Sooloos/M users for the first time have a choice. That's quite amazing if you reflect on where Sooloos started at Meridian.

Sooloos has certain features; Roon has those and other features. Users can decide what is important to them.

Sooloos isn't exactly free either. There is a considerable entry price currently. As stated above it isn't yet known if Sooloos Core for NAS will be free or paid for.

No reason for anyone to expect Roon to be free. We know that Rovi data, lyrics, last.fm, TuneIn etc all have costs.

You pay your money...

Rgds,
Nick