p.7 #2 · Adobe Photoshop & Creative Suite Subscription-only!
pipspeak wrote:
I'm inclined to agree that this is not a good long-term strategy, but then Adobe seems to be a company beholden to shareholders and their expectations of short-term gains so that's how they judge their success.
However, I wondered if the same thing would happen when Adobe bought Macromedia and started ratcheting up the price of their software to sometimes ridiculous prices and potentially pricing younger users out of the market. I guess the difference years ago was that education discounts were very generous, and hackers stepped in with a solution for those not able or willing to plunk down a grand for a few programs. ...Show more →
Bingo it's not a good long term strategy and anyone that's taken marketing even at a basic level can tell you that sacrificing the long term health of the company for a short term gain,unless you are a fly by night operation, is never a wise move. Basically if you eliminate the kids coming up in the field from being able to learn with your products either through it being cost prohibitive or via draconian DRM you will be sacrificing a long term gain for what most wouldn't even consider a short term loss (in that the kids couldn't afford to buy the software anyways so how exactly does their piracy hurt your sales? Answer IT DOESN'T). Now I'm not advocating piracy on a grand scale but if the industry standard product is thousands of dollars and everyone going into the industry is expect to use it how do they expect people to learn on it beforehand? Honestly Adobe and companies that follow similar practices need to examine pricing structure. Granted you can sometimes get student discounts and such but even those with the base price being in the thousands are still several hundred dollars and still cost prohibitive for many.
On the fact they have moved to a subscription service it does have it's pros and cons. At the end of the day I'd rather pony up the money for one of their standalone products an use it until I NEED to upgrade to do something I need to do rather than having to pay monthly for incremental upgrades that I may never even see or use.
Disclosure: I pirated the CS5.5 master collection to learn on and see if I would actually make use of the many of the products. I discovered I didn't use most of what it offered. I then went and tried LR at a friend's place and went out and bought it as it fit my needs.
p.7 #3 · Adobe Photoshop & Creative Suite Subscription-only!
Just FYI there is a special deal now to purchase and own Lightroom 4 outright for $119 from Adobe until May 11th. That's $30 off the regular price of $149. You just need to type in the code: SPRING30 to get the discount when you checkout.
p.7 #4 · Adobe Photoshop & Creative Suite Subscription-only!
Rather than just complaining to Adobe, maybe we should also start going down the chain and putting other companies on notice of how they will be affected by this position. Maybe then some pressure will come down on Adobe from them as well.
For instance, I have purchased 3 Creative Live Photoshop seminars in the past (Lindsey Adler and Ben Willmore) and was watching another by Ben Willmore yesterday.
After the Adobe news came out, I stopped watching Creative Live and decided not to bother going forward. I have PS CS3 and will no longer be allowed to upgrade to CS6. There is NO WAY that I will be sucked into Adobe's subscription based 'Cloud', so what's the point in investing in more learning regarding PS programs that I won't be able to use?
So here you see how other companies (along with the instructors that sell courses there) besides Adobe themselves can suffer do to this new direction they are taking. I sent Creative Live a message about this and invited them to share it with any of the teachers that offer courses on their site.
p.7 #5 · Adobe Photoshop & Creative Suite Subscription-only!
If Adobe forces people to be "renters" instead of "buyers", turning their "perpetual licenses" into perpetual leases (with never ending monthly payments), I wonder if this will drive more users to piracy as you know they'll create a version without it phoning home.
p.7 #8 · Adobe Photoshop & Creative Suite Subscription-only!
Quick question - if someone decides to go the $10/month introductory price (and then $20/month to begin thereafter), how many computers in the household can Photoshop CC be loaded on? How many can be in use at the same time?
p.7 #9 · Adobe Photoshop & Creative Suite Subscription-only!
You can install and use your adobe ID on two computers at most, but not use them at the same time. On your desktop and your laptop for example
I don't really know how they are checking if you are, but its per the agreement.
If you try a third computer, it will start yelling at you.
From what I understand, when you install, it will verify and mark the computer you install on, and if it "catch" you, it will tell you to deactivate one of your installs.
p.7 #10 · Adobe Photoshop & Creative Suite Subscription-only!
Call me cynical...but CS6 is a pretty decent programme and I am wondering if Adobe realize they are close to the limits on what can be done with conventional imaging software...and realizing that a CS7 won't seem like a big deal to CS6 users (so fewer upgrades)...have decided on this ploy instead.
Reading posts on sites like this, I suspect LR4 has already made many CS users think hard about their need for more PShop upgrades.
p.7 #11 · Adobe Photoshop & Creative Suite Subscription-only!
Jeff Schewe's posts on LULA said it best, "don't freakin' care!"
And, I just read the dpreview "interview", they are also fanboys, since they get products for free, they don't care.
p.7 #13 · Adobe Photoshop & Creative Suite Subscription-only!
tived wrote:
You have always rented software, if you have paid for it! You have just paid in a lump sum payment. You have never own the software only the right to use it.
Henrik
Ahhhh, no time for semantics man. What I meant to say was that once I bought it I could use it for as long as I wanted man. Yes it was mine. I could reuse/reinstall it in 10 years if I wanted to and it would still work, and no one would "force" me to pay for upgrades etc. etc.
