He wasn't happy with the Mac Pro, went around a few suppliers and finally blew $11k on an HP Z820 with the intention of running all Adobe products instead of Apple. Since the Creative Cloud move, Adobe's become the new thing to complain about:
The guy from Adobe said: "You can do what you want, but I think it's more effective to communicate directly with the people you want. No noise, just direct communication".
In the end, it's all very well pointing out the problems but Adobe has to come up with a solution that works for both them and their customers; that's the nature of business. The highly priced perpetual license cut out the possibility of legitimate access to the software for people on fixed incomes. Rental models leave people without usable software after paying lots of money and stopping paying. Rent-to-own seems like the best of both but if it's not done right, it would mean that people can just stop paying after say 5 years and then how do they pay for those 5 years of updates? They can't just start paying the subscription again because other people have been paying for 5 years. Although new users do get to just start subscribing, they haven't been using the software for the previous 5 years.
The costs of the subscription can lower when everyone is paying all the time, same way insurance works. It has the potential for abuse because there's a degree of vendor lock-in with software. Adobe could have terms that put people more at ease when it comes to potential price increases over long periods of time but I think people get carried away with the potential problems. If prices were raised to crazy levels or even levels that were deemed uncomfortably expensive, the entire creative industry isn't going to just take it. It would transition just like it did with Quark. There's nothing else quite like the CS/CC Suites but there are alternatives for every app. For periods where you might run out of money, they could perhaps have a credit system so for every year you pay a subscription, you get 1-3 months of usage credits. If you have a rough patch, you can run the software from the usage credits to become financially stable again.
Adobe has no reason at all to persuade people to leave their eco-system. Once they have enough people on board, they have the freedom to lower prices. Shareholders care more about growth than profits as Amazon demonstrates and raising subscription prices would negatively impact growth.
- if they bring back a method to allow people to stop paying, subscription costs would have to increase because the current prices have to be based around the assumption that everyone is paying all the time
- if subscription costs go up, it persuades people to stop subscribing as soon as they can, which further increases the prices
- people who pay for the software once and don't upgrade for 5-10 years will be worse off but it's spread out over a long period of time and the price difference only starts to become noticeable after 4 years of not upgrading
If Adobe gets to a point where they have 15 million subscribers, which isn't a lot of people (about 1/3 of Netflix) paying $20/m, they'll make more revenue than they do now and it'll sustain the company forever. Isn't the possibility of a $20/m Suite of apps worth aiming for? Although it doesn't seem right that one company gets to have a privileged position, this is the same Adobe that's been there right from the start of creative computing and driven a lot of the industry to where it is now. Over time, with sustainable revenue, they can make acquisitions like Maxon, The Foundry, maybe even Autodesk and bring those suites into the same bundle. That could create a monopoly on creative software but would it be worse than a competitive model where monolithic software inevitably plateaus and companies like Avid end up close to bankruptcy leaving the whole industry in doubt as to what comes after it?
When companies are forced to downsize, the people who built the software have little choice but to split apart and the talent gets diluted elsewhere. This happened with Apple when they brought in the team from Nothing Real. Shake was used by Weta on Lord of the Rings and you can see the Apple logo in the credits. This software was eventually broken down and some parts used to create Motion and the team that left Apple sells equivalent software through the Foundry for $4-8k. Apple had Shake down to under $500. Without sustainable revenue, a large creative development team is a resource drain and these loss-making products end up dying out or becoming far too expensive with a limited audience. This isn't good for the industry as a whole.
People complain all the time about how big companies are abandoning high-end products - Avid ditched their high-end DS line recently, spot any tweets that stand out here:
This is what happens when companies have to maintain large creative development teams constantly to work on and support very expensive software that has a small customer base. Eventually, people migrate down to cheaper software and the powerful software is killed off. Adobe's strategy by contrast lets everyone get high-end software while still maintaining revenues. As I say, with some good acquisitions, this business model could make the most powerful creative software there is, accessible to everyone, even students. Having to keep paying is a downside but an inevitable one to keep prices down.
