Reason Studios shares their roadmap (September 7, 2021)

[Creativemind]

Agree. it is very frustrating to see how complacent most forum users are.

How is anyone being "complacent" here? I don't think anyone is really truly defending the apparent silence, but after pages and pages of people whining and b itch ing about it, let's just say it gets old. I'll be the first to agree that the R12 rollout was fumbled, and I'll also agree that a "roadmap update" is long overdue since the first planned deadline wasn't met. But it's not like they've been 100% silent - for the third time, the CEO himself admitted they're behind at the end of October. ffs

On Twitter and only when asked / prompted. That's not communicating, that was chatting in a casual conversation to a user. Luckily people communicate such things on here else I for one would've never known they'd responded.

EDIT - There has been a response now I see.

[DaveyG]

Good news. They've just published an updated road map.

[jaeproduced]

Good news. They've just published an updated road map.

Yeah it looks like November is a No Go for updates...smh

[Creativemind]

Good news. They've just published an updated road map.

What do the red bits symbolise?

[plaamook]

Good news. They've just published an updated road map.

What do the red bits symbolise?

Those are like danger zones. Really buggy updates. We’re trying to avoid that.
A bit like snakes and ladders I think.

[EnochLight]

Yep, here's the screenshot again:

yep.JPG (118.18 KiB) Viewed 10958 times

Thank god someone had the forethought to circle it. I might otherwise have missed it.

I know, right?!

[joeyluck]

Where are all the memes? I thought there would be more memes. And has Niklas seen mine? I worked so hard on it!

[QVprod]

Like other subscriptions, you cancel before the 30 days is up. It says “cancel anytime”

I’d agree though that some sort of free trial should exist. One of the reasons I never got into Cubase was having to buy a dongle to do it. Granted this is only $1, but it does put a slight barrier to someone just wanting to get a general feel of the program itself before spending money.

Yeah so if you're busy with life and forget to cancel. THE CUSTOMER SHOULDN'T HAVE TO CANCEL, it's a scam. If indeed that's what happens. If you pay for a month then it should cancel after a month, you shouldn't have to do it. Legalised theft.

Sorry for the rant but it really irks me.

I do understand, but at some point personal responsibility has to step in here. Perhaps they could do like some other trials and give a reminder, but I'd be pretty adamant about canceling something that I decided I did not want. Put a reminder in a phone, put it in a calendar...etc... One could also argue that a customer shouldn't have to manually renew if they chose to subscribe, it's pretty much the point of a subscription.

[guitfnky]

it shouldn’t be treated like a subscription if you just want to try it out. super shitty, charging a dollar for a 30 day trial just so you can get people’s credit deets and maybe get lucky and grab another 30-60 bucks before people realize they’re being charged. well, I guess it’s their own fault because pErSoNaL rEsPoNsIbIlItY. there isn’t an eye roll hard enough for that one. (but here, have one anyway!)

there’s no legitimate consumer-friendly excuse for that kind of approach. it’s 100% anti consumer. I’d love to hear about the thought process that went into this one. yeesh.

[QVprod]

it shouldn’t be treated like a subscription if you just want to try it out. super shitty, charging a dollar for a 30 day trial just so you can get people’s credit deets and maybe get lucky and grab another 30-60 bucks before people realize they’re being charged. well, I guess it’s their own fault because pErSoNaL rEsPoNsIbIlItY. there isn’t an eye roll hard enough for that one. (but here, have one anyway!)

there’s no legitimate consumer-friendly excuse for that kind of approach. it’s 100% anti consumer. I’d love to hear about the thought process that went into this one. yeesh.

I've already agreed that there should be some type of free trial. I'm not defending that.

That aside, if you choose to subscribe to something for a lower rate knowing that the rate will change the next month, it's on that person to keep track of their own finances. We're all adults, or at least I'd assume most people with credit/debit cards are. There are even tools to help manage these things if one needs help.

I did the Netflix trial several times before committing to it, as they kept offering it again. Sure it was free, but it still required card info. I didn't blame Netflix the one or two times I forgot to cancel. It's not like we're talking about hidden fees. Not speaking for or against the model, but it's pretty normal for subscription services to do this.

