Ask HN: Why nobody competes with Adobe? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Why nobody competes with Adobe?

#81

Post by acutesoftware » Thu, Mar 29, 2018, 10:44 AM UTC

stevekemp wrote: post #72

mietek wrote: post #6

The competition has been assimilated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altsys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Beach_Software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macromedia

Seeing those names reminded me of another, back in the day when I ran Windows all my editing was carried out in Paint Shop Pro - which still seems to exist, despite having been first released 27 years ago.

Yes, PSP did everything I needed to do - though I am not deep into graphics. Seems they have a new 2018 version ($89 AU), but Windows only.

https://www.paintshoppro.com/en/products/paintshop-pro/stand...

Re: Ask HN: Why nobody competes with Adobe?

#82

Post by solarkraft » Thu, Mar 29, 2018, 11:42 AM UTC

samspenc wrote: post #35

hyperpallium wrote: post #27

Adobe has been in the game for a long time, and they know how to play. For example, early on in postscript days, they had proprietary fonts... which they made free at about the right time to have reaped profits without fueling a competitor. A short-sighted company might have hung on; a non-profit might have given it away from the start. - they allow photoshop to be pirated - removing fuel for competitors - it's diffi…

This. Plus network effects. Once you have people sharing files in Photoshop, Indesign and AE formats, everyone who's working with you has to adopt Adobe as well. GIMP proves that it's possible to build a competing product that has all the features, but doesn't come with the same ease-of-use or shortcuts or support for proprietary file formats. Which means slow adoption, and ensures that it's hard to compete with Adob…

There are many products able to somewhat import psd, but due to its (perhaps intentional) complexity many fail to fully support it.

See Xee developer Paracelsus:

> Trying to get data out of a PSD file is like trying to find something in the attic of your eccentric old uncle who died in a freak freshwater shark attack on his 58th birthday... I am spending a lot of time imagining amusing fates for the people responsible for this Rube Goldberg of a file format.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/30/xee_photoshop_psd_c...

Re: Ask HN: Why nobody competes with Adobe?

#83

Post by solarkraft » Thu, Mar 29, 2018, 11:47 AM UTC

While I haven't found any replacement for AfterEffects for motion graphics, many people I know have switched to Affinity Designer/Photo without looking back. Not only does it not tie you into a subscription, the interface is cleaner (without years of baggage) and the whole system feels less cluttered. Maybe the features are there with Photoshop, but they are more intuitive with Affinity. Maybe it doesn't do some niche-thing Photoshop can do, but it's evidently enough for most.

Pixelmator and Vectormator also have very good quality.

In Open Source, Gimp and Krita really don't compete well in Photo editing and there simply is nothing even close to AE, but for audio Ardour does a good job.

Re: Ask HN: Why nobody competes with Adobe?

#84

Post by rajeshpant » Thu, Mar 29, 2018, 5:20 PM UTC

I am attending an Adobe conference this week and this was my exact thoughts. How come no one else build these tools and compete in this market. There is a huge market potential.

Re: Ask HN: Why nobody competes with Adobe?

#85

Post by chasedehan » Fri, Mar 30, 2018, 2:55 AM UTC

nugi wrote: post #66

blt wrote: post #34

Photoshop is feature-complete, and the features are implemented well. For example, compare the speed of applying a 200px-radius Gaussian blur in Photoshop vs. Gimp. To make an analogy with more hands-on trades: buying Photoshop is like getting the entire Snap-On tool catalog for $500. Buying Pixelmator is like getting 1/4 of the Craftsman tool catalog for $50. If you can spare the extra $450, you get a lot for your m…

Slightly OT, however; Pros buy snap on because of convenience. Most know there are cheaper, better made tools available for the last 25 years. The tool trucks, and big lines of credit, and bling factor are their only remaining upsells. The 'made in usa' stamps are even disappearing from their tools as more come from tiawan and china. It is hard, if not impossible, to justify the markup without some huge ego stroking,…

I really don't understand the amount of money spent on those tools. My cousin is a mechanic and has a $10K MAC tool box(similar to Snap On) - that's just for the box without a single tool. Apparently he has >$25K in total in his tool box. We really have it quite good in tech.

Re: Ask HN: Why nobody competes with Adobe?

#86

Post by weissed » Fri, Mar 30, 2018, 12:03 PM UTC

Sejda PDF is a freemium Acrobat alternative: https://www.sejda.com/

Re: Ask HN: Why nobody competes with Adobe?

#87

Post by IvanK_net » Fri, Mar 30, 2018, 1:15 PM UTC

Hi, my name is Ivan and I am competing with Adobe and other image-editing comapnies :)

You can read about my photo editor Photopea here: https://blog.photopea.com/creating-photopea.html

Re: Ask HN: Why nobody competes with Adobe?

#88

Post by mietek » Fri, Mar 30, 2018, 8:26 PM UTC

pacavaca wrote: post #11

mietek wrote: post #6

The competition has been assimilated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altsys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Beach_Software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macromedia

I would even be okay with Adobe buying a company, which serves an entry-level market and offering its products separately from their old behemoths. Kind of like Atlassian sells JIRA, but for those, who don't like it - they bought Trello. P.S. Macromedia Flash was so cool in 2006 :)

Unfortunately, Adobe bought Macromedia to kill FreeHand, not to continue offering it.

http://www.freehandforum.org

Re: Ask HN: Why nobody competes with Adobe?

#89

Post by thecupisblue » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 10:50 AM UTC

ivanstegic wrote: post #7

We stopped using Photoshop and migrated to Sketch exclusively. New designers we interact with seem to be doing the same thing. One data point. YMMV.

Sketch covers only 0.1% of Photoshop's features and it only serves that userbase.

Re: Ask HN: Why nobody competes with Adobe?

#90

Post by auganov » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 2:48 PM UTC

These kinds of tools are very sticky. Every once in a while I might come across interesting design software, with features I'd want etc. But at the end of the day, it's very risky to switch. Takes a long time to develop a good workflow. And you might end up not liking it anyways. I keep using Illustrator and Photoshop for the same reason I keep using Emacs.

I actually know an unlikely person that got started with the terrible GIMP and they're very reluctant to switching too.