I feel Ripped
I Bought the C1 22 Pro verion in May 22. I'm now being asked to pay a 60% of the full C1 23 version less than one year later. This is a pure rip and shows complete indifference to previous customers. Very sad.
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And this v23 you would buy a perpetual licence for would not even get bug fixes for a year, and no feature updates at all. They want to push you and all perpetual licence customers to a subscription.
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This is a pure rip and shows complete indifference to previous customers.
No, it's how the Real World has always worked: Capture One, LightRoom, DxO PhotoLab - you name it - someone always finds themselves in your position.
Tough luck: it's why the smart purchaser does some research into a programme's update cycle, and picks his time accordingly.
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I can understand this feeling OP. One only has to glance at the comments in the thread about licensing to know you're not alone!
https://support.captureone.com/hc/en-us/articles/8824180384285-The-Capture-One-Loyalty-Program?page=5&sort_by=created_at#comments
Subscriptions are incentivised, perpecual licences arent - any longer if you're among users who upgraded every 2-3 years.
I'm among those who bought in again when there were real leaps in the tech or when I need support for newer cameras. Unfortunately those customers in this bracket aren't considered important enough to want to hang onto, it would seem.
It's disappointing, but there are alternatives now to consider and this may just be a blessing if you discover software like Affinity Photo can replace your C1 use.All those comments tell be that customers were logging in here ready to spend money on a new license, and found their loyalty discounts no longer worked. I've rarely seen this many disgruntled customers with no official response from a company. That tells you a lot.
To Keith R's point, if I may counter - I feel it's nihilistic to just state 'this is the way of things'. Some companies are getting it right and deserve praise.
Look at Black Magic's model of buy once / upgrades for life on Davinci Resolve Studio (or bundling it with hardware). I know that software is video, but my point is that they're building a HUGE community of pros and hobbyists who are now investing in their hardware and tools. They've become an industry standard in colour grading by doing so.
And Fujifilm - offering firmware updates to cameras that have long been superceded which bring rafts of new features for existing users, prolonging the life of their cameras. This speaks of a company who cares about keeping their customers happy and fostering a community of goodwill.
Money talks, yes. But there are companies doing right by their customers and thriving in the process, whilst securing their own future. Profit and customer care don't need to be mutually exclusive.4 -
True James. But these companies seems to have a long-term interest in their customer relations, where C1 is owned by a private equity firm (first Silverfleet now Axcel) and one has to believe that they have already scheduled their exit from that investment (that is usually the business model of private equity investors) and pulling more customers from perpetual license to subscription might outweigh losing other customers, at least that is obviously their calculation. They believe that profit and customer care actually is mutually exclusive, there are good customers, and bad customers like me and you.
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The issue of Capture One’s viability should be of interest to Phase One. The quality of the RAW conversion and editing needed for their cameras is best supported by Capture One. Phase One can subsidize Capture One for Phase One camera owners, but only as long as Capture One is a viable company. If not, what will Phase One recommend for its camera owners?
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Indeed the word "Loyalty" in this context appears to mean a blind request for the end user to be loyal to at the very least yearly investment in the software. Its use has no place in this new 'agreement'.
The pity is, a great many people do care about this software as it is wonderful to use and has a top tier colour engine. Customers don't leave comments in these numbers if they were simply ready to jump ship already, this speaks to a user base that wants to use the software but have been blindsided by a payment structure of the kind which drove many away from other products.
The other disappointing thing is the total lack of response from the company. These comments must be a horrible ad for the software - up front and centre on their own community pages - and yet nothing. I've even expressed this disappointment in a dialogue with customer services, at which point the conversation seems to have just stopped.0 -
Very true, John. Perhaps I was a little optimistic in thinking that someone in marketing / billing might have some food for thought after a glance at the comments here and issue some kind of return to a cost model more deserving of the title "loyalty", but I think you're right. It feels likely they'll stand by this and that only time will tell if it'll prove as poor a decisision as it feels.
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