Despite being a paying customer, Runway ML won't hesitate to ban you if you dare to criticize them and their poor customer service. And it doesn't stop there—just like others have pointed out, they’ll scrub any critical posts on Reddit too. They also won't allow you to participate in Gen:48 if you criticize them. Banning people who are paying for a service and then cutting off their access to all the avenues of that service means they're not getting what they pay for.
CJ
CJ
Runway ML bans users who criticize them
I wanted to share a disappointing experience someone I know recently had with RunwayML, hoping it might serve as a cautionary tale for others planning tech community events, as well as allow your company to strive to do better.
For the past month, this individual had been excitedly planning a RunwayML Meetup in their city. As a long-time supporter and paying member of their 'Unlimited' plan, they were thrilled to organize this event. They spent countless hours brainstorming ideas, coordinating with potential attendees, and handling logistics. The RunwayML team seemed on board, even requesting specific details from them like the time, date, and location. They promptly provided this information and even reconfirmed everything just a few days ago.
But yesterday, out of the blue, they received this message from the RunwayML team:
"Thank you so much for providing the details for the Meetup and for your interest in hosting. We really appreciate the effort you've put in. That said, we won't be moving forward with the Meetup at this time."
No explanation. No apology. Just a curt dismissal of all of their hard work.
Fortunately, they were able to dodge potential financial losses for reservation and cancellation fees at the chosen location. However, the emotional impact to them is significant:
1. They are disabled, and this rare outing was something they were really looking forward to.
2. They had already reached out to and excited potential attendees.
3. As a loyal paying customer and strong advocate for RunwayML as opposed to other AI companies, they feel betrayed and undervalued.
It's worth noting that this cancellation by Runway comes on the heels of some users, including this individual, voicing concerns about the 'Unlimited' plan not meeting their expectations. While I can't confirm a connection, the timing is certainly suspect.
Despite this setback, these individuals continue to support RunwayML. Their loyalty, however, seems unreciprocated.
For anyone planning meetups with Runway, I offer the following advice:
1. Be cautious about making commitments, especially those involving potential financial obligations, without firm guarantees from Runway.
2. Don't assume that being a loyal, paying customer will guarantee support for community initiatives.
3. Always have a backup plan (set up your own unofficial gathering.)
While I understand that companies sometimes need to make tough decisions, the lack of explanation or consideration for the effort invested is disappointing.
RunwayML's actions in this instance don't reflect well on their commitment to their community or their appreciation for their paying members.
To RunwayML: Do better. Your paying members and overall community deserve more respect and consideration.
To fellow community organizers: Stay passionate, but protect yourselves. Don't let experiences like this discourage you from building and nurturing tech communities, or dull your spark for creativity in any way.
I should also add that this isn't about "dragging" Runway or whatever the term is the the cool kids are using these days. I'm not here to start any discourse. This is just to point out to Runway that they’ve got members here - loyal, paying members - who are investing their hard-earned cash into your platform. We're not talking about pocket change or fun money. For a lot of them, this is serious business. For some of them, every single dollar counts. Not everyone is sitting on some fat trust fund or swimming in cash like Scrooge McDuck, including the individual I know. So when they decide to put their money into something, it's because they believe in it fiercely, and that’s how they feel about Runway.
Being in my 40s, I've been around the block a few times. I've seen companies come and go, promising the moon and delivering a handful of dust. But Runway has MASSIVE potential. You've got a platform that could really be something. But potential doesn't mean jack if you can't back it up with solid customer service, or don't want to deal with criticism.
The way you've been responding to your members? It's not cutting it. Not by a long shot. I don’t think anyone’s asking for the red carpet treatment or for you to kiss their asses. What your members want and deserve is respect. Timely responses. Actually addressing their concerns instead of feeding them some copy-pasted corporate BS.
Solid companies own up to their mistakes. They face problems head-on. They don't hide behind fancy words or vague promises. They roll up their sleeves and they fix what's broken.
There are plenty of other AI platforms out there hungry for people's business, too, and they're watching.
AN
ANGRYCONEMAN
bad.
very bad lol
AS
Alex S.
Way too restrictive on innocuous prompts
Way too restrictive on innocuous prompt. Not worth the money.
I have a very particular idea for a short-film in mind that I have wanted to make for a long time that involves an 18 year old woman and her kid sister, trying to escape an apocalyptic situation with their Dad.
The prompt has absolutely *nothing* to do with nudity, or anything nsfw. There is no gore, no horrible imagery; nothing except for people trying to deal with a difficult situation (I even have a wonderful moral for the story, and a beautiful ending prepared) - BUT RunwayML WON'T LET ME USE THE PROMPT OR ANY VARIATIONS that involve a young woman and her little sister looking frightened, no matter how hard I try.
I'm not sure what the system is trying to prevent from happening, but considering the prompt is innocuous and with no prompting for any kind of material that they should understandably prevent, it's kind of ridiculous.
Please do better RunwayML; by the looks of things I'm far from the only person with this complaint - as it stands I will have to forego my planned pro subscription in favor of Kling AI, as their system doesn't try to stop me from having a scene with a FAMILY escaping a difficult scenario...
DV
Diversity V.
Crazy Story - 3 months no reply
Wasted my time on some stupid feedback call and didn't give me the credits after. I messaged them like 15 times over the past 3 months. Expensive as hell for the old, useless version. Already invested like 200-300 at the beginning so in essence helped with their growth and now they ignore me for weeks or months...
P.S. in case there was an issue with the feedback i provided i also emailed them with additional feedback and I still didn't get the code.
- Just RunwayML
RL
Rob L.
Not worth the money yet
Nowhere near worth the exorbitant pricing. Even with the slightly less expensive Gen 3 Alpha Turbo, there are times where there is almost no prompt adherence, even if you follow their prompting guide. You may enjoy playing with the service if you don't actually care what you get and don't mind a LOT of static images barely animated, but if you're in need of something that will actually follow your instructions, Runway is not there yet.
You get between 20-40 5-10 sec videos per month (a little over 3 minutes of video) at their lowest pricing tier. This is more expensive than Midjourney's lowest tier, and yet it provides nowhere near the product quality of Midjourney. Given the extremely high expense but low number of monthly video generations, most users don't have the freedom to experiment in order to find that just-right-magical-prompt-wording that will yield any result that even approaches accurate. Even with start images, where most of the work is done for them, the resulting video is disappointing 9 times out of ten. As an example, I used 65 of my 205 allotted seconds only to discover that I was never going to get my character to just simply smile. Only one 5 second clip of that 65 seconds had a result that was accurate to my prompt.
And let me be clear, the reason the runway is so lowly rated for me is not that the models are hard to work with. This is new tech and difficulty is par for the course. The problem is that the monetary framework Runway has chosen to go with is so restrictive as to make their product almost useless at times due to the difficulties they have yet to iron out.
You can get some cool looking results from runway, but it's a lot of luck, money, and work to do so. If runway seemed like they cared more about their customers or was more upfront about the limitations of their tool, then they'd get a higher rating from me.
Not worth the money at this time.
PT
Peter T.
Finally after many weeks of frustration…
Finally after many weeks of frustration I've discovered a way to use Lip Sync without the terrible morphing and other distortions I was getting in the past. I can only get my desired results by creating audio clips in "Generative Audio" and then feeding those clips into "Lip Sync Video", completely bypassing Gen3 "Image to Video". How many hours have I wasted, and how many dollars, just to get to this point! I can now see a way forward with my project.
