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Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

bloomberg.com

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Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#521

Post by spaceman_2020 »

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…

For a large company, they also have pretty shady pricing. Like their “annual plan, paid monthly”. You’d think you’re just paying for the monthly subscription, but they hide the fact that you have to pay a penalty for early cancellation in the fine print.

Dishonest, expensive, slow.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#523

Post by shabbatt »

hackitup7 wrote: post #458

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. Just goes to show that if you want an outsized exit multiple the best way is to put a gun to a $100B company's head.

This type of multiples is only possible when rates are low. Likely their last infusion of capital made their valuations possible but I reckon it is reduced as rates are ticking up fast.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#525

Post by shabbatt »

FractalHQ wrote: post #80
pelagic_sky wrote: post #37

As a long time Figma champion, this breaks my heart. Every time I am forced to go back to an Adobe product I find it worse off than I left it. I worry that I will no longer see rapid updates and features that benefit me as a user and not the grater "cloud ecosystem".

Same here. This is going to do tangible damage to my daily life as someone who opens Figma daily. I also spend time hunting rogue Adobe spyware processes in activity monitor daily. Adobe destroys everything they touch and Figma was finally innovating despite them. I hope we get real anti trust laws someday.

but are you willing to walk away from your current job where your employer won't share your sentiments? Are they going to switch to a Figma alternative because of ideology and emotions tied to the change in ownership? Isn't it more likely that the product will work as is and businesses won't face any direct interruption because owner changed?

I think Adobe made a smart decision, businesses are locked in and unlikely to switch once something is deeply integrated to their application design workflows.

"Corner the market, and raise the price." In this case, outsource the former and in-house the latter.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#526

Post by synaesthesisx »

nabaraz wrote: post #400
bearmode wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the difficulty in canceling a subscription Never had an issue with this tbh, it's always very easy. Manage account > cancel plan. Hell, if you subscribe but then cancel within the same day, they give you a full refund. I've abused this a few times if I just need to do something quick - sub, use it for a few hours, cancel, and it doesn't cost me anything.

I did a trial of Creative Suite on my mac. When it was time to uninstall, I couldn't do that using Creative Cloud Uninstaller. Because, apparently I have to uninstall photoshop and other softwares from Creative Cloud App before uninstalling CC. I couldn't uninstall photoshop etc. because my login to CC App didn't work. So, I contacted Adobe, there was some issue with getting 2FA to my email for some reason. I had to…

Yep. And that's why I permanently uninstalled Adobe software in favor of Photopea and similar alternatives.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#527

Post by slantedview »

thot_experiment wrote: post #519
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 can't agree more. I still use an ancient version of photoshop/illustrator sometimes and lemme tell you, the difference in responsiveness is STARK. The problem is largely the entire concept of SaaS, but some stronger anti-trust anti-monopoly laws couldn't hurt either.

The laws are there but regulators are hesitant to enforce them.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#528

Post by Vinnl »

tempie_deleteme wrote: post #485
hackitup7 wrote: post #458

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. Just goes to show that if you want an outsized exit multiple the best way is to put a gun to a $100B company's head.

it's a bit counterintuitive that something can be good for a company (or companies) AND bad for the customers of said company... shouldn't something that is bad for a customer of a company be bad for the company too?

Generally, companies obtaining a monopoly position is bad for consumers.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#529

Post by victornomad »

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 feel the same :(

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#530

Post by Vinnl »

eagsalazar2 wrote: post #455

Just checked out Penpot, it's pretty good! Definitely usable for daily driving although I'm sure looking deeper there will be some features I miss. Going to try importing some Figma designs...

Link: https://penpot.app

It's also open source! Discussed on HN before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30407913

Oh, and of course on the frontpage now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32851262

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