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Adobe introduces subscription pricing model (Photoshop for $35/month)

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31–39 of 39 posts

Re: Adobe introduces subscription pricing model (Photoshop for $35/month)

#31

What would be useful too is if a portion of your 'subscription' could count against a full purchase if you decide to buy. Let me pay $49/month for a couple months for indesign while I need it. If I decide that I want the full version, give me a prorated discount.

Yea, I would also love to say to my landlord "Hey bro! You know I've been renting this apartment from you for a few years now, and I would like to buy the joint at a prorated discount"

It doesn't compare. At all.

Your Landlord can't just create an infinite number of apartments on the fly and rent them to an infinite number of people at almost no extra cost to him.

With software, this is a very real possibility and rent to own makes perfect sense.

The minute Adobe says they will do this I'm in. I would love to be able to pay for 12 months and finally have my own copy.

At about that time, they may release a new version, and at that time, heck, I might just stay on the subscription plan so I get the newer one. BUT, if I stop, I still have version 5.5 that I paid for in full.

Re: Adobe introduces subscription pricing model (Photoshop for $35/month)

#32

For all you freelancers, this is a good opportunity to change your billing -- I think you could probably add an Adobe subscription fee to your work; don't get greedy, just pro-rate it over the number of days you used a product for the project. You'll make money, and your clients will have a hard time complaining about it. So, $4k project, 12 days, used Photoshop, = $49/(12/30) = $19.60. This would be hard to complain…

I disagree. I expect a professional to show up with the tools of their trade, and be ready to work.

Re: Adobe introduces subscription pricing model (Photoshop for $35/month)

#33
post #12
post #7

I think subscription pricing fits the software model vary well. However, their pricing is stupid. If you pay for 6 months it would have been cheaper to just upgrade the product outright. Software is not like renting a car where you already know how to drive, you really need to know how to use it before it becomes useful and that takes time. Edit: Now I could see paying that as a daily rate. If you work on this stuff…

Photoshop is around $600-700 for the full product, $200 for an upgrade. That means that the full product plus one upgrade is approximately equivalent to two years of subscription -- which is the amount of time Adobe is planning to go through two versions anyway. After that point, owning plus upgrading is cheaper, but it seems likely that by that time Adobe will have tweaked the subscription and upgrade prices to make…

> Photoshop is around $600-700 for the full product

Or something like $1500 if you happen to be European. This is roughly as fair and balanced as FOX News.

Re: Adobe introduces subscription pricing model (Photoshop for $35/month)

#34
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, I would also love to say to my landlord "Hey bro! You know I've been renting this apartment from you for a few years now, and I would like to buy the joint at a prorated discount"

It doesn't compare. At all. Your Landlord can't just create an infinite number of apartments on the fly and rent them to an infinite number of people at almost no extra cost to him. With software, this is a very real possibility and rent to own makes perfect sense. The minute Adobe says they will do this I'm in. I would love to be able to pay for 12 months and finally have my own copy. At about that time, they may re…

> Your Landlord can't just create an infinite number of apartments on the fly and rent them to an infinite number of people at almost no extra cost to him.

Incidentally, this is the same argument as with piracy vs. physical theft.

Re: Adobe introduces subscription pricing model (Photoshop for $35/month)

#35
Despite the Australian Dollar currently being higher than the US Dollar, Adobe are charging an extra 20% to Australians.

I used to use Photoshop daily, but I don't any more. I'd love to be able to use it though I would only use it casually. Their price point is still too high for me so I'm going without.

Re: Adobe introduces subscription pricing model (Photoshop for $35/month)

#36
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Photoshop is around $600-700 for the full product, $200 for an upgrade. That means that the full product plus one upgrade is approximately equivalent to two years of subscription -- which is the amount of time Adobe is planning to go through two versions anyway. After that point, owning plus upgrading is cheaper, but it seems likely that by that time Adobe will have tweaked the subscription and upgrade prices to make…

> Photoshop is around $600-700 for the full product Or something like $1500 if you happen to be European. This is roughly as fair and balanced as FOX News.

Or Australian. If Photoshop was $500-$600 AUD I would probably buy a license. For $1.5k I could buy a new computer instead and continue to use free tools.

Re: Adobe introduces subscription pricing model (Photoshop for $35/month)

#37

For all you freelancers, this is a good opportunity to change your billing -- I think you could probably add an Adobe subscription fee to your work; don't get greedy, just pro-rate it over the number of days you used a product for the project. You'll make money, and your clients will have a hard time complaining about it. So, $4k project, 12 days, used Photoshop, = $49/(12/30) = $19.60. This would be hard to complain…

I disagree. I expect a professional to show up with the tools of their trade, and be ready to work.

That's fine, but I bet in reality even you, holding this perfectly valid viewpoint, wouldn't mind if someone showed you their rate card, and it disclosed this at the bottom, and when questioned the principal said it was due to an 'accounting practice' rather than just rolling in the obviously low delta in price.

Re: Adobe introduces subscription pricing model (Photoshop for $35/month)

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I expect a professional to show up with the tools of their trade, and be ready to work.

That's fine, but I bet in reality even you, holding this perfectly valid viewpoint, wouldn't mind if someone showed you their rate card, and it disclosed this at the bottom, and when questioned the principal said it was due to an 'accounting practice' rather than just rolling in the obviously low delta in price.

I'd call bullshit on the "accounting practices" smokescreen and send them packing. What's next? I get billed for computer time by the hour because they wanted the 12-Core Mac Pro?

But more than that, they way I view someone like that is someone who would rather nickel and dime me to death than to just just honestly charge the rate they need to charge. I would feel there were going to be numerous little surprise charges on their invoices. And being a hired gun myself, who started out as a nickel-and-dimer, I would view the individual or agency as lacking in experience.

Re: Adobe introduces subscription pricing model (Photoshop for $35/month)

#39
post #26

I think this is a cracking idea for freelancers. I know we pay out close to 2k for the web premium version and its outdated every year now as they are releasing a new version nearly once a year!

How does Adobe make the new version relevant enough to warrant its purchase? Do they do so in an honest or deceptive way? I'm not a designer, but I use Illustrator often. I just bought Illustrator 10 for about $100 and it more than meets my needs. How many truly relevant new features can really be added to a vector drawing program?

Well not that we actually use it because we are a .net studio here but, the version of Dreamweaver in the packages has to be updated at least once a year to take into account new standards etc. Obviously when the web switched from tables to div's then Dreamweaver had a lot of changes to make also.

I think you are right regarding the Illustrator issue though, I still have CS2 on my machine and I don't think there has been a noticable change up to CS5, that might be why its one of the cheaper subscriptions??

Photoshop is constantly changing in my eyes, they introduced the 3d tool 2 versions ago and I would imagine they spend the next few versions perfecting it. At that point they introduce another big feature.

I think a lot of the time the upgrades are non essential though and are just a money spinner. Apple do it though once a year but they only charge a nominal fee for their software. Microsoft do it every few years but they are a rip off.

I know that if I was a Freelancer and my software was not covered by the company then I would be more inclined to go down this route than downloading it. I don't know many freelancers that start up and can afford the latest version of any of Adobe's products. They are the industry standard and they have people by the balls, this way they can try to get potential illegal downloaders interested.

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