Eventually most every professional level app will need to follow a subscription model. Developing and maintaining software is a very expensive proposition. There is never a one-size-fits-all version because some features take much more time, money, ongoing effort, and access to developers with a very deep knowledge and understanding of the intricacies of the application domain the product serves. This means there will often be tiered subscription pricing tied to the type and number of features and collateral content. The better of the subscription models have a free tier that's suitable for those with fewer or modest needs. As long as all of the user created artifacts and acquired skills of lower tier versions are transferable to higher tier versions I'd say it's a reasonable approach.
Subscriptions are here stay and will only become more pervasive. In fact, I think we'll start to see more micro subscription models where the duration of the subscription is much shorter, as in days, weeks, and months (less than a year's worth). Again, as long as all of the user created artifacts can be retained and reapplied as-needed this should not be a big deal for a lot of users, but not all. Applications like Turbo Tax are effectively a one-time only or limited duration app for most users. You use it for a very short period of time, put it away, and wait for next year's version to upgrade or repurchase the app again. It does store the data you create from one year's version version to the next, which is essential and very helpful.
Adobe Creative Cloud is a relative bargain if one is working professionally, on a full-time basis. However, what happens if one's employment is paused or reduced, either by market forces, family commitments or chronic health issues. In these situations, CC is immediately expensive and yet without it one loses access to much of their work as well as the ability to maintain and update their skill-set should circumstances improve.
Furthermore, it used to be possible to work across different disciplines but with each now subject to subscription-pricing it is almost impossible to ...for example, I spent years invested in Cinema 4D but it was not my core speciality and now it's impossible to sustain that subscription alongside Adobe CC and others.
It is fine incentivising students to use certain tools, but with an uncertain job market, globally, how many of them can afford to maintain the software between graduating and finding the roles for which they studied.
I believe that these developers need to rethink their strategies to serve real-world employment circumstances as they evolve throughout one's lifecycle.
The combined monthly price of the full Adobe Suite ($60/m) and Cinema 4D ($80/m) is $140 per month.
The standalone purchase price of Cinema 4D used to be around $3600 and Adobe suite was $2600.
Adobe initially kept the standalone option but so many people jumped on the monthly option that it didn't make sense to keep it. Customers drove this trend, not the big companies.
For anyone complaining that they'd struggle to come up with $140/month, they definitely couldn't come up with a $6200 lump sum. This is equivalent to nearly 4 years of subscription revenue.
The subscription model fixes the need for piracy because pretty much everyone has some amount of monthly income. Students can easily come up with the student price $15-20/month. The average student loan in the US is $30k. Subscription software would be 3% of this.
Monthly payments are why the iPhone is so popular. Hardly anyone would pay $700+ outright for a phone but $20/month is negligible.
The arguments about health issues or whatever causing people to not be able to pay their subscription don't make any sense. If people reached that level of poverty, they'd lose access to their accommodation, food, internet, transport too. Software subscriptions would be the least of their worries.
Apple could do the same with Final Cut and Logic, they can sell those for $3-5/month, ideally with yearly options ($36-59/year) and add in some cloud storage for exports so families can edit movies and share them with people.
Adobe Creative Cloud is a relative bargain if one is working professionally, on a full-time basis. However, what happens if one's employment is paused or reduced, either by market forces, family commitments or chronic health issues. In these situations, CC is immediately expensive and yet without it one loses access to much of their work as well as the ability to maintain and update their skill-set should circumstances improve.
Furthermore, it used to be possible to work across different disciplines but with each now subject to subscription-pricing it is almost impossible to ...for example, I spent years invested in Cinema 4D but it was not my core speciality and now it's impossible to sustain that subscription alongside Adobe CC and others.
It is fine incentivising students to use certain tools, but with an uncertain job market, globally, how many of them can afford to maintain the software between graduating and finding the roles for which they studied.
I believe that these developers need to rethink their strategies to serve real-world employment circumstances as they evolve throughout one's lifecycle.
The combined monthly price of the full Adobe Suite ($60/m) and Cinema 4D ($80/m) is $140 per month.
The standalone purchase price of Cinema 4D used to be around $3600 and Adobe suite was $2600.
Adobe initially kept the standalone option but so many people jumped on the monthly option that it didn't make sense to keep it. Customers drove this trend, not the big companies.
