Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

831–840 of 1001 posts

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#831

Post by _8j50 »

ortusdux wrote: post #682
mortenjorck wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't think of any other company to which my relationship as a customer has swung so completely as Adobe. In the 2000s, their tools were unsurpassed, and I was happy to pay the premium prices they asked (though I'd skip versions to save money). When Creative Suite was discontinued, that was a pretty abrupt turn, as I had no interest in a subscription for software I only used for personal projects. And yet, I stayed…

I find myself coming back to this Steve Jobs quote more and more: "It turns out the same thing can happen in technology companies that get monopolies, like IBM or Xerox. If you were a product person at IBM or Xerox, so you make a better copier or computer. So what? When you have monopoly market share, the company's not any more successful. So the people that can make the company more successful are sales and marketin…

There is a lesson to be had there for sure. It all started when they bought Macromedia. Happens to many if the greats, look at Cisco,IBM, AT&T they all have that happen to them after which the only way decision makers know how to make great products is to buy other companies.

There is a difference between taking out the competition on acquiring IP by taking over vs doing it to innovate. Google has gone down this road already from what I've seen but Microsoft impresses me how they are keeping balance.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#832

Post by pcurve »

sirjaz wrote: post #811

Screw all of this SaaS needs to die a horrible death. All of these webapps/SaaS products are just data collection apps that can lock you out at any moment. We need to get back to owning our data and installing locally.

Figma is one of the best examples of harnessing power of cloud to deliver value to end users. Without cloud, Figma's value as a tool goes down by 90%+

However, there's no reason why much of Adobe is cloud.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#833

Post by jeremycarter »

fancy_pantser wrote: post #601
GuB-42 wrote: post #577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> their tools were unsurpassed Why the past tense? Which tools have been surpassed? Have Photoshop been surpassed? I am genuinely curious here. I take note of Capture One, but is it an "acceptable yet technically inferior alternative that I picked because I don't agree with Adobe business practices" (which I think is a valid reason) or a viable alternative even for someone who doesn't have a problem dealing with Adob…

Affinity Designer, Photo, and Publisher have been a breath of fresh air for the last few years. They have you pay once, not a subscription. The features keep coming at a great pace while retaining a very sensible UI.

I retired Fireworks CS6 for Affinity Designer. Took some strength - but I just did it cold turkey one day 4 years ago.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#834

Post by gavin_gee »

Adobe really is just the Telco or siriusXM of software companies.

complicated and dark pattern pricing models free subscription extension to avoid cancelling bundle installers of unrequested software like antivirus

its all a sign that the product is over priced and there isnt enough new innovation

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#836

Post by ravenstine »

mortenjorck wrote: post #494
joshe wrote: post #379

This is probably the only tech acquisition that's ever made me sad. I just hate Adobe so much. The nightmare of their installer, the weird store with horrible designs popping up when you activate normal ui stuff, the difficulty in canceling a subscription, and the stasis in their product and ui. Oh and the sloppiness of Lightroom on mac with it's weird ui and that it didn't even import and manage photos well. I've be…

I can't think of any other company to which my relationship as a customer has swung so completely as Adobe. In the 2000s, their tools were unsurpassed, and I was happy to pay the premium prices they asked (though I'd skip versions to save money). When Creative Suite was discontinued, that was a pretty abrupt turn, as I had no interest in a subscription for software I only used for personal projects. And yet, I stayed…

Autodesk has entered the chat.

To be fair, Autodesk hasn't gone full spyware like Adobe. Otherwise, they're similarly poor stewards of industry "standard" software.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#837

Post by jorvi »

ortusdux wrote: post #682
mortenjorck wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't think of any other company to which my relationship as a customer has swung so completely as Adobe. In the 2000s, their tools were unsurpassed, and I was happy to pay the premium prices they asked (though I'd skip versions to save money). When Creative Suite was discontinued, that was a pretty abrupt turn, as I had no interest in a subscription for software I only used for personal projects. And yet, I stayed…

I find myself coming back to this Steve Jobs quote more and more: "It turns out the same thing can happen in technology companies that get monopolies, like IBM or Xerox. If you were a product person at IBM or Xerox, so you make a better copier or computer. So what? When you have monopoly market share, the company's not any more successful. So the people that can make the company more successful are sales and marketin…

From 2015-2019 I found this quote massively ironic as it seemed Apple had fallen prey to the same thing. They were trying to sell Gimpbooks with 2 ports and unreliable keyboards for a €1700 base price, and iPhones that were milquetoast iterations of past one's kept creeping up €75-150 per year. Their sales growth was cratering.

People love to say that reducing Ive's involvement is what righted the ship, but I feel internally there must have been way more management house cleaning that they so massively reversed course with the Macbook line, and the price reduction + increased innovation on the iPhone line.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#839

Post by Thorentis »

ok_dad wrote: post #671
the_other wrote: post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So smart for both Adobe and Figma. Figma posed a serious threat to Adobe and it makes sense for them to do it. The losers are all of us poor sods who were happy Figma customers. It's utterly fucked up that "so smart for the companies: the losers are the customers" is baked into the system we use to transact culture.

Somehow, the dynamic where a company is an organization of humans to be used to further some human cause was reversed, so now humans are elements of a corporation to be used to further the cause of the corporation. We've gone from running companies in service of humans to running humans in service of companies.

Except that all the engineers working at Figma and getting paid huge salaries, and many of whom will now get a huge exit pay day if they want it, may not have had this opportunity without the company existing. It's well and good to trash talk the idea of companies raking in huge profits, but we as a software industry and incredibly privileged to be making the salaries we do, and this would not be possible without the existence of these companies, and the constant cycle of start-ups and buyouts.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#840

Post by Aeolun »

elteto wrote: post #491
Aeolun wrote: post #482

For once it would be nice if someone would value a world in which their baby isn’t ruined by a big competitor, more than a world in which they have 20B in their bank account. But I’ve yet to see that happen.

Two things: 1) Once you take VC money you probably can’t say no to an opportunity like this. It’s not entirely yours to say no anymore. Alternative is to retain control, but you don’t get the cash infusion and have to grow slower and more organically. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, just a different path. 2) This is not a baby, this is a commercial product. If someone offers me 20B for something I created I will…

> If someone offers me 20B for something I created I will happily accept it.

I can’t say what will happen for real of course, but the knowledge that they’ll ruin what I spent years building would give me pause, I think.

Post reply on HN