[MrFigg]

Only reason I never take free month trials is because I can’t be bothered with the hassle of cancelling it again. I know I have to cancel it if I don’t want to pay every month after the trial. They even tell you that. For most stuff, like Netflix, you know what you’re getting even without a trial so what’s the point unless you’re just out after a freebie?

[Neo]

Hey you guys.. VST3 support.

Road Map.jpg (105.66 KiB) Viewed 10714 times

[guitfnky]

it shouldn’t be treated like a subscription if you just want to try it out. super shitty, charging a dollar for a 30 day trial just so you can get people’s credit deets and maybe get lucky and grab another 30-60 bucks before people realize they’re being charged. well, I guess it’s their own fault because pErSoNaL rEsPoNsIbIlItY. there isn’t an eye roll hard enough for that one. (but here, have one anyway!)

there’s no legitimate consumer-friendly excuse for that kind of approach. it’s 100% anti consumer. I’d love to hear about the thought process that went into this one. yeesh.

I've already agreed that there should be some type of free trial. I'm not defending that.

That aside, if you choose to subscribe to something for a lower rate knowing that the rate will change the next month, it's on that person to keep track of their own finances. We're all adults, or at least I'd assume most people with credit/debit cards are. There are even tools to help manage these things if one needs help.

I did the Netflix trial several times before committing to it, as they kept offering it again. Sure it was free, but it still required card info. I didn't blame Netflix the one or two times I forgot to cancel. It's not like we're talking about hidden fees. Not speaking for or against the model, but it's pretty normal for subscription services to do this.

Reason isn't a subscription service. it's AVAILABLE as a subscription, but it's also available as a normal purchased product. you can't buy a perpetual license for Netflix.

of course anyone signing up for the $1 "trial" should be aware, and is on the hook if they don't cancel, but that isn't my point. my point is that this is an undeniably consumer-unfriendly move by RS. how anyone can try to defend that is mind-boggling to me.

[Arrant]

The road map is one thing, I understand that it's a sequence of features ordered by what the company wants to work on first and not a plan. And that fixing serious bugs always takes priority over features.

What annoys me is the R12 launch itself, who the heck greenlit that? There were lots of issues reported in the beta that were obviously not fixed before release, and the beta was too short as it was.
In fact I will go further. It was clear as day that this would not be a successful release. Anyone spending 20 minutes with R12 trying to do serious work could tell you so. And despite all this, it was released anyway. It 's certainly a cause for questioning how decisions are made within the company.
Release when the product is ready, not at some random date given by the strategy/marketing guys. RS were the gurus of this in the past, yes this was much to the frustration of their impatient user base, but on the upside the software was always solid.

[rootwheel]

Release when the product is ready, not at some random date given by the strategy/marketing guys. RS were the gurus of this in the past, yes this was much to the frustration of their impatient user base, but on the upside the software was always solid.

I couldn't have put it better myself. At least they're being honest and transparent about it in their listing on the Verdane website:

verdane.png (225.12 KiB) Viewed 10649 times

[Creativemind]

it shouldn’t be treated like a subscription if you just want to try it out. super shitty, charging a dollar for a 30 day trial just so you can get people’s credit deets and maybe get lucky and grab another 30-60 bucks before people realize they’re being charged. well, I guess it’s their own fault because pErSoNaL rEsPoNsIbIlItY. there isn’t an eye roll hard enough for that one. (but here, have one anyway!)

there’s no legitimate consumer-friendly excuse for that kind of approach. it’s 100% anti consumer. I’d love to hear about the thought process that went into this one. yeesh.

You pretty much summed it up but basically - so they can get your credit card details and also fingers crossed some people won't realise they have to manually stop it themselves and be charged a month's subscription so therefore makes them money they DEFINITELY wouldn't have had before. Even Dick Turpin wore a mask.

Some shady lawyer come up with as a way to dupe people legally say 10 years ago or more. "Let's put in the fine print that no-one reads (and obviously in lawyer speak probably) that the subscription will automatically roll over if you don't cancel it and think how many people we can legally con out of money before they realise, and it will be legal and there's nothing they can do about it.