For anyone complaining that they'd struggle to come up with $140/month, they definitely couldn't come up with a $6200 lump sum. This is equivalent to nearly 4 years of subscription revenue.
The subscription model fixes the need for piracy because pretty much everyone has some amount of monthly income. Students can easily come up with the student price $15-20/month. The average student loan in the US is $30k. Subscription software would be 3% of this.
Monthly payments are why the iPhone is so popular. Hardly anyone would pay $700+ outright for a phone but $20/month is negligible.
The arguments about health issues or whatever causing people to not be able to pay their subscription don't make any sense. If people reached that level of poverty, they'd lose access to their accommodation, food, internet, transport too. Software subscriptions would be the least of their worries.
Apple could do the same with Final Cut and Logic, they can sell those for $3-5/month, ideally with yearly options ($36-59/year) and add in some cloud storage for exports so families can edit movies and share them with people.
You are wrong about this. I went through a very unexpected period of time where I had a health issue and couldn’t work. I had to pare down everything and my personal Adobe subscription had to go. That was rough and lasted quite a while. I did lose my car. Had to sell it to pay bills. If I didn’t have an old Mac with cs6, I’d have been destroyed. Thankfully that’s all in the rear view, but it can and does happen regardless of age, health status, etc. the subscription model sucks.
The combined monthly price of the full Adobe Suite ($60/m) and Cinema 4D ($80/m) is $140 per month. The standalone purchase price of Cinema 4D used to be around $3600 and Adobe suite was $2600.
Adobe initially kept the standalone option but so many people jumped on the monthly option that it didn't make sense to keep it. The arguments about health issues or whatever causing people to not be able to pay their subscription don't make any sense. If people reached that level of poverty, they'd lose access to their accommodation, food, internet, transport too. Software subscriptions would be the least of their worries.
Firstly, Cinema 4D was nowhere near the $3600 price-point when I first bought it and I was able to use the perpetual licences for several years at a time between upgrades, so my point stands. It was affordable to run Cinema 4D and other 3D software alongside the Adobe apps I needed, and now it is not affordable for peripheral use.
Secondly, you seem to have limited life experience. If you had actually had the misfortune of an accident or chronic health condition that impacted your work life in the longer-term, you might realise how condescending your comment sounds. In the absence of any humility, perhaps you might consider just how fast your own circumstances could be up-ended.
You are wrong about this. I went through a very unexpected period of time where I had a health issue and couldn’t work. I had to pare down everything and my personal Adobe subscription had to go. That was rough and lasted quite a while. I did lose my car. Had to sell it to pay bills. If I didn’t have an old Mac with cs6, I’d have been destroyed. Thankfully that’s all in the rear view, but it can and does happen regardless of age, health status, etc. the subscription model sucks.
I raised the issue of health out of personal experience. Glad to here that you've come out the other side too. Good luck.
If you’re a professional, use the professional tools. And if you can’t see how cheap that is at typical billable rates (at least at the level I work at—I can pay for a year of a CC enterprise license in under one 8 hour day), then maybe it’s time to reevaluate your rates or your clients (no disrespect intended—I realize not everyone’s base necessarily supports the same level of billing and that’s ok). But don’t “solve” the problem by compromising your workflow, or mine.
I'm not a professional. I'm just a guy who takes pictures and edits some of them. I neither need nor desire a suite of professional tools, and I couldn't give a rat's ass about interoperability with other systems. I just need a simple (and from my non-professional perspective, pretty powerful) photo editor. Affinity has been that, and with this acquisition, I'm skeptical of it's future in that regard. Whether or not it's "as good as" any given Adobe products is completely irrelevant to me; it does what I need.
The good part is that Affinity does do what I need right now, and I don't see me needing any more functionality, so if Canva gets stupid, I still have what I need.
Hopefully, this merger will allow Affinity to move into a area it has thus far neglected—book publishing. I've used InDesign for close to twenty years, but I can see that subscription model is too costly for independent authors and small publishers. There's a large market there if Affinity would pursue it by adding more long document features and ebook export.
Hopefully, this merger will allow Affinity to move into a area it has thus far neglected—book publishing. I've used InDesign for close to twenty years, but I can see that subscription model is too costly for independent authors and small publishers. There's a large market there if Affinity would pursue it by adding more long document features and ebook export.
