Board 8 > Rent-to-Own software... is this a new thing?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Not sure how many music producers, graphic artists, photographers, etc. we have on this board, but I was just looking at the pricing for the VST Serum the other day and I noticed they have a rent-to-own model and it's kind of blowing my mind. I know a ton of people pirate professional software because they're just hobbyists and they don't want to throw down hundreds of dollars for a program they just want to mess around with and now that I know rent-to-own is a thing, I don't know why it hasn't been done sooner... or why it's not the standard for everything from Photoshop to Pro Tools.

I mean $10 a month for however long I want to use it, free updates for as long as I'm paying.. and I can just cancel at any time, or have the balance paid off at 20 months or pay the remainder as soon as I know I'm serious, with no interest.

I'm just curious how many other high-profile companies are doing this right now because it seems like a great way to combat piracy and I honestly do enjoy supporting developers, but sometimes I just have to go without software I'm interested in because the price is prohibitively expensive. In terms of music production I'm still trying to save up extra cash to purchase Cubase, but if there's another DAW that's on-par with a rent-to-own model I'd definitely be willing to check it out.
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Seems smart, kind of surprised I've never heard of this model before.
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$10 a month up until the full price of it, then you keep it?
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My first reaction was "holy shit this is the stupidest thing ever and makes no sense for software"

But thinking about it more, it sure as shit beats having to pay for upgrades

-hotdogturtle-- posted...

$10 a month up until the full price of it, then you keep it?

Assuming this is accurate, at least, and I'm not misunderstanding the premise.
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-hotdogturtle-- posted...

$10 a month up until the full price of it, then you keep it?

Exactly. And the craziest part is that you can cancel at any time... and they save your progress. I can pay $40, take a few months off and then pay the remainder whenever I feel like getting back into it. It would be one thing if it was some rinky dink company trying to get their name out there, but this is one of the most popular and versatile wavetable synthesizers out there. I'm really impressed and I can't wait for others to start copying the model. I'm like excited to support them.

I should probably add that a lot of companies already license their software month-to-month or on a 1-year contract (think Microsoft Office 365) so this kind of thing just shits all over them. Why pay 1/3 of the price for a year and start back at 0 the next when you can just keep putting money towards a full version?
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