So again, there is a portion of the population who is at least advertising for Reaper.įor some people, 30 days is not enough to evaluate such a deep product. If people can use it a lot with the nag screen - I don't see that happening, so it's inversely proportional to desire for the product IMO. This amounts to "free" advertising.įor everyone else, Reaper being priced sensibly places it into a category whereby if the hypothetical user *is* likely to buy software, they're most likely to buy Reaper.įor those sitting on the fence - it's a fence that doesn't exist without Reaper. For that group of people to be referring to Reaper is a bonus for Cockos. There is a large group of people who are not ever going to be in the market to buy a DAW. If Reaper ticks a few more boxes, such as Eucon hardware support and post-prod video tools (I know they're coming!) I can't see how this process of 'infecting' the whole market can be stopped! I have converted two engineers to Reaper this week and in the long run, both will un-trouser $60 and one will almost certainly move into a large company and Reaper will spread throughout that company, when the others see what it can do and how quickly you can work. That leads to a far, far smaller user base and therefore a less well-researched and QC'ed product. $250+ and having to put half that into marketing to pay for fair stands, magazine ads and sponsorship deals. The alternative is to make more money (possibly!) in the short run, by selling a dongled version for c.a. It also means that all the many, many people around the World, for whom $60 is a real burden, they have access to the best recording/editing SW available. "What the hell! Sixty Bucks ain't much! I'll pay this time!"Īnd slowly, bit-by-bit, Reaper replaces other packages as these youngsters enter the workplace. Reaper is marching inexorably into the bedrooms of youngsters who are never going to pay for it - until one day, they find themselves in a corporate situation and having the words 'Evaluation' and a nag screen becomes embarrassing. You have 'invested' years of training in, say, ProTools and jumping ship is more than just buying CuBase or whatever - it means dumping all those years of learning. Once you have spent years working with a specific package, you cannot afford to learn something new, just because it is cheaper. The competition does something very similar, in that professional software is sold to schools and students at ridiculously low prices - get 'em young and get 'em hooked. Everything from Page Maker (now InDesign) to MS Office spread like that. It allows a SW package to spread rather like a virus and in particular, spread to young users who would not have the money for a legitimate copy. The thinking behind the 'honesty box' business model is the same as for the old serial number protection, which was, of course, almost no protection at all. no Reaper users who like that model, promote it, who also develop and sell software themselves do it. It works very well for them (and users) but quite literally nobody else in the industry does it. Summary: The wide open "we trust everyone to do the right thing" Cockos model is an anomaly in commercial software. Some people will always do immoral things and software copy protection (and car alarms :)) will always be a fact of life because of it. I happen to agree with this but sadly we have lost some good companies due to people not paying for their hard work. There is a theory that says it's better to support your paying customers (constant updates and bug fixes) rather than chase down the thieves. It appears to be working very well for them. Hopefully Reaper is successful despite the users that probably never pay. Software licensing and activation methods and relative user comfort are somewhat diverse.:) There is also a lot of middle ground in there where there is no hoop jumping and a good amount of trust and customer comfort along with some level of product security. I think it's a shame that some people will use software without paying for it but some models work trusting their customers (Reaper) and others require people to jump through hoops to secure their purchases. To the OP's question / poll, no, not now after 7-8 years.
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