If they communicated terms that assured people for the long term, that would help. Microsoft failed to do this with their XBox strategy. The strategy was ok in that it included protections for game developers to improve their revenues and allow lower game costs for everyone. This problem of game resale is damaging the whole games industry and people don't see it because they aren't aware of the big companies going under. The problem was Microsoft didn't communicate or demonstrate the benefits so everyone focused on the fact that people weren't getting games as products any more but as licenses and would therefore be more expensive with less freedom.
People like to feel like they own things but software has a downside in that you own a copy of something that can't degrade. Things that degrade eventually push you to renew them. That's why hardware products aren't built to last, you can't build software like that but the team that made it still needs to be supported to work on new things.
Well hoo-f**king-ray for you. Many hobbyists and part-timers use these applications as well, you know. Plus, IT departments HATE this kind of subscription model - upgrading stand-alone software is already a pain in a large IT network and IT always wait for the software to mature before deploying. Having CC throw upgrades every year or so? No. That wont sit well and, judging by this promotion and only something like 1m users its not going very well at all.
I believe Photoshop Magazine did a poll and found that 76% of their readers weren't even going to consider CC.
And when the next version of CC comes out? Then what?
Saving in an older format can also have troubles - its like saving a DOCX in DOC and hoping everything remains hunky dory.
I guess I don't really care about hobbyists or IT departments.
However, if you don't want to run CC right now, you can install CS6 and leave CC alone until you consider it ready for prime time.
What I do like is having the full suite at my disposal, with 100GB of synce space for my current work & typekit.
Adobe is making a professional product for professional creatives. Whether hobbyists & IT approve is of no concern to me and I'm happy with the direction they are going.
For me, that's already the case. I use Aperture for 99% of my image cataloging, image editing, and image printing.
Photoshop gets used once in a blue moon, which is exactly why it's easy for me to tell Adobe to go screw themselves. This recent special sale only proves that Adobe is realizing it screwed up. Adobe won't get a another chance from me.
Mark
I use Pixelmator and Aperture together, you can send files between the two. Pixelmator for layers and effects, Aperture for photo retouching (the skin smoothing tool is a favorite of my clients and works much better than whatever is the Photoshop equivalent) Aperture can also export in CMYK, that Pixelmator doesn't. For under $100 I have all of my Photoshop needs covered. And instead of Flash and Fireworks I use Hype. So no more Adobe Photoshop drugs for me, even at the "discounted" $10 a month. I am done upgrading InDesign too. That used to be my favorite program to design in, but they added so much cross over crap from other CS suite applications it is less and less a favorite. I have been using Pages lately to layout books, it is quite nice and easy to make into an epub version.
Quote:
Originally Posted by artvader
Why is Adobe keen on making simple things more complicated?
Do clients really care if a designer is using the latest version of Adobe Suites? If one is slave to the tool they're using in order to create fantastic work, then I'm afraid something is lacking in one's skill as a designer.
It only matters if you need to collaborate with other designers. And for that so far we can make legacy versions. Adobe only knows one mode, complicated. It isn't only the price, but the more bloated, unnecessary stuff, the new learning curve. I do web and graphic design, it is a full time job just to keep up with the learning curve for my software these days! Enough already.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Booth
Aperture is incredibly powerful. So many features. <snip>
I'll happily give Apple another $79 for the next version of Aperture! No brainer!
Mark
Me too, any day. Best software I have bought in awhile (well, besides Pixelmator and Hype)
Quote:
All these "if you're not making enough to pay for it, you're not a professional/you're not charging enough" are the antipathetic republicans of Adobe's customers. You don't have any say in what makes a person's expenses, sales, or work legitimate.
I don't know if I would go that far, (close maybe) But not everyone lives in an area that can get top market dollar from their clients. I have worked freelance for almost 30 years and before computers. My clients are small businesses, if I didn't charge something in line with what they can pay they won't be able to use my services. If Apple can charge what it does for software, then Adobe can dial it down, their stuff is ten times the price of Apple. They are just greedy and their software gets worse and worse. And their answer isn't for them to make their software a reasonable price, no it is forced upon me to squeeze more money from my clients. Sort of a stupid game plan, but they assume they own the market. Microsoft did that too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by polymnia
Adobe is making a professional product for professional creatives. Whether hobbyists & IT approve is of no concern to me and I'm happy with the direction they are going.
