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Canva’s affinity strategy: Normies over power users

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Re: Canva’s affinity strategy: Normies over power users

#71

Post by robenkleene »

layer8 wrote: post #61
robenkleene wrote: post #40

This is analysis is spot on. I made the same argument about Figma (that what made Figma successful is that design software had started to be used more like office suite software) in my overview of the historical transitions in creative software https://blog.robenkleene.com/2023/06/19/software-transitions... : > In the section on Photoshop to Sketch, we discussed an underappreciated factor in Sketch’s, and by extensio…

I disagree with the comparison to / characterization of “office suite software”. At least the desktop class of office suites have a lot of power features and power users. It’s not that power users aren’t a market, it’s that casual users are now the larger market and cheaper to serve, and software companies have been catching on to that, to the detriment of power users.

Do you mind getting more specific about what you disagree with around the comparison / characterization of "office suite software"? I can't tell what you're disagreeing with. E.g., it sounds like you're saying I don't think office suite software is powerful, which I don't think I said? (And I don't believe, e.g., I think Excel is one of the most powerful applications there is). I do think the most popular web-based office suite software (e.g., the Google suite) is less powerful than the more desktop-orientated competitors (there's an obvious reason for this, web-based software facilitates collaboration, and complex features hinder collaboration, so they're in natural opposition).

But I definitely struggle with the comparison between power users and casual users. Like I wouldn't characterize designers that use Figma as casual users, it's that the needs of software designers have changed so much, and those changes mean treating design software more like office suite software make sense.

I guess the comparison of casual users and power users is more apt when comparing the Adobe suite and Affinity suite. And, e.g., Final Cut Pro X and CapCut are evidence of a wider industry trend towards serving that market. I wouldn't necessarily say that's to the detriment of power users though, it seems like there's software to serve both markets now?

Re: Canva’s affinity strategy: Normies over power users

#72

Post by Kye »

rambambram wrote: post #70
Kye wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GIMP doesn't do 1% of what this does even if you don't have a problem with GIMP's UX. It's not comparable.

What can I not do with GIMP that I can do with the other software?

You can eventually do anything they can do with GIMP. It just takes a lot more time and effort and the results are less flexible. I say this as someone who tried to do it all in GIMP for many years before moving on to Affinity's software. It's the wrong tool for most of it because it's a raster graphics editor. No amount of better UX could address that. It doesn't have the tools.

Re: Canva’s affinity strategy: Normies over power users

#73

Post by t0bia_s »

daft_pink wrote: post #39

I’m guessing that pros are just going to pay the adobe subscription rate, since a thousand bucks a year isn’t much when it’s a tool for your work. Non-pro users are much more likely to seek out another tool. Honestly, the reason I don’t use adobe products is their 2 user limit. If it were 5 users like microsoft, I would probably pay, but I have vm’s and multiple computers and I’m not paying for two subscriptions for…

Even worse is inability to use licensed Adobe suite without internet. Beeing in field and edit your work is not possible after a week.

Re: Canva’s affinity strategy: Normies over power users

#74

Post by zitsarethecure »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #58
zitsarethecure wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO FOSS "lost the plot" when we accepted the false argument that source code sharing was purely an engineering issue rather than an ethics issue.

Can you explain what you mean? As far as I'm aware, ethics has always been the central issue?

ESR was pretty clear about their stance on it in this interview:

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/article_246jsp/

Personally, I think the argument that "open source is a better way to engineer software" has largely proven to be untrue and FOSS' only advantage has been in protecting the rights of end users (who may also be developers).

Re: Canva’s affinity strategy: Normies over power users

#75

Post by dtagames »

chii wrote: post #63
gazook89 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that you need an account and Internet for the download and license activation, but then works offline (they specifically say “for extended periods”) in the FAQ. That is pretty much the same as v2 right?

They ought to follow the intellij/jetbrain model, where you pay for the subscription to access the latest version, but when you stop paying, you can keep using the last version you've paid a subscription for. But of course, this does not hold your data hostage, and thus less "profitable" in the long run.

Since Affinity saves your files to local disk, no one can hold them "hostage." And it reads and writes standard filetypes, including PSD (Photoshop).

Re: Canva’s affinity strategy: Normies over power users

#76

Post by layer8 »

robenkleene wrote: post #71
layer8 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with the comparison to / characterization of “office suite software”. At least the desktop class of office suites have a lot of power features and power users. It’s not that power users aren’t a market, it’s that casual users are now the larger market and cheaper to serve, and software companies have been catching on to that, to the detriment of power users.

Do you mind getting more specific about what you disagree with around the comparison / characterization of "office suite software"? I can't tell what you're disagreeing with. E.g., it sounds like you're saying I don't think office suite software is powerful, which I don't think I said? (And I don't believe, e.g., I think Excel is one of the most powerful applications there is). I do think the most popular web-based o…

The article is about how software is changing to target casual “normies” over power users. You agreed with this take and likened it to how software is becoming more like office suites. From this I inferred that you don’t think that office suites are catering to power users.

So I don’t understand what properties of office suites you are alluding to here. Or is your point that the previously desktop-only software suites now have web-based counterparts, and the latter aren’t catering to power users anymore?

Re: Canva’s affinity strategy: Normies over power users

#77

Post by robenkleene »

layer8 wrote: post #76
robenkleene wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mind getting more specific about what you disagree with around the comparison / characterization of "office suite software"? I can't tell what you're disagreeing with. E.g., it sounds like you're saying I don't think office suite software is powerful, which I don't think I said? (And I don't believe, e.g., I think Excel is one of the most powerful applications there is). I do think the most popular web-based o…

The article is about how software is changing to target casual “normies” over power users. You agreed with this take and likened it to how software is becoming more like office suites. From this I inferred that you don’t think that office suites are catering to power users. So I don’t understand what properties of office suites you are alluding to here. Or is your point that the previously desktop-only software suite…

> Or is your point that the previously desktop-only software suites now have web-based counterparts, and the latter aren’t catering to power users anymore?

Yes this. More specifically collaborative software (e.g., with features like live-collaborative editing) tend to be less capable than non-collaborative software.

These are not 1-for-1 comparisons though (Figma vs. Canva), I didn't mean to imply they were. E.g., Canva isn't emphasizing collaboration. But office suite software does also have a lower barrier of entry than creative software, which I think Canva's strategy should probably capitalize on. E.g., the market has already been split for pro vs prosumer/casual, I think Canva strategy will probably be to emphasize this split short term, which would mean focusing on ease of use at the expense of complex features (and then consider the more technically complicated led shift to collaborative web-based versions later, leveraging what they've learned so far).

Re: Canva’s affinity strategy: Normies over power users

#78

Post by cluckindan »

bsder wrote: post #60
robenkleene wrote: post #40

This is analysis is spot on. I made the same argument about Figma (that what made Figma successful is that design software had started to be used more like office suite software) in my overview of the historical transitions in creative software https://blog.robenkleene.com/2023/06/19/software-transitions... : > In the section on Photoshop to Sketch, we discussed an underappreciated factor in Sketch’s, and by extensio…

I don't agree. What made Figma successful was being able to share via a URL. Period. No program version problems. No file extension problems. No problems between Mac and Windows. No problems with anti-virus blocking your email attachment. etc. Figma exists because sharing a bloody file between computers is still a clusterfsck in 2025.

That was and is also possible in Sketch.

What made Figma the go-to tool is the in-browser approach, collaborative editing, and features like design tokens and constraints which were an afterthought on Sketch and required third party extensions.

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