Price increase Beatsource Pro+

Owner
Owner Member Posts: 651 Guru
edited January 30 in Traktor Software & Hardware

A few days ago I received the bill for my monthly paid subscription to Beatsource and noticed a surcharge. Previously it cost USD 34.99 per month in my region and now they are charging USD 46.99 per month. I find this surcharge pretty steep because I think it came unannounced. Maybe I just missed the email with the information or I forgot about it?

I think a downgrade from Pro + to the standard subscription is a bit pointless because you no longer have the edits, the offline locker would also be gone and you would no longer be able to stream losses.

When I asked, the reason given was the following:

"Since some large labels in some regions have increased their minimum requirements, we were unable to prevent this price increase."

Now I would be primarily wondering whether other users are also affected by this and how much their prices have increased?

As a side note: Compared to Tidal, when you compare Beatsource's entire catalog, which is rather poor and very "American" oriented in terms of content, it quickly becomes apparent that Traktor should urgently look for an alternative so that it is not tied to just one provider.

Comments

  • lord-carlos
    lord-carlos Member Posts: 4,169 Expert

    Odd, for me it still shows 37 EUR: https://www.beatsource.com/subscriptions

    Does that mean it only increased in your region?

  • Heisenberg
    Heisenberg Member Posts: 397 Pro
    edited January 30

    What is there special to see here?

    Basically, all subscriptions mean no ownership, but constantly increasing costs, that is the principle of subscriptions!

    It's better to wake up sooner rather than later and go back to shopping normally, otherwise you'll eventually be unable to catch up.

    PS: And music you have bought yourself should always be backed up and managed by yourself, because shops and labels often like to remove tracks from their range!

  • zephry
    zephry Member Posts: 706 Guru
    edited January 30

    No matter what. I was spending more than $40usd a month back when I bought records and CDs.And that was 20 years ago! And I only listened to or used those tracks a few times. Access to the entire library and the playlists I make are worth the money.

    I estimated my CD collection at over $20 thousand USD about 10 years ago. We have a tower of CDs that we don't even listen to.

    Now I DJ with anything I want.

    Sometimes I might only use 10 seconds of a track and never use it again. I also use the Beatport application to listen to music all night at my night job.

    I would gladly pay $50 a month. Hell I pay more for 3 burritos than I do music. And music is more important. Lol

  • Owner
    Owner Member Posts: 651 Guru
    edited January 31
    https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/207663#Comment_207663

    OK... thanks for your contribution. You're missing the point a bit, but whatever... My main question was how it is in your region and whether you were informed in advance that there would be a price increase? Sure, I'll was also giving my comment on that on the end, but I would have thought of the tip about regular backups myself ;)

  • Owner
    Owner Member Posts: 651 Guru
    edited January 31
    https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/207673#Comment_207673

    Yes, and? I have invested around 100'000.- bucks in my record collection. I don't really understand your comment either. I wouldn't mind at all if I had to pay more than I do now for Beatsource - Depending on whether I could see that the service is improving and we could have an app like the users of Beatport, for example. Or the range of tracks is getting bigger, because I sometimes find the catalog a bit sparse. More tracks in offline would also be nice. Or the option to add an add on, similar to Tidal, with the possibility to create stems with Beatsource tracks too.

    I suspect that I just have to pay a bit more just because I live in a high-price region at all and it's not as high elsewhere.

    Here too, I was just interested in why they're adding almost a third of the price, but couldn't give me any real arguments. The statement from their support was a bit vague: "some large labels in some regions have increased their minimum requirements."

  • Owner
    Owner Member Posts: 651 Guru
    edited January 31
    https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/207633#Comment_207633

    Yes, exactly, thanks for the insight! That's what I suspect too and that's why I feel a bit ripped off by them. The 37 euros somehow doesn't match the old price that I've paid so far, nor the new price that I'll be paying from now on.

  • lord-carlos
    lord-carlos Member Posts: 4,169 Expert
    https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/207880#Comment_207880

    Might be they added 25% VAT for my region.

  • zephry
    zephry Member Posts: 706 Guru
    https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/207877#Comment_207877

    I really didn't have a point to my comment. I probably shouldn't have tagged your reply. I was really blabbering away. Lol

  • Owner
    Owner Member Posts: 651 Guru
    edited January 31
    https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/207884#Comment_207884

    ah, good point.

    cheesus... I sometimes forget how much VAT is where you are.

  • PK The DJ
    PK The DJ Member Posts: 2,758 Expert

    Of course it's never nice to see something jump up in price, but compared to the cost of having to buy vinyl and/or CDs before the days of digital files, it's an absolute bargain.

    If you're a working DJ, even more so. You're earning money, yet barely spending anything on music.

    Back in the 80s when I was buying vinyl and DJing in clubs, many times I'd spend more on the music than I was earning by playing it!

  • Owner
    Owner Member Posts: 651 Guru
    edited January 31

    As I have already mentioned several times, the main thing that bothers me about this, apart from the significant increase, is the regional price difference, which I still don't quite understand.

    I also find it strange that a price increase is only found on a credit card statement. At least an email with the reasons would have been welcome...

    Ultimately, I don't think the argument that we earn money with our jobs and have to spend a lot less on music than we used to has been thought through. The same applies to everyone these days, not just us DJs. Guests also pay almost nothing for music and access to it has become much easier. So the expectations of us have changed completely these days. I really don't understand why so many people don't want to get this.

    …

    A side note, a little off topic: it also seems like a lot more music is being released these days. Do you think Cypress Hill used to drop an album every six months? Bad Bunny seems to do this every 4 months (no, I didn't specifically check) but there is definitely an emotional value here. I would have bought a Cypress Hill album anyway and I still do today, whether as a fan or as a DJ. I could actually do without buying a Bad Bunny record. Maybe I'll even do that one day, but nowadays I really only collect to maintain my library and see it as a collector's item.

    Fun fact: in the past, as a well-known DJ, the labels sometimes gave you records as a gift. As a promo, so that we could play it in the clubs and so that people would hear it.

    With all this babble, I just want to show that a lot has changed with digitalization and the way we DJ these days. In the 90s, I would never have thought that I would need a computer for something like this. Times change, and so do demands and habits.

  • leesinthemix
    leesinthemix Member Posts: 368 Guru
    https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/41947/price-increase-beatsource-pro

    Contact Mojaxx and see if he can do something.

    That's an absurb price increase without a warning.

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