They can just use Pages for free on Mac, iPad, iPhone, or in iCloud, via EPUB for digital, or export to PDF for print: https://support.apple.com/en-us/108362
Firstly, Cinema 4D was nowhere near the $3600 price-point when I first bought it and I was able to use the perpetual licences for several years at a time between upgrades, so my point stands. It was affordable to run Cinema 4D and other 3D software alongside the Adobe apps I needed, and now it is not affordable for peripheral use.
Secondly, you seem to have limited life experience. If you had actually had the misfortune of an accident or chronic health condition that impacted your work life in the longer-term, you might realise how condescending your comment sounds. In the absence of any humility, perhaps you might consider just how fast your own circumstances could be up-ended.
That's to do with the price, not the subscription model and the same would apply if they increased the standalone price and someone didn't have a license. A lot of companies started to see that their existing business model wasn't sustainable long-term. Specialist software like Maxon isn't used by millions of people and when people stop paying, they run the risk of going bankrupt or letting employees go. This nearly happened a few times with Avid. They were bought out last year:
People having tough circumstances in life is irrelevant to how a business with 30,000 employees runs its business, Adobe has ongoing payroll of around $1.5 billion / year. You're suggesting that businesses should structure their business model around scenarios where someone isn't able to pay $20-50/month. If someone's income stream depends on this, it's their responsibility to have measures in place, like insurance or pay for it on credit or ask their customers to pay something upfront. It's not Adobe's responsibility to deal with this, just like it's not the responsibility of an internet service provider, mortgage lender and so on.
Recurring revenue keeps businesses sustainable and every business aims to have long-term sustainable business models. Perpetual licenses aren't sustainable for big businesses or ones with cloud services. Adobe's integration of cloud-based AI across their product line is only possible with recurring revenue. Similarly, Canva could only exist with recurring revenue and it's why they were able to buy out Serif.
People having tough circumstances in life is irrelevant to how a business with 30,000 employees runs its business, Adobe has ongoing payroll of around $1.5 billion / year. You're suggesting that businesses should structure their business model around scenarios where someone isn't able to pay $20-50/month. If someone's income stream depends on this, it's their responsibility to have measures in place, like insurance or pay for it on credit or ask their customers to pay something upfront. It's not Adobe's responsibility to deal with this, just like it's not the responsibility of an internet service provider, mortgage lender and so on.
Recurring revenue keeps businesses sustainable and every business aims to have long-term sustainable business models. Perpetual licenses aren't sustainable for big businesses or ones with cloud services. Adobe's integration of cloud-based AI across their product line is only possible with recurring revenue. Similarly, Canva could only exist with recurring revenue and it's why they were able to buy out Serif.
I am not against subscription models per se, but Adobe could offer greater flexibility with their offerings and may need to for their long-term survival.
I propose that models linked to hours-used would be to a developer's advantage if the alternative is that they lose customers who cannot sustain an all-in subscription model due to changing circumstances.
As I approach retirement, should I not be able to taper my overheads as my workload reduces. You have cited examples of other overheads, but actually they can be reduced on a graduated basis. I pay for my phone, electricity, consumables based on usage, so why not a software-service.
I supported Adobe over much of my working life, it is disappointing that their response is to effectively cut-off my access to the tools I've mastered and the work I've created, unless I keep paying in perpetuity.
The author of this article I’m sure means well and is good at what they do, but may not realize the headaches they can end up causing people like me, as a creative agency art director that often farms projects to contractors. The eps and pdf files the Serif apps create are hot garbage that often don't pass basic preflight requirements. I should know, I’ve had to fix a bunch of them. Canva’s editable exports are worse and their cheeseball templates are visible a mile away.
Could not agree more -- I work in prepress at an award-winning commercial printer, and Canva and Affinity are absolute garbage from an output perspective. Forget about consistent color management or any kind of proper output control. These apps may be fine for people creating basic websites or office newsletters they'll send to their laser printer, but if you're building important projects that are intended for high-quality output, stick to the professional apps. If you don't want to pay a subscription, you can still buy a perpetual license to QuarkXPress -- it may be a pain to use compared with InDesign, but it's still powerful software built for pros (but that said, just save yourself -- and me -- the hassle and pay Adobe).
Wouldn’t consistent color management be something you would use Pantone software for?
Adobe Creative Cloud is a relative bargain if one is working professionally, on a full-time basis. However, what happens if one's employment is paused or reduced, either by market forces, family commitments or chronic health issues. In these situations, CC is immediately expensive and yet without it one loses access to much of their work as well as the ability to maintain and update their skill-set should circumstances improve.
