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Affinity Studio now free

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Re: Affinity Studio now free

#701

Post by daemin »

renewiltord wrote: post #643
Espressosaurus wrote: post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I still want the option of sticking with the old version if I decide that I'm done for now and for it to continue working. I want to own my software, not rent it.

All right, well you've got it. There's just no corresponding new version. Just like there are no more albums by Prince. I suppose you were lamenting there were no more songs by Prince, which is fair. I, too, feel that void. Except for the odd fact that now you've got the software without having to pay.

Cue the old adage that if you're not paying for something you're the product not the customer...

Though in this case the biggest danger is being the training material creator used to train its models for its paid generative AI offering. I would assume people are monitoring the privacy policy and terms of use to know when such a change would happen - if it isn't so already, I haven't checked those documents.

As for me I'm happy to stick with v2 for as long as it can function on computers I own and use.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#702

Post by BoredPositron »

radiKal07 wrote: post #683
wizzzzzy wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add to this, Davinci Resolve is also great freemium software IMO

Kdenlive is free and open-source and is so great, such a slept on app

It shares the trait of every QT app the ux is horrible.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#703

Post by bdangubic »

Ekaros wrote: post #682
bdangubic wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the ai bubble has already popped!!! the biggest tech companies on the planet who are spending insane amounts of capex on “ai” keep reporting insane earnings reports one after another, things are popping left & right

I think we can reasonably ask would they have netted even more without those investments?

this question could be reasonably asked of any company's capex expenditure, no? reasonably I will trust until proven otherwise that companies as successful as our biggest ones know what they are doing vs. 76.89% of HN claiming some sort of fictitious "bubble"

it is same thing we keep hearing for about a decade now how "recession is imminent" which of course it'll eventually happen, it always does, you just have to predict it for 10-15 years and one day you'll be right... same thing with this "bubble" - there will eventually be a "pull back" - prolonged capex of this magnitude is not something any company will do but it is getting so boring here on HN hearing about this amazing 'bubble' that is about to pop and we just keep sitting and waiting for this magical moment while the companies, in a very, very, very bad economy are crushing earnings...

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#704

Post by daemin »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #677
aleph_minus_one wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historically, Windows versions had excellent backwards compatibility, so at least in the past, this was much less of a problem in the Windows world than in the macOS world. This is also the reason why so many Windows users are so angry that in particular since Windows 10 (but partly already in previous Windows versions) Microsoft made it so hard to have some "stable" Windows version on a computer that only gets secur…

Windows itself has a great backwards compatibility story - but the Internet doesn't, so the moment you have to communicate with the outside world, you need to deal with the high churn culture of modern software.

I can still run my old executables that I compiled back in 2002 and 2003 on my current Windows computers.

I don't think I could do that with anything that was compiled for Linux or MacOS back then.

I wouldn't want to do that with anything that opens ports on my computer that was compiled back then.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#706

Post by jwitthuhn »

stackedinserter wrote: post #466
InsideOutSanta wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. It didn't exist a week ago and doesn't require Internet, apart from an initial login.

Why do you need to login into something that doesn't require Internet?

So you can only use it if Canva has your email and they can send you exciting new offers.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#708

Post by naikrovek »

nirava wrote: post #238

This is a deletion. - they're completely stopping all updates to v2; even image trace won't be coming to it. You might have paid for perpetual access to it 2 months ago, but it has completely stopped. As the world moves on (new chips, new OS features, just general software movement) this will increasingly feel like a second-class experience. - the new "free" software is a sales funnel into the paid subscription, and…

perpetual licenses give you access to the software you purchased perpetually. a perpetual license doesn't usually give you access to later versions of the software, only updates & fixes for the version you bought.

you were lucky to get the updates that you got. that is not normal, and is not something that a perpetual license purchaser should expect to get.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#709

Post by SuperHeavy256 »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #333
alt227 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a shame IMO. The Serif suite was great, and I used to try to get every designer I could to dump adobe and switch to serif. Now that it has switched to a freemium model trying to get you to subscribe to AI, I wont be using this or telling other people about it any more. Their priorities have changed. No longer are they trying to to beat adobe at their own game, they are just chasing AI money like everyone…

I think it's really cool they can get AI money from the people who want to pay that, to give away the core for free. I can empathize with feeling their focus will be elsewhere (whatever increases revenue) but I figure AI isn't magic, they need to have the rest of the creative suite work well to, yaknow, synergize Edit: I'll add that I much prefer purchasing perpetual licenses for software that can work without a clou…

Exactly, this should be celebrated.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#710

Post by latexr »

mwkaufma wrote: post #268
latexr wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not all free. It gets you in the door to then pay for the subscription to the AI features. Also, that idea of “if you don’t pay, you’re the product” was a nice slogan but it isn’t true. Open-source software is free and respects you, while streaming services these days charge you money while serving you ads.

The open-source comparison is confused. Lots of open-source projects do offer optional commercial licenses or support contracts. And the truly free-as-in-beer projects either have some kind of grant financing or else the maintainer shoulders the costs until they burn out. That "nice slogan" is emphatically true.

> Lots of open-source projects do offer optional commercial licenses or support contracts.

And lots more don’t. The difference is so large that the ones who do offer commercial support are a rounding error in comparison.

> And the truly free-as-in-beer projects either have some kind of grant financing or else the maintainer shoulders the costs until they burn out.

Those aren’t the only options, that is a false dichotomy. But even if it were true, it in no way contradicts the argument.

> That "nice slogan" is emphatically true.

It emphatically is not, and you are ignoring half the argument. You can pay and still be the product.

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