I have the Pro ed Orchestral Cube and was one of the early adopters. Being a hobbyist, this was a huge investment. For different reasons I have not been musically active for some year now, knowing that I could always upgrade VSL when needed in a more musically active future.
Accidently I happend to stumble upon the information regarding the suspension of the VIP program for us old-timers, and it felt like a slap in the face. VSL was one of the companies I trusted to keep a high quality and taking care of its customers. And keeping its promises. Yes Herb, as evident in this thread your customers regarded your statment on the VIP-program as future-proof.
Now I've seen in this thread a couple of attemps to try to explain the reasoning behind this ill-percieved move:
1."it's becoming too complex to keep the discount calculator up-to-date". Several propsals from users would mitigate this. Hence, there do exist a solution to this if there is a will.
When this argument didn't hold, another argument came up:
2. "the editing cost is so high, so the users have been given way too much discount already". So, if e.g. Steinberg choses to switch code platform for Cubase for some reason but keeps the functions/interface the same, this would suddenly be a totally new product warranting no upgrade path?
I'm sorry, but from many of your customers perspective VSL simply withdraws a promise/agreement made at the time of purchase, as has been stated several times in this thread. I just wanted to add my voice to all those that already have rightly complained about the abolishment of the VIP-policy.
I do not plan to upgrade this year. In the future, when I may be more active, do you really think I would start from scratch buying the VI-edition for €€€€??
Please take reason and work on a solution based on the many good proposals made in this thread so that the people that kept you afloat when you started (or those that bought non-VI editions last year) don't feel betrayed by your sudden change of policy. We invested in VSL based on your stated commitments.
/Chris