Furthermore, it used to be possible to work across different disciplines but with each now subject to subscription-pricing it is almost impossible to ...for example, I spent years invested in Cinema 4D but it was not my core speciality and now it's impossible to sustain that subscription alongside Adobe CC and others.
It is fine incentivising students to use certain tools, but with an uncertain job market, globally, how many of them can afford to maintain the software between graduating and finding the roles for which they studied.
I believe that these developers need to rethink their strategies to serve real-world employment circumstances as they evolve throughout one's lifecycle.
Everything you described applies to the world of cad software Autodesk has a virtual monopoly. EU, DOJ where are you?
In what universe does Autodesk have a "virtual monopoly in CAD software" other than a monopoly of AutoCAD users?
PLM (Product Lifecycle Management / MCAD) users are primarily split amongst Siemens (NX, SolidEdge), Dassault (CATIA, SolidWorks), PTC (Creo), and AutoDesk (Inventor Pro), the last of which is what I use daily.
Nobody serious uses AutoCAD for product development, although some use it in conjunction with MCAD. AutoCad is almost entirely driven by Civil engineering, plus residential design, but for the most part, building design is accomplished with AutoDesk Revit, which is a big player, but not a monopoly.
I get the impression that AutoCAD is mainly used for architectural drawings. One company I worked for used it to draw up test station diagrams. It seems like mechanical engineers use SolidWorks or CREO.
Adobe Creative Cloud is a relative bargain if one is working professionally, on a full-time basis. However, what happens if one's employment is paused or reduced, either by market forces, family commitments or chronic health issues. In these situations, CC is immediately expensive and yet without it one loses access to much of their work as well as the ability to maintain and update their skill-set should circumstances improve.
Furthermore, it used to be possible to work across different disciplines but with each now subject to subscription-pricing it is almost impossible to ...for example, I spent years invested in Cinema 4D but it was not my core speciality and now it's impossible to sustain that subscription alongside Adobe CC and others.
It is fine incentivising students to use certain tools, but with an uncertain job market, globally, how many of them can afford to maintain the software between graduating and finding the roles for which they studied.
I believe that these developers need to rethink their strategies to serve real-world employment circumstances as they evolve throughout one's lifecycle.
The combined monthly price of the full Adobe Suite ($60/m) and Cinema 4D ($80/m) is $140 per month.
The standalone purchase price of Cinema 4D used to be around $3600 and Adobe suite was $2600.
Adobe initially kept the standalone option but so many people jumped on the monthly option that it didn't make sense to keep it. Customers drove this trend, not the big companies.
For anyone complaining that they'd struggle to come up with $140/month, they definitely couldn't come up with a $6200 lump sum. This is equivalent to nearly 4 years of subscription revenue.
The subscription model fixes the need for piracy because pretty much everyone has some amount of monthly income. Students can easily come up with the student price $15-20/month. The average student loan in the US is $30k. Subscription software would be 3% of this.
Monthly payments are why the iPhone is so popular. Hardly anyone would pay $700+ outright for a phone but $20/month is negligible.
The arguments about health issues or whatever causing people to not be able to pay their subscription don't make any sense. If people reached that level of poverty, they'd lose access to their accommodation, food, internet, transport too. Software subscriptions would be the least of their worries.
Apple could do the same with Final Cut and Logic, they can sell those for $3-5/month, ideally with yearly options ($36-59/year) and add in some cloud storage for exports so families can edit movies and share them with people.
Your take on people with health issues not being able to afford certain things is completely insensitive and insulting. If you don’t have first hand knowledge then don’t comment.
The combined monthly price of the full Adobe Suite ($60/m) and Cinema 4D ($80/m) is $140 per month. The standalone purchase price of Cinema 4D used to be around $3600 and Adobe suite was $2600.
Adobe initially kept the standalone option but so many people jumped on the monthly option that it didn't make sense to keep it. The arguments about health issues or whatever causing people to not be able to pay their subscription don't make any sense. If people reached that level of poverty, they'd lose access to their accommodation, food, internet, transport too. Software subscriptions would be the least of their worries.
Firstly, Cinema 4D was nowhere near the $3600 price-point when I first bought it and I was able to use the perpetual licences for several years at a time between upgrades, so my point stands. It was affordable to run Cinema 4D and other 3D software alongside the Adobe apps I needed, and now it is not affordable for peripheral use.