I don't own the source code but that version of compiled code I do. Not everyone is just upgrading their products right away a new updated version shows up. There's a problem with time that it takes to learn new things. Compatibility issues. Hardware requirements issues. Price. The fact you really don't care about the next updated version. Do you really need all these new features? Maybe they are more appropriate for graphics designers, not photographers. You, as a photographer, most likely use just as subset of features PS provides, and those hardly ever change. So most of us actually skip the next version, or even two, and then get the update/upgrade. This alone can take 3 years. But in case of CC you will have to pay for all this time, and I don't want to. Why? And, what if I decide to keep my version for another year or two? (which is most likely a case now). I need PS for some of its features plus plugins compatibility.
I just wait and see what happens. Maybe someone from Adobe with little higher IQ will bring the product back and start selling it the way it was up until now.
I guarantee you that more people will now use a hacked version of this product than before, and I sense there is one already in development. This business strategy will bite them back, hard.
For those very honest guys (bravo to you all) they switch to something else. If Lightroom becomes CC I will switch to the next best thing, which is Apple's Aperture. I used to loved it. I actually switch to Lightroom because smart object import and PS compatibility/integration. But now I don't think I care about it any longer. So in the end Adobe may in addition loose customers that heavily relied on Lightroom.
p.7 #14 · Adobe Photoshop & Creative Suite Subscription-only!
rdcny wrote:
Quick question - if someone decides to go the $10/month introductory price (and then $20/month to begin thereafter), how many computers in the household can Photoshop CC be loaded on? How many can be in use at the same time?
It's still two activations at a time. You can have the software installed on as many computers as you care to, but you can only have two activated at any given time.
p.7 #15 · Adobe Photoshop & Creative Suite Subscription-only!
HopeIsEternal wrote:
This announcement from Adobe is the greatest boost for pirating CS6 I can imagine for those who require a perpetual license.
It is also the greatest boost for any companies with software that competes with Photoshop and Lightroom.
Notice that Adobe is still not pulling the plug on perpetually licensed Lightroom because it still has some competition in that market sector.
So clearly forcing users to pay forever for your software whether they want "upgrades" or not is only possible when you have no competition.
Amen brother!
Do you remember intro price for Apple's Aperture? It was $500 dollars. Yes. Then the Lightroom showed up and the price got reduced to $300. I know that Aperture had some slowness issues and part of the reason the price got reduced was because of that but with additional player in the air Apple reduced it to $300. But then Lightroom got reduced to $200. I remember vividly because I bought it for $200. But now both products are for around $80.
p.7 #17 · Adobe Photoshop & Creative Suite Subscription-only!
tived wrote:
You have always rented software, if you have paid for it! You have just paid in a lump sum payment. You have never own the software only the right to use it.
Henrik
That's not strictly true. In the traditional model you do actually own something - you own the right to use the software. Though it seems like a nitpicking bit of semantics, the fact you "own" something is actually quite important. For starters, it gives you rights as a consumer (depending on the country in which you live): When you own something it must come with a warranty - You have the right to return a non-functional product and have it made functional or receive a refund. You have the right to sell it to someone else when you no longer want it. The thing you bought has monetary value and the vendor has a legal obligation to you the customer. When you lease, you have fewer or (most likely) none of the above: If it doesn't work they don't have to fix it AND you are most likely not entitled to any form of refund. And 2 years in, you don't actually own anything so you can't recoup a portion of your investment by selling it to someone else.
Make no mistake here - with software rental the vendors get to have their cake and eat it.
p.7 #18 · Adobe Photoshop & Creative Suite Subscription-only!
As 15Bit said above!!
But probably worse than that...as once 'in the system' Adobe can up the rates as and when it wants....bit like the taxman does.
Only a mass rejection by customers will deal with this.....I remember a few years back when Adobe applied a large surcharge on European users. Over 6000 pro photographers sent a petition to Adobe stating they would not be renewing the product while the surcharge was in force. It went in a few months.
p.7 #19 · Adobe Photoshop & Creative Suite Subscription-only!
pipspeak wrote:
interesting indeed... LR remains standalone for now and ACR8 will be available for CS6. Yay
Yeah but they already started talking about how LR CC may well get extended features compared the regular LR. So that sounds sort of like LR5 will be PS CS6, last of the real line. Although both appear to at least be getting new camera support updates which is cool (although none of the new tools, debayer methods, whatnot in ACR8 or ACR9 and so on).
p.7 #20 · Adobe Photoshop & Creative Suite Subscription-only!
This was my comment on the Adobe site:
I am feeling the same dismay and resistance as quite a few photographers about what is essentially a large price hike over the old upgrade system (at a time when many people are having to budget even more carefully than in previous years), and even more so about the lack of options for means-of-payment (that is, annual payments for yearly subscriptions – I understand a premium for month-to-month renewals).
If I am reading correctly, it seems that the only option offered for the annual renewal payment is automatic access to the customer’s credit card account. It appears to me that Adobe is basically blackmailing customers with differential pricing in order to serve its own convenience rather than process yearly payments at the instigation and convenience of the customer. I do not mind paying a reasonable price* yearly for a subscription, but I balk at auto-access to my credit card.
*IMO, $120 a year is a viable regular price for a single app subscription to Photoshop. More is gouging.
I have had some experience over the years with Adobe customer service. It is incompetent, a Potemkin customer service. Getting a mistake in one’s account rectified is a time-consuming and frustrating process. And this business about paying a subscription for support if the product or the installation/validation process is defective is outrageous, if true.
