Quote:
Originally Posted by adamqlw
Why? Because Avid should be interested in FUTURE profitability. Not past. My future dollar will be going elsewhere unless I percieve better value for their products vis-a-vis the competition. The competition has really upped the game, from both a value and absolute quality perspective. And while I would rather play the current eleven rack than the POD, if this trend persists it won't be long before I jump ship.
As for the importance of consumer/pro-sumer revenues to Avid's bottom line, think of it this way. When it comes to hardware perhaps margins may or may not be comparable, due the variable cost involved (physical components)
but when it comes to software, the bulk of the cost involved is R&D and perhaps after-sales service. Avid has already made the switch to keep after-sales service down by making users pay for it. That means most of the cost involved is fixed cost (i.e. the marginal cost for each additional copy sold is close to $0). There is a sweetspot where they can maximize profit there, and it certainly means segmented pricing for pro and consumer markets. The Eleven Rack introduced me to Pro Tools. I happily bought the upgrade from PT8 to PT9, felt it was a fair deal. And then the ridiculous pricing for the upgrade from PT9 to PT10 destroyed much of the goodwill that they had managed to build up with me. Likely outcome? Moving on next generation, looking for better alternatives. Impact? My dollar goes elsewhere. Individually I do no presume to make much of a difference... but I suspect I far from the only one who feels this way.
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But do ANY of us NEED Pro Tools 10? Did PT 9 or PTLE suddenly stop working? I would say no - none of us NEED it. We've all convinced ourselves that we want it, or that we're somehow entitled to it - so much so that we believe we need it, but the fact is, most of what many of us do could be accomplished on PTLE.
Certainly, a hobbyist demo-maker doesn't need PT10. Some of us may be pro musicians, maybe even semi-pro "engineers", and the more experience we gather, the more you'd think we'd need the full deal. In reality, we realize over time that we won't be tracking the next Grammy Award-winning CD in our living rooms using Pro Tools 10 on our MacBooks (unless you're a rap/hip hop guy who uses pre-mastered loops), and so our home\portable recording rigs are really scratchpads at best. And with that in mind, lots can be accomplished with the PTLE\PT9 that you already have.
If we DO get the opportunity to record a major-label album, it'll be at a "real" studio. And guess what? Even though some of us might be upset enough at Avid to decide not to buy Pro Tools in the future, it is in most of the major studios (and Logic has the remainder), and those studios spend BIG bucks on HD (HDX) and TDM systems, consoles, control surfaces, etc. The same goes for video production houses and the ISIS products. We, on the other hand do not spend big bucks, relatively speaking, and we're not likely to be in a position to do so. So once we weigh our spot in the marketplace against their core business, we see that a $500-$1000 customer is chump change, compared to the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars their "real" customers spend.
Sometimes I think we overestimate our importance. Our collective portion of Avid's business could go away tomorrow, and they'd never notice. Not only that, but we represent such a small drop in the revenue bucket that "future profitability" wouldn't notice if we all spontaneously combusted.