Well, your opinion is of no concern to me either, I can design with a pad and paper, I did everything before Adobe came into creation, even color separation (had to farm that out, but it was available none the less) I am looking forward to receiving my Wacom pressure sensitive stylus for my iPad. They have great software to go with it too, if one is truly creative, a stick and a bottle of ink is sufficient, anything else is just additions to the toolbox.
I don't really care about hobbyists or IT departments. [...] Whether hobbyists & IT approve is of no concern to me and I'm happy with the direction they are going.
Well that's the end of the discussion. polymnia is satisfied so everyone drop it now.
Those of you who use Adobe products in corporate settings who depend on IT department approval can just suck it up and quit your damn whining. Your magazines, movies and web products are a trivial matter compared to polymnia's happiness.
Well that's the end of the discussion. polymnia is satisfied so everyone drop it now.
Those of you who use Adobe products in corporate settings who depend on IT department approval can just suck it up and quit your damn whining. Your magazines, movies and web products are a trivial matter compared to polymnia's happiness.
If you are working in a creative environment your IT dept is NOT going to say you cannot have Adobe software. At least no creative environment I've ever worked in.
Anyone making magazines, movies or web products in a professional, collaborative environment is using Adobe. So you can whine all you want, but you will continue using it.
I chose to accentuate the positive, and from where I sit there is a lot of positive. My billings are quite ample and the $50/month is a drop in the bucket. I find the new software quite compelling. I'm happy to support adobe.
You don't even know how that's done in Photoshop, yet you somehow know that Pixelmator does it better? Cool trick.
Did I say "cool trick?" Sorry, I meant "silly posturing."
You misread my post. Pixelmator doesn't have a skin smoothing tool, Aperture does. Photoshop has a healing brush, I have tried may of those tools in Photoshop, but mostly used the cloning tool so I don't remember what each brush is called, I have worked in Photoshop since about '92. But Aperture's skin smoothing brush is perfect for touch ups and does a better job than the Photoshop healing/touch-up brushes I have used.
Comments
Almost 40,000 folks have signed.They don%u2019t like Adobe Creative Cloud licensing.Show @Adobe how you feel. https://www.change.org/petitions/adobe-systems-incorporated-eliminate-the-mandatory-creative-cloud-subscription-model
Another more fiscal way to show @Adobe you dont like the CC licensing scheme.http://adobe2014.tumblr.com #adobe2014
You know you're on a web forum, not Twitter, right? The pound signs and at symbols serve only to uselessly clutter your text here.
Probably just force of habit:
https://twitter.com/lasvideo
Over 13,000 tweets in < 3 years. This is the same guy that switched from the Mac because of FCPX:
http://library.creativecow.net/daigon_tom/From-PC-to-Mac-and-back-again/1
He wasn't happy with the Mac Pro, went around a few suppliers and finally blew $11k on an HP Z820 with the intention of running all Adobe products instead of Apple. Since the Creative Cloud move, Adobe's become the new thing to complain about:
http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/378/1
The guy from Adobe said: "You can do what you want, but I think it's more effective to communicate directly with the people you want. No noise, just direct communication".
In the end, it's all very well pointing out the problems but Adobe has to come up with a solution that works for both them and their customers; that's the nature of business. The highly priced perpetual license cut out the possibility of legitimate access to the software for people on fixed incomes. Rental models leave people without usable software after paying lots of money and stopping paying. Rent-to-own seems like the best of both but if it's not done right, it would mean that people can just stop paying after say 5 years and then how do they pay for those 5 years of updates? They can't just start paying the subscription again because other people have been paying for 5 years. Although new users do get to just start subscribing, they haven't been using the software for the previous 5 years.
The costs of the subscription can lower when everyone is paying all the time, same way insurance works. It has the potential for abuse because there's a degree of vendor lock-in with software. Adobe could have terms that put people more at ease when it comes to potential price increases over long periods of time but I think people get carried away with the potential problems. If prices were raised to crazy levels or even levels that were deemed uncomfortably expensive, the entire creative industry isn't going to just take it. It would transition just like it did with Quark. There's nothing else quite like the CS/CC Suites but there are alternatives for every app. For periods where you might run out of money, they could perhaps have a credit system so for every year you pay a subscription, you get 1-3 months of usage credits. If you have a rough patch, you can run the software from the usage credits to become financially stable again.
