>Far too much of Ableton's secret sauce is hidden away behind Max for Live

The other way around. Ableton exposes some internal modules to Max for Live as Max for Live modules.

What Ableton gets from Max for Live is not internals, but basically a few Ableton-only Max-built plugins, that could as well use VST underneath.

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peteforde 6 hours ago | parent [-]

I answered this in a different branch of the thread, but you're kind of missing my point. I don't own Max for Live, so the large ecosystem of useful tools that I'd enjoy trying out is unavailable to me.

It's not about special powers, just being forced to pay the gatekeeper to the otherwise free/OSS ecosystem.

	▲	Slow_Hand 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Max/MSP has always been a paid tool. There was never a situation when you were going to be able to participate without paying. This sounds a little like you're complaining that you cannot watch all of the free Youtube content because you don't want to pay for the device that will display it.