lifebsideben

Roxio is the company that makes Toast, the best disc-burning software on the Mac. Which is a little like saying they make the best anti-virus software for Windows, in that it’s something the OS should really provide a pretty robust solution for. Anyhow, it is pretty good, and although I think I’ve yet to get it to transcode video into a DVD without crashing, it manages to do the basics–jamming files onto DVD-Rs, reasonably well.

The catch to all this, is that it’s a really expensive piece of software, at least for what I have successfully made it do, with a list price of $99. Now, I’m sure no one pays the list price, I mean even on their own site you can get it for $79. Still, eighty bucks is a lot for software that basically copies files. Plus, between Toast 6 and Toast 7, they removed some features at the behest of the MPAA. I don’t like my software companies taking orders from bully industry groups. But anyhow, I bought 6, and upgraded to 7, which cost me $60 as I recall. So, I’m into these guys for well over $100, and basically, just to burn backup copies of my digital photos. I mean, there’s some features about making audio CDs–oh wait, I use iTunes (free) for that, and for video editing–oh wait, I use iDVD for that (iLife came with my Mac). Still, I’ve been relatively happy with it as a product, and it makes burning the occasional .bin/.cue easier than not having it.

Now what really rubs me the wrong way, however, is their marketing. Another year rolls around, and no surprise, there’s a new version out, Toast 8 Titanium. It’s got a bunch new features, their announcement email (Jan 8th 2007) states. Tivo-to-go functionality, and Fit-to-DVD, and disc cataloging, and “superior audio quality”, whatever that means. Now, these features actually sound pretty useful to me… I have a networked series 2 tivo, I do re-burn DVDs sometimes, and I definitely would like to easily search for stuff on the 100+ data DVDs I’ve burned. But whoa… the upgrade price… $99, wait, just for you, order now and get $30 back by mail! So, uhm, $100, and do some more work, and maybe get the price down to “only” $70?

$70 is a lot of money for an upgrade. Especially for a SECOND upgrade in THREE years, on a $99 product. This isn’t PhotoShop we’re talking about here… and even if it were, the upgrade prices for PS are considerably less, percentage-wise (and less frequent). So even though there are new, interesting features in Toast 8, I just really am not willing to pay that much for them. Well, fine, no biggie, I’ll ignore their emails.

Except… the emails won’t stop. They’ve been mailing me about this goddamn Toast 8 non-stop. I’ve got most (but probably not all) of the solicitations they’ve sent me about Toast 8. You know, the ones from 1/8, 1/11, 1/16, 1/18, 2/5, 2/8, 2/14, 2/20, 4/5, 4/6, 4/17, 4/20, and 4/24…. so far. Yes, that’s THIRTEEN emails pushing their new version on me so far, and I’m pretty sure there were some from March I can’t locate. This is fucking unacceptable. Now the sad part is, it probably WORKS. People probably do actually click through, for every additional mailing. But I’m not going to play that game. This is just purely offensive. Send me one, two, three notices. Maybe follow up with one a quarter later if I haven’t replied. But harassing me with spam (it might not be technically unsolicited, but it’s ridiculous to think ANYONE would want to be so aggressively marketed to for the same product, so relentlessly.)

So had I gotten a *few* emails about this, I might have upgraded. If the upgrade price was $30 instead of $70, I would have done it after the first email. Now, I will go out of my way to find a company that respects me and doesn’t slam me with emails.

So Roxio… Toast this.

Tags: bitching, dvd, email, roxio, software, spam, toast, upgrade