Secondly, you seem to have limited life experience. If you had actually had the misfortune of an accident or chronic health condition that impacted your work life in the longer-term, you might realise how condescending your comment sounds. In the absence of any humility, perhaps you might consider just how fast your own circumstances could be up-ended.
You are wrong about this. I went through a very unexpected period of time where I had a health issue and couldn’t work. I had to pare down everything and my personal Adobe subscription had to go. That was rough and lasted quite a while. I did lose my car. Had to sell it to pay bills. If I didn’t have an old Mac with cs6, I’d have been destroyed. Thankfully that’s all in the rear view, but it can and does happen regardless of age, health status, etc. the subscription model sucks.
I raised the issue of health out of personal experience. Glad to here that you've come out the other side too. Good luck.
Same to you my friend. Those who’ve gone through such things gain tremendous perspective and appreciation for any and all the blessings we have (especially health). Glad for you as well.
Less than one hour of freelance time pays for the power and Dozens of apps/services I receive with my Creative Cloud subscription each month.
First prize for missing the point!
The actual POINT being made is that the VAST majority of users are not “freelancers” charging fees, but casual users who, you know, LIKE photography ad graphic arts but most of whom earn FAR BETTER money doing other work, and so won’t swap careers….
For those users susbscription pricing sucks. Big time.
I don’t love the ubiquity of the subscription model, either, but most people can’t afford to work for free.
One of the hard lessons still rolling through the internet age is the misconception that things of value are expected to be free.
Apple creates the illusion of that with the “free” upgrades and even added features and functionality that started happening with the introduction of the iPhone. The reality is that one reason Apple hardware is expensive is because users are paying upfront for this OS upgrades and future features.
Google creates the illusion of “free” by mercilessly scraping, compiling and selling user data to its real customers, advertisers.
News media screwed themselves early on by failing to realize the implications of the internet and publishing online content for free. Then they made it worse by sacrificing editorial quality by chasing trends, adding comment tails to every article and going after clickbait (irony noted here).
As US tax season nears, we experience the perennial resentment that government services aren’t free. Everybody simultaneously feels entitled to an immediate response when calling 911, but hates paying for it when the tax bill arrives, especially if they haven’t had to call 911 recently.
Finally, software companies like adobe and Microsoft were creating expensive software that could be purchased once and used for years without generating new revenue. Also, customers misunderstanding the Apple and Google business models started expecting frequent, free upgrades everywhere. It gets hard to pay for ongoing software development when their work product goes out the door for free.
Just as design professionals and other creatives rightfully get apoplectic when expected to work “for the exposure” or other unpaid scenarios, software developers have to derive income for their work as well. The subscription model is, unfortunately, currently one of the better ways to make that happen.
There are all sorts of ways to pay for the things we use, but the consistent reality is that none of them are free.
This article was written in various places about Pixelmator, Sketch, etc a few years back. How'd that go?
Less than one hour of freelance time pays for the power and Dozens of apps/services I receive with my Creative Cloud subscription each month.
Adobe is the industry standard and is comparatively cheaper than back when you bought upgrades each year or so for each separate application.
Nobody looks at your resume and says, "Oh, Wow! They use Canva!"
You're largely right, especially about the cost being insignificant for a designer. And many production houses still want Illustrator/In Design/Photoshop files because they have the Adobe suite in house and can make corrections and alts and still meet production deadlines. Pixelmator and Sketch didn't have that cache on the commercial side.
Affinity, on the other hand, has a pretty large user base, can open Adobe files, and the three major apps are close to feature-comparable with Adobe. And if we're honest even hard core Adobe users have tools they never use. I certainly do, but I'm merely competent and not expert. I started out with Ready-Set-Go in the Stone Age, moved to Aldus Pagemaker, then by inertia to Adobe. I might be persuaded to go Affinity at this point.
You are wrong about this. I went through a very unexpected period of time where I had a health issue and couldn’t work. I had to pare down everything and my personal Adobe subscription had to go. That was rough and lasted quite a while. I did lose my car. Had to sell it to pay bills. If I didn’t have an old Mac with cs6, I’d have been destroyed. Thankfully that’s all in the rear view, but it can and does happen regardless of age, health status, etc. the subscription model sucks.
