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The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

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Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#111

Post by conductr »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #22

We all love to hate on Adobe. But as a photographer my primary software tool is Lightroom. And I continue to use it despite its $120/year price and less-than-stellar cataloging subsystem because its photo editing features (it's primary mission) still exceed the capabilities of its competitors. I don't see anyone else here talking about the huge strides that Adobe has taken in the past few years with their masking too…

As a non-photographer, more of a hobby tinkerer type user that has used Adobe products for decades and has never even earned a single dollar off them or their derivatives, the prices are onerous and there's no license that matches my usage. That's my only complaint really. I dabble in all types of media for the fun of it. While I may only use a product occasionally, sometimes not even once a year, on occasion I want to animate, photoshop, edit video, audio, or they have a new app that I want to just tinker with (Firefly, etc). So I wish I could just pay some usage based rate that worked out reasonable on cost because when I look at my last ~10 years or so there's only about 100 hours a year I spend tinkering with these products. I don't think they care about people like me, but I think it's possible that I represent a pretty large potential market.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#112

Post by ilt »

bnj wrote: post #86
oliwarner wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I struggle to think of it as insidious. The problem you have is you're reading it wrong. There is no monthly licence. It's an annual licence that you can either pay up front or split, either way, you need to pay. In 1995 it cost us the equivalent of $2k up front to buy Photoshop. I think there was actually a small discount but it was a hecking big payout. You'd get to keep that version forever, but what if you only n…

It’s insidious because you’re being required to agree to pay for a year of use, split monthly, but cannot decide to cancel during the term of the agreement without paying for use that you don’t want. Just because the terms are clear doesn’t mean it’s not an insidious pricing scheme. If it were not insidious, it would be easy to answer the question: “what costs for adobe are being covered by the early termination fee?…

You are paying less monthly if you commit to annual pricing, if not, you can still pay monthly pricing which is higher. Commitment means you will likely be a paying customer for a year at the least and hence company gives you a discount. What’s the insidious aspect? The whole thing can be confusing, yes, but it does what it says.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#113

Post by nradov »

cableshaft wrote: post #66
nradov wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not wrong, but students often have to spend more than $300 per semester (not year) just on textbooks.

Why don't you ask the students how much they love doing that. I'm sure they'll have nothing but nice things to say.

I don't need to ask, I didn't love it when I was a student. I wasn't claiming that this is a good thing.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#114

Post by ryandrake »

Subscription pricing just sucks. I want to rewind back to the past where you bought software one time, and that was it. You had no further relationship with the vendor. You aren't paying them periodically to "keep it working." You don't need them to keep a server running. You aren't tethered to them providing them "metrics" and "telemetry." You don't have to worry that the software is suddenly going to change out from under you or get silently "updated." Updates suck--don't justify subscriptions "because you have to keep paying your engineers to keep fiddling with the software." I don't want them fiddling. I buy a hammer once. I use it until I die or it breaks.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#115

Post by mvdtnz »

danilocesar wrote: post #110

I'm a Darktable user and Affinity mobile user. I was pretty happy with both. I was using Affinity for quick edits. I happily paid for their software as it's worth what they were charging for and not subscription based. Then it was bought and Canvas decided to release it for free. What sounds like good news, for me it's concerning: Companies need to make money. If users are not paying, well, they might actually be the…

Canva, not Canvas. It's free with optional paid add ons, mostly around AI features. Canva does not sell user data.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#116

Post by jasomill »

ThunderSizzle wrote: post #96
socalgal2 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no one is insisting there are can only be one or two products per category. Rahter, at some point in your life, $120 a year is not that much. It's $10 a month, that's two coffees, A MONTH! I bought Affinity Photo at one point, when it was $50. Then I tried to use it for a work project where I needed to do a minor edit to 150 photos. I figured out how to do it but it's workflow was tedious. At 3 mins per photo it woul…

I don't pay for $5 coffee. I make my coffee at home, from my own grind, with just some half and half. Sure, I splurged and paid for maybe a $100 grinder or something, but that is being used for years, meaning the cost per cup is abysmal. It seems very odd we normalize coffee being $5.

I agree. It's up there with prices as high as $100 being described as "less than the price of a good meal".

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#117

Post by jasomill »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #92
hungryhobbit wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. For a long time, Adobe insisted it was the only product in the category: that's how we got here.

I'm not sure how what Adobe insists on is at all relevant. Reality informs us that there have always been competitors in the field: GIMP, DarkTable, ACDSee, Luminar, and many others. It's surely true that their existence has been pushing Adobe to improve. And the good news for everyone is that they have: Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop are improved products now, and so are those other competitors.

Inertia, wide use across various industries, and specific features not available in other products.

Basically, it's the Microsoft Office of print and visual media.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#118

Post by jasomill »

matwood wrote: post #59
CWuestefeld wrote: post #22

We all love to hate on Adobe. But as a photographer my primary software tool is Lightroom. And I continue to use it despite its $120/year price and less-than-stellar cataloging subsystem because its photo editing features (it's primary mission) still exceed the capabilities of its competitors. I don't see anyone else here talking about the huge strides that Adobe has taken in the past few years with their masking too…

Way back when the only real LR competitor was Aperture. I moved to LR when Apple discontinued Aperture, though I really wish they hadn't. I've tried all the competitors multiple times but keep coming back to LR for my DSLR usage.

I switched to Capture One, which at least offers perpetual licensing, but their pricing has become sufficiently annoying that I plan to look very closely at DaVinci Resolve's new photography features as soon as I have time (I already use Resolve for video and have a paid license for it, and in fact have have considered using it for photography in the past because it has a much better UI for nondestructive editing than any image editor I've seen).

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#119

Post by JohnTHaller »

For reference, the Creative Cloud Pro Suite (formerly All Apps) is US$1,259.88 per year at $104.99 per month or $839.88 per year if you lock in for a non-refundable, non-cancellable 1 year contract.

Creative Cloud Standard Suite is US$989.88 per year at $659.88 per month or $839.88 per year if you lock in for a year. You lose unlimited access to AI features and instead get 25 monthly credits for them. You also lose access to premium AI features like video generation as well as partner models (Google, OpenAI, ElevenLabs, Topaz)

Photoshop is $413.88 / year or $275.88 / year if you lock

Lightroom is $215.88 / year or $143.88 / year if you lock

PS + LR is $359.88 / year or $239.88 / year if you lock

After Effects is $413.88 / year or $275.88 / year if you lock in

Acrobat is $419.88 / year or $299.88 / year if you lock in

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#120

Post by dabinat »

chromacity wrote: post #88
socalgal2 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It boggles the mind how many people will go and use an inferior solution to avoid spending the price of 2 coffees a month.

I think that's a goofy take. It's two coffees everywhere . Every other software vendor is trying to move to the subscription model. If you add up all the licenses you need to do work, have hobbies, or procrastinate (Netflix, Spotify, etc), is it still two coffees a month? I know many folks who make $500k+ a year in the SF Bay Area and complain about affordability, and to a large extent, it's stuff like that that make…

People on $500k salaries struggle to afford things because of the Bay Area’s outrageous property prices, not subscription software.
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