Long-Time Ultimate User Frustrated by Aggressive In-Product Advertising

Hi Native Instruments community ,

I’m a long-time, loyal customer — I’ve been using Native Instruments products for over 15 years and currently own Komplete Ultimate 14. Over the years, I’ve upgraded multiple times and spent thousands of dollars building a collection that suits my specific creative needs. I deeply value the quality of these instruments and the ecosystem.

However, I’m increasingly frustrated by the aggressive advertising that now appears every time I open Kontakt. I’m constantly shown banners, pop-ups, or product panels for instruments I don’t own — despite the fact that I’ve already purchased the comprehensive Ultimate bundle. There appears to be no clear way to hide or disable this promotional content, aside from creating a custom view (which is a workaround, not a solution).

This experience:

• Makes me feel like I’m being treated as a potential customer rather than a valued, existing one
• Disrupts my workflow and focus
• Undermines the satisfaction of having invested in the Ultimate collection

I understand the need to advertise new instruments, but users at the Ultimate level should have the option to hide this content, especially when the majority of it is outside the scope of what we’ve already purchased. At the very least, let us opt out of promotional visibility, or add a toggle to display only installed or owned libraries.

This feels like a tone-deaf UX decision that prioritizes upselling over respecting long-term users who have already invested heavily in your platform.

native instrument team please take this as a request to rethink how content is presented in Kontakt and offer an experience more suited to users like myself who have already committed deeply to your ecosystem.

To add to this frustration, I’ve watched support be quietly dropped for legacy hardware I paid for in good faith — such as my Maschine Mk1 and the Guitar Rig pedal — along with various software products that were once part of my creative setup but are now unsupported or non-functional. It leaves me feeling like I’m just another wallet in your user base, rather than someone whose loyalty and investment are valued.

The recent shift toward the subscription model only amplifies this. I have no interest in subscribing or being constantly sold new content I didn’t ask for. What’s worse, if you even try the subscription, it installs dozens of products that take hours to remove manually, one by one — no centralized uninstaller, no cleanup utility. This is not respectful of users’ time, bandwidth, or storage.

I will continue to purchase what I genuinely need — on my terms — but the direction things are heading makes me feel increasingly alienated as a user who has supported you for over a decade.