Another reason for you to hate Waves

[joeyluck]

I dunno. Going subscription only—they knew what the responses would be and what the vibe would be in forums and on social media. And then retracting it within a couple days before seeing how it would work out and if people would adapt?

I will maintain my theory that it was planned or plan B was in a loose back pocket with their hand on it. They weren't committed to the idea.

[avasopht]

Well, it wouldn't be the first time executives ignored all good advice

[TritoneAddiction]

I saw the backlash in youtube comments. Damn it really was 99% of people absolutely hating Waves move to subscription only. I actually didn't think Waves would change their minds that fast. Glad to see that we as customers actually have some power to change companies business model. Again I don't own any Waves plugins. But I see this as a big win for us perpetuals. Hopefully this disaster will deter other companies from doing subscription only as well.

[dvdrtldg]

Gotta say I'm relieved. Waves' business model obviously sucks in a million different ways, but at the end of the day I have a bunch of their plugins that I like very much and rely on heavily

[MuttReason]

Well, it wouldn't be the first time executives ignored all good advice

Yep, for sure. In fact it would be (roughly, non-scientific estimate) well over the 1,000,000,000th time that corporate senior executives ignored all good advice. IME, anyway…

[Iapetus 9]

Their guitar stuff was enough for me to walk away from Waves after a quick test. Perfectly tepid, below average plugins for the money. IMHO, they try to do way too much and end up with average everything, so, Cherry Audio with a longer history.

[joeyluck]

I'm curious people's take on this...

Let's say you are a company with hundreds of plugins and you are looking for a way to fund the continued maintenance of all of them, in all formats on all the changing platforms.

Would you:

A) Have something like the WUP and/or subscription plan to afford the development?
B) Discontinue older plugins to manage your resources?
C) Make your own plugin format that runs inside your own DAW? (RE for the win!)
D) Something else?

I feel like most plugin devs, even those who make far less plugins than Waves, go with option B. They discontinue and move on, focusing on what they think is selling well or offers superior features.

There's a lot I don't like about Waves—the WaveShells, the endless sales (maybe that ends now to push the value of the plugins and subscription?). And aside from the fact that I stopped using them for now, I can't say I'm upset at any of their strategies. I don't find any of it that ridiculous. They make sense for what they are trying to do I guess.

[bxbrkrz]

D) No one is mourning wired big phones. Evolution. Survival. Maybe the next thing could be some kind of Web3 plugins, not directly connected to any particular OS, or licenses.
Do we know if Waves is still a strong and profitable company? Maybe they didn't have a choice.

[EdGrip]

My perception is that Waves don't enjoy the same position within producing and engineering that they once did. My guess is that their plugins tend to be used by people who have used their plugins for a long time, and they're not attracting new users like they did when they were the first plugin company a newcomer would hear of.

But again, I think they're a bad vibes company with various layers of bullshittery, and when you compare them to the pure engineering approach of companies like TDR, Valhalla, or FabFilter, it's hard to imagine giving them money, regardless of if their actual code is great.

[EdGrip]

Cherry Audio are on the list, along with Excite Audio and Positive Grid, of plugins with 200MB+ downloads for a plugin. Flat no. No need for it.

[dvdrtldg]

There's a lot I don't like about Waves—the WaveShells, the endless sales (maybe that ends now to push the value of the plugins and subscription?). And aside from the fact that I stopped using them for now, I can't say I'm upset at any of their strategies. I don't find any of it that ridiculous. They make sense for what they are trying to do I guess.

Agree in principle, and I get that developers need profits to survive. I have no problem with Waves instituting a subscription service. It's more the way they rolled it out - no warning, no option for existing licence holders to keep using the WUP that they signed up for under the explicit contractual agreement that it wouldn't be taken away from them

Anyway, all fine now

[Loque]

Looks like they made a step back and want to sell their crap like before too.

But I guess the damage is done and the trust is gone.

[QVprod]

The problem comes down to what you’re paying for. Most of Waves’ updates aren’t really updates. Which is why a lot of people didn’t pay for WUP regularly. I upgraded to the new OS and my “old version “ still works perfectly fine then I’m not inclined to pay for a “compatibility update” where all they did was change the version number.

But if maintenance of the entire plug-in library is the problem, then I’d agree downsizing the old stuff is the answer. Definitely not a forced subscription to 220 plugins of which I might use just 5.

[MuttReason]

I think Waves have missed their moment and are struggling to find a way to maintain profitability in the future. They’ve been eaten away from multiple directions, from UAD and FabFilter etc that are now pretty commonplace in pro setups through to a bazillion alternatives to Waves at the cheaper/free end of the spectrum. I used to own around a dozen Waves plugins but over time I stopped using all but a couple of them because better alternatives came along. When I saw that first subscription-only email my response was “well goodbye Waves” and that’s where I now remain. I no longer really rely on anything they make and I’m researching alternatives to the couple of plugins I do use because their update policy was pretty garbage even before this recent nonsense.

[Last Alternative]

They got me for about 20 plugins with the recent sales. I thought I was getting a steal! Until I realized they always have sales. I absolutely love their plugins but you gotta wonder if they’re really worth $100-$300 if they’re always on sale for $25?
Not to mention they really lost my trust after this move. I’m glad they retracted but it makes you wonder about the future. Even car companies are doing subscriptions. Multiple plugin companies, Netflix, Spotify, Youtube, Windows 365, mobile car start, etc. We can’t afford for EVERYTHING to be subscriptions! It’s like the whole world is slowly tryna phase out buying something once and owning it. Let’s hope it doesn’t eventually become mandatory for everything. Damn. But I also feel like that won’t happen because again.. no one would afford all that.

[dvdrtldg]

They got me for about 20 plugins with the recent sales. I thought I was getting a steal! Until I realized they always have sales. I absolutely love their plugins but you gotta wonder if they’re really worth $100-$300 if they’re always on sale for $25?

The non-sale price kicks in if you try to sell the plugin

Waves charge a fee when you transfer your license to someone else, from memory I think it's 15%. But that 15% is calculated at the "full price", not the sale price

So if you got your plugin for $25 reduced from $200, congratulations you got a sweet deal! But selling it will cost you... $30

[EdGrip]

Imagine selling a plugin, though

[Last Alternative]

LOL there’s always a catch..

[moalla]

Compared now DBX160 with Denderspikes SN01G VCA compressor and the free plugin sounds much much better, more analog vs. a lot of artifacts with the waves one, so now I reallize why waves give so much of their more poor sounding plugins ass freebies the last months, nothing a dicussion would be worth it to have.