Wow! Someone else who saved CS6 apps! I did too, and it saved me more than a couple of times. Good to know you're back in top form.
People having tough circumstances in life is irrelevant to how a business with 30,000 employees runs its business, Adobe has ongoing payroll of around $1.5 billion / year. You're suggesting that businesses should structure their business model around scenarios where someone isn't able to pay $20-50/month. If someone's income stream depends on this, it's their responsibility to have measures in place, like insurance or pay for it on credit or ask their customers to pay something upfront. It's not Adobe's responsibility to deal with this, just like it's not the responsibility of an internet service provider, mortgage lender and so on.
Recurring revenue keeps businesses sustainable and every business aims to have long-term sustainable business models. Perpetual licenses aren't sustainable for big businesses or ones with cloud services. Adobe's integration of cloud-based AI across their product line is only possible with recurring revenue. Similarly, Canva could only exist with recurring revenue and it's why they were able to buy out Serif.
I am not against subscription models per se, but Adobe could offer greater flexibility with their offerings and may need to for their long-term survival.
I propose that models linked to hours-used would be to a developer's advantage if the alternative is that they lose customers who cannot sustain an all-in subscription model due to changing circumstances.
Adobe's in better shape than they've ever been, the low point in the graph on the following page is where they switched to subscriptions:
Every big company that has moved to recurring revenue models has become more financially secure. This is why Apple moved into services on top of products.
People having tough circumstances in life is irrelevant to how a business with 30,000 employees runs its business, Adobe has ongoing payroll of around $1.5 billion / year. You're suggesting that businesses should structure their business model around scenarios where someone isn't able to pay $20-50/month. If someone's income stream depends on this, it's their responsibility to have measures in place, like insurance or pay for it on credit or ask their customers to pay something upfront. It's not Adobe's responsibility to deal with this, just like it's not the responsibility of an internet service provider, mortgage lender and so on.
Recurring revenue keeps businesses sustainable and every business aims to have long-term sustainable business models. Perpetual licenses aren't sustainable for big businesses or ones with cloud services. Adobe's integration of cloud-based AI across their product line is only possible with recurring revenue. Similarly, Canva could only exist with recurring revenue and it's why they were able to buy out Serif.
As I approach retirement, should I not be able to taper my overheads as my workload reduces. You have cited examples of other overheads, but actually they can be reduced on a graduated basis. I pay for my phone, electricity, consumables based on usage, so why not a software-service.
I supported Adobe over much of my working life, it is disappointing that their response is to effectively cut-off my access to the tools I've mastered and the work I've created, unless I keep paying in perpetuity.
You wouldn't expect that of other product companies. Using a Mac less doesn't mean you'd expect to walk into an Apple store and get a discount. The company still has the same costs to produce the product you are using no matter how much or little you use it. It's different for consumables, software isn't a consumable, it's a product.
They have continual costs of managing a business with 30,000 employees and cloud services, these costs don't change depending on the changing needs of their customers.
The idea of having to pay in perpetuity vs not is misleading. You can't run CS6 on current hardware so you would have had to pay for the upgrade or new major version, which was expensive. Those unexpected upgrade requirements caught a lot of people off guard because most people don't save up for bulk spends, they live on fixed incomes, this happened with the old CS suites:
The new model spreads the cost of upgrades across a longer period of time and makes it so that people are all on the latest version of the product. That reduces the maintenance issues (for plugin devs too) with people using different versions and avoids unexpected upgrades. It means people don't have to resort to using years old copies or piracy like with the old CS suites.
Comments
Subscriptions are here stay and will only become more pervasive. In fact, I think we'll start to see more micro subscription models where the duration of the subscription is much shorter, as in days, weeks, and months (less than a year's worth). Again, as long as all of the user created artifacts can be retained and reapplied as-needed this should not be a big deal for a lot of users, but not all. Applications like Turbo Tax are effectively a one-time only or limited duration app for most users. You use it for a very short period of time, put it away, and wait for next year's version to upgrade or repurchase the app again. It does store the data you create from one year's version version to the next, which is essential and very helpful.
The standalone purchase price of Cinema 4D used to be around $3600 and Adobe suite was $2600.
Adobe initially kept the standalone option but so many people jumped on the monthly option that it didn't make sense to keep it. Customers drove this trend, not the big companies.
For anyone complaining that they'd struggle to come up with $140/month, they definitely couldn't come up with a $6200 lump sum. This is equivalent to nearly 4 years of subscription revenue.
