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Affinity Studio now free

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Re: Affinity Studio now free

#781

Post by Andrex »

fainpul wrote: post #752
Andrex wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gimp actually, finally had their big 3.0 update earlier this year which "modernized" (to ~5 years ago) a lot of the codebase. The UI is mostly the same but it's using much more modern UI components (editing text isn't terrible now, etc.) https://www.gimp.org/news/2025/03/16/gimp-3-0-released/ Gimp's problem is mostly one of funding and attention, like most OSS projects. But it's never stopped development, which I thi…

Can I now finally open a png or jpg file, make some edits and hit or do I still have to go through the "Export" dialog?

They made that change sometime in 2.x(?) and I doubt they'll walk it back.

Getting into the export flow takes time but I find it to be cleaner.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#783

Post by fainpul »

Andrex wrote: post #781
fainpul wrote: post #752

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I now finally open a png or jpg file, make some edits and hit or do I still have to go through the "Export" dialog?

They made that change sometime in 2.x(?) and I doubt they'll walk it back. Getting into the export flow takes time but I find it to be cleaner.

I think it's annoying and patronizing. When exporting, I have to use the file browser to pick a directory and filename to save, when all I want to do is overwrite the file I have open.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#784

Post by carlosjobim »

microtonal wrote: post #316
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…

I'm sad (buyer of both v1 and v2). Being a paid app as opposed to require a subscription was the main selling over the Adobe Suite. A lot of users migrated to Affinity for that reason. As the free version will get more and more crippled as they move to pushing subscriptions, why not switch back to Adobe? I hope somebody else will try to crack this market like affinity did a decade ago.

> As the free version will get more and more crippled as they move to pushing subscriptions, why not switch back to Adobe?

Because this is just in your imagination?

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#785

Post by AlienRobot »

This is very disappointing. I bought Affinity because I thought a "pay once, own the software" was a business model worth supporting. In fact, people loved to point to Affinity's transactional model to contrast it with Adobe's subscription model.

Now it will become freeware, and by "freeware" I mean "nagware" because it will keep telling you about pro/AI features that you don't have access to.

Just like on Windows you don't own the system, on this "freeware" you don't own the software. You're a renter, a freeloader. So you can't complain about the ads. But you WANTED to just buy the thing so you wouldn't have to deal with ads. That option is now off the table.

Imagine if you bought a boat and you can't just enter every room of the boat, because the boat comes with a bouncer that stands in front of a certain door and he won't let you enter. That's what it feels like. Not only the boat isn't yours, it is also not a welcoming place to be. It will always feel like you're an outsider being conditionally allowed on someone's software instead of just being a guy using a thing you own.

I don't know. On some days I feel I just don't like software anymore.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#786

Post by anjel »

47282847 wrote: post #740
immibis wrote: post #672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lifetime means until the company is bankrupt or gets acquired. It doesn't mean your lifetime.

I’ve had multiple “lifetime“ accounts cancelled on me without bankruptcy, just changes in their product line. It doesn’t seem to mean anything.

See also Garmin GPS lifetime map data updates, where you update your venerable well functioning gps device, after which it no longer works, sorry no longer supported

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#787

Post by ludicrousdispla »

ezfe wrote: post #350
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…

Isn't this EXACTLY what subscriptions fix, though? That you can stop paying if the product stops getting updates. Everyone wanted a one time license, you aren't allowed to complain when that one-time licensed product stops getting updates. Note: I own a license to V2 of the Serif suite.

Back in the day, a one time license bought you a specific version with maybe a year of updates. That worked well for practically all users, and no one complained if they had to pay some nominal upgrade fee to get the next version.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#789

Post by polytely »

Gigachad wrote: post #474
alwillis wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> free is unsustainable Canva makes $3+ billion (up from $1.5 in 2023) per year; they have 21 million paying customers out of 240 million users. "Only" 8.75% are paying customers. They don't need huge uptake in AI subscriptions from Affinity. So yeah, free is sustainable for the foreseeable future.

Would they continue to invest in Affinity development if it isn’t converting in to paying users?

As long as Adobe is charging huge amounts of money, it seems like a free desktop app that competes with that and integrates with the existing Canva ecosystem would be worth it.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#790

Post by alt227 »

fsloth wrote: post #480
unreal37 wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open Source absolutely stops being maintained. And worse.

Yup, source code does not stay maintainable automatically. Just that code is open does not mean anyone can or wants to do any reasonable development. The only ”safer” bets are the biggest projects providing critical infra for segments of economy like python for example.

At least if you care about it enough then if it dies you can pick it up yourself and maintain it.
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