Adobe has no reason at all to persuade people to leave their eco-system. Once they have enough people on board, they have the freedom to lower prices. Shareholders care more about growth than profits as Amazon demonstrates and raising subscription prices would negatively impact growth.
- if they bring back a method to allow people to stop paying, subscription costs would have to increase because the current prices have to be based around the assumption that everyone is paying all the time
- if subscription costs go up, it persuades people to stop subscribing as soon as they can, which further increases the prices
- people who pay for the software once and don't upgrade for 5-10 years will be worse off but it's spread out over a long period of time and the price difference only starts to become noticeable after 4 years of not upgrading
If Adobe gets to a point where they have 15 million subscribers, which isn't a lot of people (about 1/3 of Netflix) paying $20/m, they'll make more revenue than they do now and it'll sustain the company forever. Isn't the possibility of a $20/m Suite of apps worth aiming for? Although it doesn't seem right that one company gets to have a privileged position, this is the same Adobe that's been there right from the start of creative computing and driven a lot of the industry to where it is now. Over time, with sustainable revenue, they can make acquisitions like Maxon, The Foundry, maybe even Autodesk and bring those suites into the same bundle. That could create a monopoly on creative software but would it be worse than a competitive model where monolithic software inevitably plateaus and companies like Avid end up close to bankruptcy leaving the whole industry in doubt as to what comes after it?
When companies are forced to downsize, the people who built the software have little choice but to split apart and the talent gets diluted elsewhere. This happened with Apple when they brought in the team from Nothing Real. Shake was used by Weta on Lord of the Rings and you can see the Apple logo in the credits. This software was eventually broken down and some parts used to create Motion and the team that left Apple sells equivalent software through the Foundry for $4-8k. Apple had Shake down to under $500. Without sustainable revenue, a large creative development team is a resource drain and these loss-making products end up dying out or becoming far too expensive with a limited audience. This isn't good for the industry as a whole.
People complain all the time about how big companies are abandoning high-end products - Avid ditched their high-end DS line recently, spot any tweets that stand out here:
http://provideocoalition.com/ssimmons/story/it-looks-like-avid-is-finally-going-lay-ds-to-rest
This is what happens when companies have to maintain large creative development teams constantly to work on and support very expensive software that has a small customer base. Eventually, people migrate down to cheaper software and the powerful software is killed off. Adobe's strategy by contrast lets everyone get high-end software while still maintaining revenues. As I say, with some good acquisitions, this business model could make the most powerful creative software there is, accessible to everyone, even students. Having to keep paying is a downside but an inevitable one to keep prices down.
If they communicated terms that assured people for the long term, that would help. Microsoft failed to do this with their XBox strategy. The strategy was ok in that it included protections for game developers to improve their revenues and allow lower game costs for everyone. This problem of game resale is damaging the whole games industry and people don't see it because they aren't aware of the big companies going under. The problem was Microsoft didn't communicate or demonstrate the benefits so everyone focused on the fact that people weren't getting games as products any more but as licenses and would therefore be more expensive with less freedom.
People like to feel like they own things but software has a downside in that you own a copy of something that can't degrade. Things that degrade eventually push you to renew them. That's why hardware products aren't built to last, you can't build software like that but the team that made it still needs to be supported to work on new things.
I guess I don't really care about hobbyists or IT departments.
However, if you don't want to run CC right now, you can install CS6 and leave CC alone until you consider it ready for prime time.
What I do like is having the full suite at my disposal, with 100GB of synce space for my current work & typekit.
Adobe is making a professional product for professional creatives. Whether hobbyists & IT approve is of no concern to me and I'm happy with the direction they are going.
For me, that's already the case. I use Aperture for 99% of my image cataloging, image editing, and image printing.
Photoshop gets used once in a blue moon, which is exactly why it's easy for me to tell Adobe to go screw themselves. This recent special sale only proves that Adobe is realizing it screwed up. Adobe won't get a another chance from me.
