It’s not all that crazy if you’ve paid attention to what NI has put out recently or rather what they haven’t. Their hardware has been incredibly dated forever and much of their software has been too.
They have not looked like a healthy company for years.
I would really like to see them split the businesses. The software dept shouldn't take nearly this much time to release new versions. I get moving UIs to a reasonable resolution was a big task but they felt so dead for so long
Hardware wise, I really wanted to like their Kontrol S61 MkIII midi controller - it's got a pretty decent semi-weighted Fatar keybed in it, but their QC is atrocious. Hot notes (particularly on the accidentals) meant that even a perfectly even glissando had inexplicable velocity spikes.
Not only do we need right to repair legislation across North America (and the world), but we also need right to continue using - as in - they fold, the code (e.g. licensing server) becomes open source, or something similar, so people can continue to use these products.
If we removed DMCA section 1201 and the "anti-circumvention" nonsense, this would be a non-issue: people would legally reverse engineer the licensing system.
Cory Doctorow suggests every other country should start doing this now. Every other country only has this law because America pressed for it, threatening tariffs or invasion if it wasn't the other country's law. Well, here we are and in 2026 this does not prevent that.
Native Instruments is a German company, not American. It seems unlikely that Germany wants them to fail or lose their IP, regardless of whether the US "threatens to invade" (?)
They have not looked like a healthy company for years.