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Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

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Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#301

Post by _fat_santa »

jan_Inkepa wrote: post #248
SnowingXIV wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got bit by this. It felt absolutely horrible to not have any recourse. We had a yearly adobe sign contract, it was based on a particular usage estimate and quite high. Called in weeks before the renewal and they said we missed the window to cancel. There was no option out of it. No escalation. Had to stomach a massive bill for of a product we weren't going to use.

Also that their cancellation window has limits on both sides - I told them more than six months I advance to cancel my renewal and the refused and toll me to call up again in a particular 30 day period close to the expiry date...

When your business has to depend on subscription engineering like this, it means the underlying product is not good enough to stand on it's own feet.

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#302

Post by krisoft »

dkyc wrote: post #233
krisoft wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> beloved independent Figma wouldn't exist. Are you saying that the business of "we make a thing and we ask for money from our users for said thing" model cannot work? > Why would anyone go worth at a small company for equity if there's no chance to get liquidity? Why would investors invest? Presumably because they hope the company become successful and it sells many licences and they get a share from that pile of mo…

> Are you saying that the business of "we make a thing and we ask for money from our users for said thing" model cannot work? I'm saying that companies like Figma, which has raised $333 million dollars in venture capital, at up to a $10bn valuation, cannot exist if those investors don't see sufficient options for liquidity. And given that people strongly value companies like Figma, as evident in this very thread, tha…

> And given that people strongly value companies like Figma, as evident in this very thread, that would be a bad outcome all in all.

We value Figma the product. I couldn't care less about how much money they raised.

This is why I'm asking if you think it is impossible to make a Figma like product financed from you know the users paying for that product.

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#303

Post by bastawhiz »

FredPret wrote: post #295

Photographers: is Adobe Photoshop still the king of photo editing? I strongly dislike Adobe’s “subscription only” business model, but it seems the market is telling them that subscriptions are a-OK: Adobe’s profits are very steady and are up 70+% in five years. [ https://valustox.com/ADBE ]

I'm not a photographer, but pretty much everyone I know who does anything with photos or image manipulation is using Photoshop. I'm the only person I know who uses a Photoshop alternative in any capacity (pixelmator)

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#304

Post by dtx1 »

danpalmer wrote: post #271
madeofpalk wrote: post #6

Excellent news. I think there should be more products, more companies, and more competition. Adobe just buying up it's competition will only ever directly hurt consumers. See also, "Adobe says the FTC is looking into its subscription cancellation practices." https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/15/24003532/adobe-says-the-...

> Adobe says the FTC is looking into its subscription cancellation practices Great news, where do I testify? Adobe tried to bribe me personally to not fight their subscription cancellation policies for the company I was representing. Given how obviously unimpressed I was with the whole thing and how I was clearly not the target market of a creative cloud subscription, I can only assume that this is a policy that the…

Looking at your profile, it says you work for Google, so I assume this is in the context of google? You guys probably have the internal legal resources to advice you. If it was not in that context, ChatGPT at least suggest that this is first of all a federal fucking crime (Domestic Bribery Act seems to apply here) and you can contact the Department of Justice, the FBI or report it to the SEC which offers a whistleblower program.

Please consider your next steps carefully though and contact legal counsel basically immediately since you just publicly accused adobe representatives of a federal crime! Frankly, I would ask Dan to remove your comment ASAP.

Fun Fact: The SEC offers financial incentives to people who report those violations!

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#305

Post by leshenka »

Perz1val wrote: post #285
thelittleone wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recommend using virtual credit cards for subscriptions. I just cancel the card if the account cancellation process is hostile in anyway.

What's the best way to acquire those?

The bank's smartphone app?

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#306

Post by jacknews »

Good news. I guess there are some valid (societaly desirable) reasons for companies to buy other companies, but this doesn't seem to be one.

Now, I want to read that Microsoft is abandoning the Activision/Blizzard acquisition, a similarly anti-competition deal.

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#307

Post by rafram »

zpeti wrote: post #239
chicken3pointer wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, I think this is truly a case of regulatory agencies shutting the deal down. Adobe knows Figma is best-in-class in their category, and even in the current market downturn, $20b still feels like a good bet to own the winner in and up and coming category for the next 5-10 years

I dunno, seems like there are massive risks to Figma as a business at this point with the developments in generative AI. I'm not that confident spending $17bn is justified if its going to take 10-20 years to make it back. Some generative AI startup could easily leapfrog figma. And Adobe already has its own massive trove of copyright images that it can use for much better generative AI. I think the last year has put a…

Generative AI isn’t useful without a good editor for humans to manually tweak and integrate the AI’s output, and Figma is essentially the only name in the game for that.

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#308

Post by Naracion »

Perz1val wrote: post #285
thelittleone wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recommend using virtual credit cards for subscriptions. I just cancel the card if the account cancellation process is hostile in anyway.

What's the best way to acquire those?

If you're in the US, then I can recommend privacy.com

My current bank (Wise) also offers virtual debit cards. I am in the UK now and Wise works well. I still use both since I still have my American bank account though.

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#309

Post by 542458 »

blagie wrote: post #288
preommr wrote: post #164

What a disaster for Adobe. They signal they can't build something to outcompete Figma. Their stock price falls They axe their existing competing product, and is therefore now way behind. They face problems with the acquisition, which makes their stock price fall again because it signals that not only can they not build products they can't use their money to buy companies that do. Then it's confirmed they can't acquir…

I don't think that's a correct analysis. Adobe is very good at building software. It's not the problem. It's not that Adobe can't compete with Figma. It's that they don't want to. Adobe has a great engineering team and ships wonderful products. The problem with Adobe is that the business side is anticompetitive, exploitative, and sleazy. Buying Figma, they lose a competitor. Competitors have a nasty tendency to expan…

> Adobe is very good at building software.

Is that actually true? XD attempted to directly compete with Sketch and Figma, and was not generally considered to be a success at that primarily because they couldn’t ship features fast enough to catch up.

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#310

Post by turnsout »

mbesto wrote: post #274
raiyu wrote: post #149

Anyone else think this has nothing to do with the regulatory agencies but instead the market has dramatically shifted in the past 15 months in terms of valuations and this is a nice cover to cancel the deal? Figma still gets $1B "investment" without giving up any equity or control and Adobe gets to walk away from a massive $20B fee. Adobe makes $17B a year in revenue, they would need some pretty strong growth out of…

> Adobe makes $17B a year in revenue, they would need some pretty strong growth out of Figma to justify the price tag especially after valuations came down. That's not it works. 1. Adobe is at $19B in revenue 2. Adobe's market cap is $272B and just shy of its ATH. 3. Acquisitions, especially at this level, are usually paid with debt and equity, not just cash. 4. The proposed acquisition smells of both one for value (…

There are multiple factors that could sour this deal from a financial standpoint. ARR multiples have been falling, interest rates have risen, and Adobe's performance has been quite strong without Figma.

Meanwhile, from what I've observed, Figma is approaching 100% market penetration among designers, so they will need to look beyond their core to sell things like Figjam to "normal" people. With full access to financials, Adobe may have seen the growth curve tapering off much sooner than expected. Just a hunch.

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