Mark
I use Pixelmator and Aperture together, you can send files between the two. Pixelmator for layers and effects, Aperture for photo retouching (the skin smoothing tool is a favorite of my clients and works much better than whatever is the Photoshop equivalent) Aperture can also export in CMYK, that Pixelmator doesn't. For under $100 I have all of my Photoshop needs covered. And instead of Flash and Fireworks I use Hype. So no more Adobe Photoshop drugs for me, even at the "discounted" $10 a month. I am done upgrading InDesign too. That used to be my favorite program to design in, but they added so much cross over crap from other CS suite applications it is less and less a favorite. I have been using Pages lately to layout books, it is quite nice and easy to make into an epub version.
Why is Adobe keen on making simple things more complicated?
Do clients really care if a designer is using the latest version of Adobe Suites? If one is slave to the tool they're using in order to create fantastic work, then I'm afraid something is lacking in one's skill as a designer.
It only matters if you need to collaborate with other designers. And for that so far we can make legacy versions. Adobe only knows one mode, complicated. It isn't only the price, but the more bloated, unnecessary stuff, the new learning curve. I do web and graphic design, it is a full time job just to keep up with the learning curve for my software these days! Enough already.
Aperture is incredibly powerful. So many features. <snip>
I'll happily give Apple another $79 for the next version of Aperture! No brainer!
Mark
Me too, any day. Best software I have bought in awhile (well, besides Pixelmator and Hype)
I don't know if I would go that far, (close maybe) But not everyone lives in an area that can get top market dollar from their clients. I have worked freelance for almost 30 years and before computers. My clients are small businesses, if I didn't charge something in line with what they can pay they won't be able to use my services. If Apple can charge what it does for software, then Adobe can dial it down, their stuff is ten times the price of Apple. They are just greedy and their software gets worse and worse. And their answer isn't for them to make their software a reasonable price, no it is forced upon me to squeeze more money from my clients. Sort of a stupid game plan, but they assume they own the market. Microsoft did that too.
Adobe is making a professional product for professional creatives. Whether hobbyists & IT approve is of no concern to me and I'm happy with the direction they are going.
Well, your opinion is of no concern to me either, I can design with a pad and paper, I did everything before Adobe came into creation, even color separation (had to farm that out, but it was available none the less) I am looking forward to receiving my Wacom pressure sensitive stylus for my iPad. They have great software to go with it too, if one is truly creative, a stick and a bottle of ink is sufficient, anything else is just additions to the toolbox.
I don't really care about hobbyists or IT departments. [...] Whether hobbyists & IT approve is of no concern to me and I'm happy with the direction they are going.
Well that's the end of the discussion. polymnia is satisfied so everyone drop it now.
Those of you who use Adobe products in corporate settings who depend on IT department approval can just suck it up and quit your damn whining. Your magazines, movies and web products are a trivial matter compared to polymnia's happiness.
the skin smoothing tool is a favorite of my clients and works much better than whatever is the Photoshop equivalent
You don't even know how that's done in Photoshop, yet you somehow know that Pixelmator does it better? Cool trick.
Did I say "cool trick?" Sorry, I meant "silly posturing."
If you are working in a creative environment your IT dept is NOT going to say you cannot have Adobe software. At least no creative environment I've ever worked in.
Anyone making magazines, movies or web products in a professional, collaborative environment is using Adobe. So you can whine all you want, but you will continue using it.
I chose to accentuate the positive, and from where I sit there is a lot of positive. My billings are quite ample and the $50/month is a drop in the bucket. I find the new software quite compelling. I'm happy to support adobe.
You don't even know how that's done in Photoshop, yet you somehow know that Pixelmator does it better? Cool trick.
Did I say "cool trick?" Sorry, I meant "silly posturing."
You misread my post. Pixelmator doesn't have a skin smoothing tool, Aperture does. Photoshop has a healing brush, I have tried may of those tools in Photoshop, but mostly used the cloning tool so I don't remember what each brush is called, I have worked in Photoshop since about '92. But Aperture's skin smoothing brush is perfect for touch ups and does a better job than the Photoshop healing/touch-up brushes I have used.