I've been an avid fan (seewhatIdidthere?) of Pro Tools, user since 2011. In 8 years, tons of stuff has changed and made my experience much better than those first 5... but I will admit, I am scratching my head a bit since PT 12. I'm not really a power user, so all these "HD freebies" aren't registering... what I look at are the frequency of updates to the core software, or any plug ins. Which, it appears, plugins (though there are a lot of free ones) are mostly useless and haven't had an update in 3 years.
Every July, I do ask myself what I am paying $198 for? In the grand scheme, it's not a ton of money - but I feel like I am "renting" it already :) However today I have flipped off the Auto Renew switch while I take some time to evaluate whether I agree with the
most of the industry model.
Hey,
if most of the industry jumped off a cliff, would you jump too? (hearing my mom's voice) Just be honest. Avid is a business. Their goal is profits. Subscriptions bring in more profits. You and I, home studio users A and B, matter not - but it's not Avid being a monster - it is the nature of a for-profit company to only give a s&*t about profit. This isn't some open-source gnu-bee lovin freebie software :)
So while I understand the model shift, I disagree with it... enough so to give up paying, keep my perpetual license, and look into alternatives that, for years now, have all become pretty inspiring.
Just my $0.02, fwiw (not even 2 cents these days
)