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Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

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Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#601

Post by fancy_pantser »

GuB-42 wrote: post #577
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…

> 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.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#602

Post by didibus »

ChildOfChaos wrote: post #570

Whoa, $20b seems like an eye watering amount for a tool like this. I guess it goes to show how little I know about all of this, but surely a company with Adobe’s resources and prestige could just engineer something like this for less themselves? Seems crazy to me. I guess it’s mostly about removing competition and giving people less options to not use an adobe product rather than the product itself that has value?

They have Adobe XD which is a desktop app, and my UX designer friends tell me it's actually a bit better than Figma in terms of features, but the allure of a cloud based Web tool like Figma that really promotes easily sharing and collaboration as the designer work is why Figma is more popular.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#603

Post by mtgx »

ChildOfChaos wrote: post #578
connor11528 wrote: post #537

According to the FTC the law states that mergers are illegal when the effect "may be substantially to lessen competition or to tend to create a monopoly." Pretty positive this would lessen competition in design software and restablish Adobe as a monopoly. This merger should be blocked. https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...

How much is this enforced though? Wouldn’t this make most mergers illegal? I guess it all comes down to who defines what ‘substantially lessen competition” means

No post body was provided.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#604

Post by unstrategic »

Figma was never on track to change the world. They were an Adobe clone from the beginning, out-executing them, but fundamentally exactly as anti-innovative.

Not that $20B is anything to shake a stick at — but real innovation in this market will be worth one to two orders of magnitude more. Figma was scratching at this with their "whole org collab" vision and FigJam, but they lacked the vision to crack it, and their execution has been faltering since their early talent started jumping ship. Selling to a desperate Adobe, distressed by public markets, is the perfect chance to "fail up."

Why am I disappointed in Figma? Because they could have been so much more. Because in effect, they have held the creative world back by doubling down & cashing in on Adobe's corruption of design tooling. Play Adobe games, win Adobe prizes. It's just a shit game, and peanuts compared to latent opportunity in this space.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#605

Post by ajgrover »

GuB-42 wrote: post #577
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…

> 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…

I’ve been a Capture One user for several years and it’s a more powerful tool than Lightroom for sure. Layer capability removes the need to go to PS for most simple use cases. Their color tools were much better previously as well but LR has some major recent updates. I also like their session catalog model, but that’s optional and mostly personal preference. It’s not as well designed IMO, a bit more of a power user tool where you can tweak the UI to your liking, but in terms of functionality it’s as good or better than LR.

Affinity Photo is also on the same level as PS, I don’t know about “surpassed” but Adobe is no longer the clear leader.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#606

Post by duped »

unstrategic wrote: post #604

Figma was never on track to change the world. They were an Adobe clone from the beginning, out-executing them, but fundamentally exactly as anti-innovative. Not that $20B is anything to shake a stick at — but real innovation in this market will be worth one to two orders of magnitude more. Figma was scratching at this with their "whole org collab" vision and FigJam, but they lacked the vision to crack it, and their e…

> but real innovation in this market will be worth one to two orders of magnitude more.

200 billion, maybe. $2 trillion? Maybe with 10% inflation for a few more years.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#607

Post by neosat »

Lorin wrote: post #486
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…

They ruined Macromedia as well. Fireworks was a fantastic hybrid vector/bitmap editing tool perfect for web work.

Agree. Macromedia products were amazing for their time. Dreamweaver, Flash (Creating flash apps including ActionScript), Fireworks with vector + bitmap, were all very cool until Adobe acquired them

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#608

Post by jjcm »

unstrategic wrote: post #604

Figma was never on track to change the world. They were an Adobe clone from the beginning, out-executing them, but fundamentally exactly as anti-innovative. Not that $20B is anything to shake a stick at — but real innovation in this market will be worth one to two orders of magnitude more. Figma was scratching at this with their "whole org collab" vision and FigJam, but they lacked the vision to crack it, and their e…

"but fundamentally exactly as anti-innovative."

Would love to hear more about this thought. Disclaimer: figma employee.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#609

Post by pastor_bob »

noelsusman wrote: post #599
connor11528 wrote: post #537

According to the FTC the law states that mergers are illegal when the effect "may be substantially to lessen competition or to tend to create a monopoly." Pretty positive this would lessen competition in design software and restablish Adobe as a monopoly. This merger should be blocked. https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...

The FTC uses the Consumer Welfare Standard to decide antitrust cases, which means they have to show that a proposed merger would cause tangible harm to consumers. If "reducing competition" was the standard then all buyouts/mergers would be illegal since they all necessarily reduce competition.

Did they use the Consumer Welfare Standard to block Visa's acquisition of Plaid? Seems like the main reasoning they used was because it was a strategic buy rather than a financially sound one. (and the finances of this deal pretty much mirror Plaids)

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#610

Post by unstrategic »

duped wrote: post #606
unstrategic wrote: post #604

Figma was never on track to change the world. They were an Adobe clone from the beginning, out-executing them, but fundamentally exactly as anti-innovative. Not that $20B is anything to shake a stick at — but real innovation in this market will be worth one to two orders of magnitude more. Figma was scratching at this with their "whole org collab" vision and FigJam, but they lacked the vision to crack it, and their e…

> but real innovation in this market will be worth one to two orders of magnitude more. 200 billion, maybe. $2 trillion? Maybe with 10% inflation for a few more years.

Sure, $2T — a fundamental innovation in how we "design and build" software has implications as far-reaching as the World Wide Web itself. Google IS the World Wide Web — they have previously broken a $2T market cap.
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