The subscription model fixes the need for piracy because pretty much everyone has some amount of monthly income. Students can easily come up with the student price $15-20/month. The average student loan in the US is $30k. Subscription software would be 3% of this.
Monthly payments are why the iPhone is so popular. Hardly anyone would pay $700+ outright for a phone but $20/month is negligible.
The arguments about health issues or whatever causing people to not be able to pay their subscription don't make any sense. If people reached that level of poverty, they'd lose access to their accommodation, food, internet, transport too. Software subscriptions would be the least of their worries.
Apple could do the same with Final Cut and Logic, they can sell those for $3-5/month, ideally with yearly options ($36-59/year) and add in some cloud storage for exports so families can edit movies and share them with people.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/108362
https://sonicatlas.co/stg-buys-avid/
People having tough circumstances in life is irrelevant to how a business with 30,000 employees runs its business, Adobe has ongoing payroll of around $1.5 billion / year. You're suggesting that businesses should structure their business model around scenarios where someone isn't able to pay $20-50/month. If someone's income stream depends on this, it's their responsibility to have measures in place, like insurance or pay for it on credit or ask their customers to pay something upfront. It's not Adobe's responsibility to deal with this, just like it's not the responsibility of an internet service provider, mortgage lender and so on.
Recurring revenue keeps businesses sustainable and every business aims to have long-term sustainable business models. Perpetual licenses aren't sustainable for big businesses or ones with cloud services. Adobe's integration of cloud-based AI across their product line is only possible with recurring revenue. Similarly, Canva could only exist with recurring revenue and it's why they were able to buy out Serif.
I propose that models linked to hours-used would be to a developer's advantage if the alternative is that they lose customers who cannot sustain an all-in subscription model due to changing circumstances.
As I approach retirement, should I not be able to taper my overheads as my workload reduces. You have cited examples of other overheads, but actually they can be reduced on a graduated basis. I pay for my phone, electricity, consumables based on usage, so why not a software-service.
I supported Adobe over much of my working life, it is disappointing that their response is to effectively cut-off my access to the tools I've mastered and the work I've created, unless I keep paying in perpetuity.
The actual POINT being made is that the VAST majority of users are not “freelancers” charging fees, but casual users who, you know, LIKE photography ad graphic arts but most of whom earn FAR BETTER money doing other work, and so won’t swap careers….
For those users susbscription pricing sucks. Big time.
End of.
Affinity's products are ok. Adobe's are better.
Canva purchasing them doesn’t materially change anything, just ownership.
Affinity, on the other hand, has a pretty large user base, can open Adobe files, and the three major apps are close to feature-comparable with Adobe. And if we're honest even hard core Adobe users have tools they never use. I certainly do, but I'm merely competent and not expert. I started out with Ready-Set-Go in the Stone Age, moved to Aldus Pagemaker, then by inertia to Adobe. I might be persuaded to go Affinity at this point.
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/ADBE/adobe/net-income
Every big company that has moved to recurring revenue models has become more financially secure. This is why Apple moved into services on top of products.
https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/02/02/apple-services-revenue-hit-an-all-time-high-of-20-billion
The majority of Adobe customers only need Photoshop, their photography bundle at $10/month is a negligible cost.
You wouldn't expect that of other product companies. Using a Mac less doesn't mean you'd expect to walk into an Apple store and get a discount. The company still has the same costs to produce the product you are using no matter how much or little you use it. It's different for consumables, software isn't a consumable, it's a product.
They have continual costs of managing a business with 30,000 employees and cloud services, these costs don't change depending on the changing needs of their customers.
The idea of having to pay in perpetuity vs not is misleading. You can't run CS6 on current hardware so you would have had to pay for the upgrade or new major version, which was expensive. Those unexpected upgrade requirements caught a lot of people off guard because most people don't save up for bulk spends, they live on fixed incomes, this happened with the old CS suites:
https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-discussions/upgrade-from-cs4-to-cs6/m-p/4767676
https://scottkelby.com/an-open-letter-to-adobe-systems/
The new model spreads the cost of upgrades across a longer period of time and makes it so that people are all on the latest version of the product. That reduces the maintenance issues (for plugin devs too) with people using different versions and avoids unexpected upgrades. It means people don't have to resort to using years old copies or piracy like with the old CS suites.