The reason for the steep price increase is that fewer translators are buying Trados and they have to compensate. The industry is shrinking. And why? All these so-called "AI" solutions are driving translators out of work as corporations prefer to use MT for their daily needs. Also, the developers find it very hard to come up with new features that will actually help the translators in any meaningful way. Development has stagnated. All they can come up with is more "AI" which will make the situation even worse! All they want is to collect more human input to improve their "AI" models, so that all of us are eventually out of work soon. There will be just big corporations left with their MT tools.

In the mean time expect Trados to become a subscription service as impoverished translator will gradually refuse to pay premium for very little incremental changes that do absolutely nothing for them.

I do not think that AI will make Translation Memories obsolete. We will always want to save our past translations, at least for ensure consistency of our wording or remember past solutions we hardly found to a translation problem. Also, I observe post-edition of AI translated texts leaves many bad or erroneous translations that you would not see with human only translation. In other words, AI makes translators lazy (consciously or not). I think that there may be a return to traditional translation at a point, or to an intermediate solution.
In my case, AI does not bring me a lot of gains in terms of time, since I dictate (RWS may work to improve that feature, BTW). For me, AI is just an aid when I search to have a first approach to a complex sentence or when I need synonyms. But it's another debate.
As to the incremental changes you're speaking of, I have sometimes regretted here that RWS team develops features that only a few of us will actually use (cloud features for instance), while some bug fixes or improvements (e.g. a 64-bits version) are still pending.
And all those considerations, as long as the explanations given above, do not justify the price gap between FL and FL+.
Anyway, that price increase will just accelerate the move of translators away from Studio, and, honestly, it's sad news, since I do appreciate that software. For the first time of my life, I will not get the latest version of a professional tool. It's a pity.

 Philippe Riondel 

Trados cloud solutions are developed with the highest of security in mind. We do not share or repurpose any data that is stored in the cloud.

Perhaps it’s worth reading through our Language Cloud Security Whitepaper

https://www.trados.com/resources/security-white-paper/

alongside the Language Cloud privacy policy

https://www.rws.com/legal/privacy/language-cloud-privacy-policy/

Thank you Frances. I will read that paper.

Let me ask just une question : where are Trados cloud solutions hosted, Frances? In which country? I do not know where they are, but if they are hosted in the USA or on US companies-owned cloud servers, you know no one can expect any confidentiality after the Patriot Act.

Also, as per our service agreements with our clients, we are generally not allowed to host their data in any other place than their own servers and our own computers. Storing their data in the cloud could be seen as a violation of our agreements.

That said, it was not the purpose of that thread. The fact is that few of us are primarily interested in using the cloud, which makes cloud features are not a reason for paying such a price for an upgrade.

Not for a second do I believe these claims that human work is not used to train future models. Corporations are notorious for lying, cover-ups and protecting their interest. The only safe way to work is to have local translation memories and NEVER upload anything to the cloud where it can be inspected and used by unknown third parties. The minute you upload a TM or ANYTHING to the cloud it is out there up for grabs.

If I ever use any cloud services, the entire content (that is sensitive to me or my clients) must be put in a strong password protected archive, best in a format that is not widely used such as RAR.

Also any "end-to-end" encryption in communication is just an illusion. All operators must store communication for certain period of time and on many occasions I translated instant messages that were submitted to the police (or other government institution) by an operator.

Philippe Riondel said:

 where are Trados cloud solutions hosted

Our cloud server is hosted by AWS in Germany

Hosting the data in Germany is a good thing.
Alas AWS is an American company, and, as such, is subject to the Patriot Act. That is the US government is entitled to access to the data. 

Exactly, cloud services are the last thing I want. I have numerous ideas how to improve the UI, but no one is interested. They are only interested in implementing AI, but for me it is just bloatware.

Philippe Riondel said:

Alas AWS is an American company, and, as such, is subject to the Patriot Act. That is the US government is entitled to access to the data. 

Whilst AWS may be a US company, it does not, as some have suggested, give U.S. law enforcement agencies free access to data stored in the cloud.

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/aws-and-the-cloud-act/

Here is a more detailed explanation of how the Patriot Act works as detailed https://www.comparethecloud.net/articles/patriot-act-data-security-8-myths-busted/:

1. The Patriot Act is a law of very limited application. The law applies only to national security (terrorism) investigations within the US. The law does not give the US government the power to act outside the US, and it does not apply at all to criminal or civil investigations outside the national security area.

