales plan would potentially derail the whole project being as there’s only a handful of people involved. I don’t go by what means I have when assessing the value of something, but it wouldn’t be a bad way to go for someone who had the potential to get more out of it than anyone, musically, but who was prevented from that because the sequencer was too expensive.

$200? Yes. But I think it’s too much. Some features aren’t there yet, and ATM Renoise can win some ground with people who aren’t used to trackers at all, and with that in mind, I think it’s priced accurately.

First off, you use the phrase ‘selfish, penny pinching bastard’. In context with your previous posts, that says what it does about you, and little, if anything, about anyone else.

Secondly, Renoise doesn’t do the same things other sequencers do, only differently. In some cases it does more, in most cases it does about the same, or it does less.
Sequencers have more than a head start when it comes to being sequencers. There’s more than a marginal difference when it comes to dealing with audio objects, non-destructive editing, recording, arranging, etc.

And I’m not sure if it’s fair to bias the discussion based on your assumptions.
You were asking for answers. If you don’t have the capacity to discern what I answer from the answers given by others, or you’re just looking for someone to agree with you, that’s not my fault.

Ehm. I’m embarassed on your behalf. It’s amazing how you could write something like that, knowing next to nothing about me, and not feel so repulsed as to edit it just a split second later.

Ask the devs if they like it when a person such as you insinuates that another person, such as me, is lying on here.

Ask them if they question my willingness, or the willingness of someone else, to give what they have to part with, provided there’s a definite, visible need.

Just because you’re unaware of the fact that donationware is better at estimating the value of Renoise than you’ll ever be, and of taking into account that some have more and some have less, doesn’t give you the right to accuse anyone of lying, or even worse, of being POOR and SELFISH (because the latter two, as you and I both know, go hand in hand… wink, wink).

People who want an even playing field, where every person, regardless of financial situation, can have access to and use something like Renoise, might typically say anything to get the price down.

Thanks alot, Captain Underground.

You’re the one with $ in your eyes, not me. And to your claim, that’s just pure BS on all accounts. Oh wait, maybe I’m biased… :lol:

If you want to delve deeper, or have any kind of fruitful discussion, be the proverbial indian. Listen more and speak less. There’s nothing philosophical about most of this. It’s utter crap. And that’s not an opinion, it just is.
Hope you found this pleasurable. ;)