[orthodox]

it shouldn’t be treated like a subscription if you just want to try it out. super shitty, charging a dollar for a 30 day trial just so you can get people’s credit deets and maybe get lucky and grab another 30-60 bucks before people realize they’re being charged. well, I guess it’s their own fault because pErSoNaL rEsPoNsIbIlItY. there isn’t an eye roll hard enough for that one. (but here, have one anyway!)

there’s no legitimate consumer-friendly excuse for that kind of approach. it’s 100% anti consumer. I’d love to hear about the thought process that went into this one. yeesh.

You pretty much summed it up but basically - so they can get your credit card details and also fingers crossed some people won't realise they have to manually stop it themselves and be charged a month's subscription so therefore makes them money they DEFINITELY wouldn't have had before. Even Dick Turpin wore a mask.

Some shady lawyer come up with as a way to dupe people legally say 10 years ago or more. "Let's put in the fine print that no-one reads (and obviously in lawyer speak probably) that the subscription will automatically roll over if you don't cancel it and think how many people we can legally con out of money before they realise, and it will be legal and there's nothing they can do about it.

What kind of person are you talking about who isn't aware of the automatic subscription deployment? One should be a complete idiot.

I even received an email 3 days before my card was charged, saying "Your Reason+ Trial is About to Expire.... Your trial will convert to a full-price subscription on May 22, 2021".

[SJLx84]

it shouldn’t be treated like a subscription if you just want to try it out. super shitty, charging a dollar for a 30 day trial just so you can get people’s credit deets and maybe get lucky and grab another 30-60 bucks before people realize they’re being charged. well, I guess it’s their own fault because pErSoNaL rEsPoNsIbIlItY. there isn’t an eye roll hard enough for that one. (but here, have one anyway!)

there’s no legitimate consumer-friendly excuse for that kind of approach. it’s 100% anti consumer. I’d love to hear about the thought process that went into this one. yeesh.

You pretty much summed it up but basically - so they can get your credit card details and also fingers crossed some people won't realise they have to manually stop it themselves and be charged a month's subscription so therefore makes them money they DEFINITELY wouldn't have had before. Even Dick Turpin wore a mask.

Some shady lawyer come up with as a way to dupe people legally say 10 years ago or more. "Let's put in the fine print that no-one reads (and obviously in lawyer speak probably) that the subscription will automatically roll over if you don't cancel it and think how many people we can legally con out of money before they realise, and it will be legal and there's nothing they can do about it.

This kind of toxic pedantry on the internet doesn't do anything positive either for this community or the world at large. Every single subscription service that exists needs to be opted out of as, when commencing - even in the care of a free trial, you agree to recurring billing. It isn't difficult to understand. Furthermore, suggesting that personal responsibility should be overridden by Reason Studios and they have seek ongoing explicit confirmation that you wish for the subscription to continue is not realistic neither is it fair to use it as a stick to beat them with.

A lot of people's dissatisfaction in life could be sorted just by asking themselves if they are being reasonable and refraining from posting until they are sure that they are.

[RobBarnett]

Good news. They've just published an updated road map.

Where would I find this? I cant see it on the RS website. Do You have a link?

[DaveyG]

Good news. They've just published an updated road map.

Where would I find this? I cant see it on the RS website. Do You have a link?

Yeah, here it is: https://tinyurl.com/8u6ehfzd

[guitfnky]

good lord, the apologists…

Reason is not a subscription. Reason+ is a subscription.

this isn’t difficult stuff, people.

[Carly(Poohbear)]

The road map is one thing, I understand that it's a sequence of features ordered by what the company wants to work on first and not a plan. And that fixing serious bugs always takes priority over features.

What annoys me is the R12 launch itself, who the heck greenlit that? There were lots of issues reported in the beta that were obviously not fixed before release, and the beta was too short as it was.
In fact I will go further. It was clear as day that this would not be a successful release. Anyone spending 20 minutes with R12 trying to do serious work could tell you so. And despite all this, it was released anyway. It 's certainly a cause for questioning how decisions are made within the company.
Release when the product is ready, not at some random date given by the strategy/marketing guys. RS were the gurus of this in the past, yes this was much to the frustration of their impatient user base, but on the upside the software was always solid.