2. The Patriot Act does not grant the US government access to a cloud customer’s data. The important fact about the Patriot Act that those commenting on the law in the media do not understand is that the law is a “business records” statute. What this means is that the US government can use the law to ask any company that does business in the US (this includes US subsidiaries of non-US companies) to provide the company’s own records (things like customer name, address or means of payment), but it cannot require a hosting provider to provide access to customer data stored in a non-US data center.

3. To access customer data stored outside the US, the US government uses established treaties. Because the Patriot Act in our view does not authorize the US government to “search” a server located outside the US, the US government must request assistance from local (in-country) law enforcement to conduct a “search”, just as other EU governments do.

4. The Patriot Act is not being used to access customer data stored in the EU. The Dutch government has recently confirmed in answers to parliamentary questions that it is not aware of any requests under the Patriot Act for personal data stored in the EU and that the US authorities have stated that if such a request were made it would be with the assistance of in-country law enforcement.

Philippe Riondel said:

Alas AWS is an American company, and, as such, is subject to the Patriot Act. That is the US government is entitled to access to the data. 

Whilst AWS may be a US company, it does not, as some have suggested, give U.S. law enforcement agencies free access to data stored in the cloud.

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/aws-and-the-cloud-act/

Here is a more detailed explanation of how the Patriot Act works as detailed https://www.comparethecloud.net/articles/patriot-act-data-security-8-myths-busted/:

1. The Patriot Act is a law of very limited application. The law applies only to national security (terrorism) investigations within the US. The law does not give the US government the power to act outside the US, and it does not apply at all to criminal or civil investigations outside the national security area.

2. The Patriot Act does not grant the US government access to a cloud customer’s data. The important fact about the Patriot Act that those commenting on the law in the media do not understand is that the law is a “business records” statute. What this means is that the US government can use the law to ask any company that does business in the US (this includes US subsidiaries of non-US companies) to provide the company’s own records (things like customer name, address or means of payment), but it cannot require a hosting provider to provide access to customer data stored in a non-US data center.

3. To access customer data stored outside the US, the US government uses established treaties. Because the Patriot Act in our view does not authorize the US government to “search” a server located outside the US, the US government must request assistance from local (in-country) law enforcement to conduct a “search”, just as other EU governments do.

4. The Patriot Act is not being used to access customer data stored in the EU. The Dutch government has recently confirmed in answers to parliamentary questions that it is not aware of any requests under the Patriot Act for personal data stored in the EU and that the US authorities have stated that if such a request were made it would be with the assistance of in-country law enforcement.

Thank you for those clarifications Frances. 
I hope that AWS-provided information is reliable and complete. Anyway, I feel more comfortable with servers hosted in Germany, within the EU, than if servers were hosted in Canada, where we are in practice more vulnerable to pressions from the US government.

As Frances mentions, our data is hosted in Germany. We are adding a Canadian region this autumn, as Canada has even tighter security and privacy guidelines than Europe, so please rest assured that your data is safe.

While I'm sorry to hear you are not interested in using the Cloud, we are receiving the opposite feedback from a large number of our users. There is a real convenience to being able to decide to spend an extra few days at that cottage this summer while making sure you're respecting your deadlines, and of course, using the Cloud opens up future possibilities that we can develop, such as sharing projects or having a colleague perform a review on your project. Without intending to sound pedantic, the world is changing, our industry is changing, and while we don't have every imaginable feature in place right now, the Cloud brings us capabilities we could not imagine with desktop only.

As Frances mentions, our data is hosted in Germany. We are adding a Canadian region this autumn, as Canada has even tighter security and privacy guidelines than Europe, so please rest assured that your data is safe.

While I'm sorry to hear you are not interested in using the Cloud, we are receiving the opposite feedback from a large number of our users. There is a real convenience to being able to decide to spend an extra few days at that cottage this summer while making sure you're respecting your deadlines, and of course, using the Cloud opens up future possibilities that we can develop, such as sharing projects or having a colleague perform a review on your project. Without intending to sound pedantic, the world is changing, our industry is changing, and while we don't have every imaginable feature in place right now, the Cloud brings us capabilities we could not imagine with desktop only.