oh boi...

https://www.izotope.com/en/membership-comparison.html

Membership FAQs

What is different about a “Pro” version of an iZotope product?
The “Pro” label indicates the subscription version of an iZotope product. “Pro” products will be receiving additional features and updates over time, which will be available to you as long as you subscribe.

How do Pro products compare to existing iZotope products?
Neutron Pro and Ozone Pro currently have the same features as the Advanced versions of those products. RX Pro for Music has the same features as RX 8 Standard.

However, over time, the Pro versions will start getting updates that will not be available in the non-subscription versions of the products. New features that appear in Pro products will be exclusively available to members of Music Production Suite Pro or Producers Club.

 

iZotope can go and fuck themselves. Period.

 

That's just shitty fucked up move from Izotope.
They deserve to receive R2R kick in the nuts in full force!

 

Last edited: Mar 7, 2021

Fine with me hence i rarely use their products.....as long as Fabfilter doesn't get any ideas from this move.

 

Honestly I've always felt their stuff was over hyped. But this is one of the worst subscription plans I've ever seen. "Hey we're dropping support on everything! Immediately! Even if you've literally already paid hundreds for it, unless you now *also* join our subscription service!" It's not even a good deal. $25 a month for the production suite? PA's is $25 and is far superior. I hope they get targeted especially hard by the Teams over on the sister site.

 

seems to be the way everyone is going, no matter the software type, whether Adobe and graphics apps, music apps/plugins, malware/virus apps so on and so forth.

As for subscription plans, I see it like when they changed printers last century from being really expensive to extremely affordable and upped the price of cartridges because a finance wiz worked out they'd make more money. The supposed business model is that with a one-off purchase, an application does not necessarily get updated by its users. The subscription guarantees cashflow.

Do I think it's good? NO for many end-users. But for volume sales in business principle only, it gives them a cashflow. Time will tell.

 

This is just ludicrous. The whole planet is going subscription only and the worst part is that everyone is too stupid to understand that people can't be subscribing to every little thing that they like, that would be astronomically expensive and you'd never actually end up owning anything. Every content provider for films and television shows have their own subscription model and now this nonsense is coming to the world of audio plug-ins. It's the biggest scam.

 

Personally I'm trying to not get attached to any software; never let software dictate your workflow. If some company starts bothering me I simply switch to something else that does the same. And in this case: mixing and mastering plugins are everywhere right?

For this reason I keep up with Reaper because if there's one DAW that will not become subscription it'll be that one. Studio One is one to watch out for: you can still buy it and ignore Sphere but that may end some day.

Keep tabs on different companies, especially the smaller ones, since chances are bigger they'll stick to software you can buy and own: Cockos Reaper, Valhalla DSP, TAL Software, Klanghelm, etc...

Let's just pray that Fabfilter doesn't switch to the dark side. I would miss their plugins. But then again: they are also replaceable.

 

Last edited: Mar 7, 2021

It might create a new generation of motivated crackers.

Unfortunately, companies like iZotope will likely be looking at integrated cloud services within their products with cloud-backed AI/ML technologies and you simply won't be able to access them unless you are a paying customer - much like some of the recent whizz-bangs in Photoshop, as an example.

 

presonus won't do for some more years, because his daw is not ''complete'' yet and, as a smaller software dev, that would undermine your chances of being an option

 

Disappointed to hear this from izotope but they have disappointed me before when they almost immediately stopped development on breaktweaker which had some of the best sounding electric drum sounds ever. I think Ozone 9 is the best mastering plug and don't see any replacement for it as of now, but that's just me. Will upgrade legit if necessary because nothing else is as good imo. I think my last legit ozone was 5.

 

Well, not really. I don't remember any real feature updates in the past, so nothing changes.

 

@dkny
can you elaborate on the Photoshop thing - did they change something so cracked copies won't work anymore? I am not acquainted with the video/photo scene too much.

As for iZotope, that is very disappointing. One more reason to stop using their software and look for alternatives. What @thedarkbird said is so true, you need to actively look into developers and companies and make an assessment on whether they have the customers' best interests in mind or not. I used to be very interested in iZotope products, that's gonna change now for sure

 

Sue them...people who recently purchased the Advanced tools should have been made aware of their plans! I would have never purchased them if i had known. If this is the case I'm done with them too..not that it really matters cause those with no past iDiotope experience will subscribe lol.

 

Izotope plugins are such CPU hogs.

 

Nobody actually owns the audio software that we use but rather we are licensed to use them.

That said, fugck Izotope and the subscription plan of a horse that they are riding.

 

They have a bunch of new, pretty cool tools that are AI-powered in the cloud - ie they rely on Adobe's server's to process your image because they are doing heavy, continually updated ML number crunching. Which means if you are running a K copy, without an account, you simply can't use those tools, you don't have access to them. You can still use Photoshop's regular features, but you can't use the features that require an account, and there's no way around that.

 

They haven't made their products compatible for M1 yet, and they now want me to pay EXTRAAA??? you $$$uckerss!!

 

lmaoooooo. where do these people get the nerve...


I stopped upgrading my Izotope stuff a while ago. Their offers are extremely unattractive, even during their ever present HUGE SALE prices. Especially the bundles. I always felt insulted by having 80% of a bundle and getting the same offer as someone who just has one "advanced" version or whatever. And honestly I don't see that much improvement from one version to the next. Certainly not enough to pay them $100-200 every year for the newest version of ozone or neutron

 

I think I get it. It'd make sense for a 0.1% of Photoshop users.
For the rest just another excuse to go online subscription model.
What I mean is with deep learning AI if you "train" a new algorithm you need a shitload of computing power (cloud or mini computer farm).
But "trained" algorithms don't need it (NeuralDSP plugins and a lot of Photoshop, video and audio "offline" soft).

Well, of course they'll say some trained plugins still need "too much" power so they need cloud.