Totally agree, I remember having conversations with RS about this time last year, 11.5 would bring us high-res and Reason 12 due in 2022, their subscription services turned this upside down, they want to show they there was a real purpose to subscribe which has totally backfired. They issued a roadmap and are unable to stick to that, they have lost a lot of trust over all this..
I thought their release of VST's with 9.5 was very clever, their large v9 userbase got it for free, even though it was not fully baked made many people happy, I could have seen the same thing with R11.5 and high-res as long as the glitches were not show stoppers would have made a lot of happy people looking forward to the next version..
I see no reason to be on the beta team as you are not being heard, I was on Beta teams within Microsoft and they could not release those products without our thumbs up...

[avasopht]

That aside, if you choose to subscribe to something for a lower rate knowing that the rate will change the next month, it's on that person to keep track of their own finances. We're all adults, or at least I'd assume most people with credit/debit cards are. There are even tools to help manage these things if one needs help.

I did the Netflix trial several times before committing to it, as they kept offering it again. Sure it was free, but it still required card info. I didn't blame Netflix the one or two times I forgot to cancel. It's not like we're talking about hidden fees. Not speaking for or against the model, but it's pretty normal for subscription services to do this.

As much as it is everyone's responsibility to ensure they don't leave their doors open and whatnot, we are all of limited capability to do so. There's a reason why something like 48-62% of people who sign up for "free trials" forgot to cancel or didn't realise.

It's part of my job to know why this happens and to prevent it (when desired). However, many companies seek to deceive unsuspecting victims into making an unintended purchase/subscription and are happy to fight against a refund, even if they requested it within minutes of being charged for a 1-year subscription.

There is an extraordinary imbalance in knowledge and power here. You as an individual, no matter how hard you try, will never be able to protect yourself from every form of manipulation.

It could be stealth bank charges that make use of obscure rules of law and technicalities that can lead to you incurring exorbitant amounts of charges you will never be able to afford or pay. Just a few generations ago, the trick was company towns that were nigh impossible to escape!!!

The fields are fairly well-established, and we've known since the 70s/80s how fragile human cognition is and easy it is to manipulate. Many of those practices are used by marketing and media companies to manipulate us in ways that were unimaginable barely 100 years ago.

When it comes to "free trials" that are really subscriptions, it's often used as an underhand tactic to trick people into making an unintended purchase, and is a practice that should always be frowned upon.

Background: Misleading 'free' trial or test offers that subsequently trap consumers into subscriptions to purchase the test product or services are a persistent malpractice affecting many online consumers across Europe.

...

For the digital products, where subscription information was very large and quite clearly marked, only about 42 to 45 per cent of respondents noticed the fee (and they reported that around 54 per cent of others would notice the fee information).

I do like how RS did this, however, as charging $1/mo puts consumers on a higher alert to that the fact they are subscribing is more explicit. There were a few threads asking about this with the 333 promo.

They could improve it a little by allowing users to cancel the subscription after the trial. Not doing so greatly increases the likelihood of a few unintended purchases. Their decision to not do so signals to me that they might want unintended purchases.

Regardless of how "adult" or responsible a person is, any company that seeks to trick people into making unintended purchases should be frowned upon.

[EnochLight]

good lord, the apologists…

Reason is not a subscription. Reason+ is a subscription.

this isn’t difficult stuff, people.

No, it's not difficult. They're obviously pushing the sub (Reason+ as a service) ahead of everything. Is it consumer friendly? Compared to 10 years ago when there was no sub and your choice was "trial for 30-days; then buy or not", I absolutely agree with you. But now the choice is "trial for 30-days for $1; then buy or not". Is it the end of the world you're making it out to be? Nope - IMHO you're putting way too much effort into calling everyone who doesn't agree with that sentiment an "apologist".

[plaamook]

Like Amazon prime.
Can’t remember how many times I’ve tríales that. And you can opt out the next day but keep your trial till the end. Or opt in for a reminder. Relatively transparent even for them.
Like figg said, I generally steer clear of em cause I can’t be bothered.