[Macworld]

Post your comments for Backlash rises against Adobe's subscription-only Creative Suite plan here

[leicaman]

In other words, Adobe is bad at managing their money. They overspend during the peaks, so they're short of cash in-between updates? Or am I hearing that wrong?

I'm all for yearly updates. But when it means I'm paying $900-$1200 over two years, when $500 did it before, I'm not feeling it Adobe.

[wardoggie]

leicaman, on 10 May 2013 - 08:39 AM, said:

In other words, Adobe is bad at managing their money. They overspend during the peaks, so they're short of cash in-between updates? Or am I hearing that wrong?

I'm all for yearly updates. But when it means I'm paying $900-$1200 over two years, when $500 did it before, I'm not feeling it Adobe.

Yes, something doesn't add up. Their CFO claims 500,000 subscribers...and that's with the boxed versions still available. @$50/month, that's $300,000,000/year in subscription revenue. According to their most recent financials, they made $1 billion in revenue in Q1 2013. So subscriptions would be less than 10% of their annual revenue. Even if they hit their 2015 target of 4 million subscribers, that's still a little over half of their revenue ($2.4 billion if my math is correct).

Now, I understand that CS is not the only product Adobe sells, but I'm not seeing the value for customers OR Adobe at this point. Maybe it's time to get a boxed set before they're gone and see how much value Adobe has added in 18 months.

[SockRolid]

Re: "At the standard $30 per month student and teacher rate for Creative Cloud..."

Pixelmator is normally $30. Buy it once, use it forever.
I think it's on sale now for $15. Just get it.
Does everything I ever needed Photoshop for, paid or pirated.

[TeaEarleGreyHot]

And when will people begin suing Adobe (and others) over buggy software? Automobile rental is a rough equivalent to the software subscription model, but if the car I rent keeps stalling at intersections, you can bet the rental agency will replace it for me.

We need more competitors in software. This is the users' fault, for allowing themselves to be herded like sheep into the all-Adobe suites.

[woodworks]

It's not just the cost, it's that every document, file, image, etc. that I create using the CC software, including everything on my own computer or on my own backup disks, will become unavailable to me once I stop paying Adobe's "protection money." My only options to avoid that are A) back save everything in a format that is accessible via previous iterations of the Creative Suite (assuming that I still can find the disks), or in some "open" format that can be opened by some other developer's software.

I have thousands of Illustrator files that I can now open and edit. Were I to switch to CC (which I am NEVER going to do) every Illustrator file from then on could be taken from me unless I keep backsaved copies.

Seriously Adobe? You may be treating me like a crack [censored], but you're the one who's on crack!

[jhorvatic]

Well users, SockRolid just gave you an option for Photoshop. Pixelmator will do the job nicely at a fraction of the cost. So go get it now and give Adobe the finger for not paying attention to individuals, freelancers, and small businesses.
I don't like subscription models for a lot of reasons. First and for most you are always paying for something that you could have bought out right and in the long run save a lot of money. That's why I won't pay for music subscriptions, Video subscriptions either. Also you are stuck if you don't have an internet connection for these types of services as well. Running software from your computer makes it run without depending on the internet or the speed of the internet which could be another problem with
Adobe's cloud software. That means spending more to upgrade your internet service speeds when before you didn't have too.

[meechybee]

I'm a little gun-shy on posting this comment as I got trolled over at Gizmodo for complaining about Adobe's pricing. For me, it comes own to a few key issues:

- Small businesses always get screwed by Adobe pricing — we're too small for enterprise pricing and too big to be paying retail with no volume discounts
- Cloud services removes any control I have over choosing which version I want to implement — "newer and not tested" is not always better than "a half-step behind and working flawlessly." (FYI, I've had a color output problem ever since upgrading to Acrobat 10.1.6 which is completely draining my patience.)
- Kiss your "Upgrade" pricing goodbye — so much for rewarding loyalty. Seems that the only price break is limited in opportunity and duration.

Many commenters have been saying that each CC license allows for two-installs — which can be on the same IP or LAN network. (I always had problems using the two-install rule when both computers were on the same network. But I haven't tested this with CS6.)

I do not know if this is true but I'm hoping it is. Can anyone shed some light on this?

[bamajr]

I subscribed, though I'm not necessarily in favor of the subscription only content. The people in an uproar over this don't seem to realize, that the perpetual licensing was still a "RENTED" license. When you install the software, on your computer, you agreed to a license agreement, before it would allow you to use/install the software - which means, you were already paying "RENT" on the software. These people seem to think that they "OWNED" the software, when they couldn't be further from the truth.

Here is the best way to describe the difference. If you wanted to rent a condo or townhome, you would sign a year-long contract, to pay a specific amount, each month, until the end of that contract. This is how Adobe CC works. The previous "PERPETUAL" license was like signing a year-long contract, and paying it, all, in-full, up front.

Adobe's Creative Suite 6 - Master's Edition was $2500, paid up front. If you had Adobe's Creative Suite 5.5 - Master's Edition, the upgrade was $750 (I think) to get to Version 6. This means, in two years time, $3250 was spent on licensing. Then, you'd pay for the next upgrade... and the next... and the next... and so on, indefinitely... until you quit using it, or die, which ever comes first.

I just signed up for CC. It cost me $50. After 12 months it will have cost me $700. After two years it will have cost me $1400. This is less than half, the previous model. If you add another $750 to the model above and another $700 to the CC model, we are still talking about $4000 vs $2100.

It doesn't take any fancy math to figure out that CC is cheaper.

Also, some are pissed off because they think the CC means the software runs, in the cloud....

Wrong!

The software is still downloaded and installed, on each of the machines you use.

So, while I wasn't necessarily happy about the "CLOUD" model, either, at first, I'm on board now. Best thing I can say is: GET OVER IT!

[bamajr]

jhorvatic said:

Well users, SockRolid just gave you an option for Photoshop. Pixelmator will do the job nicely at a fraction of the cost. So go get it now and give Adobe the finger for not paying attention to individuals, freelancers, and small businesses. I don't like subscription models for a lot of reasons. First and for most you are always paying for something that you could have bought out right and in the long run save a lot of money. That's why I won't pay for music subscriptions, Video subscriptions either. Also you are stuck if you don't have an internet connection for these types of services as well. Running software from your computer makes it run without depending on the internet or the speed of the internet which could be another problem with Adobe's cloud software. That means spending more to upgrade your internet service speeds when before you didn't have too.

Pixelmator works great, for quick work. It even opens Adobe PSD files. I've used this for a while and will continue to use it, along-side Adobe's CC version of Photoshop. Pixelmator v2.2 is really nice. However, there is no comparison, in overall capability. Photoshop wins, hands down.

[bamajr]

meechybee said:

Many commenters have been saying that each CC license allows for two-installs — which can be on the same IP or LAN network. (I always had problems using the two-install rule when both computers were on the same network. But I haven't tested this with CS6.) I do not know if this is true but I'm hoping it is. Can anyone shed some light on this?

See http://www.adobe.com...ud/faq.html#_41

Getting Started > Can I use the software I download from Creative Cloud on multiple computers?

The answer is: YES - and it doesn't matter what OS you are using with CC, where with "PERPETUAL" licensing, it did.

[bamajr]

woodworks said:

It's not just the cost, it's that every document, file, image, etc. that I create using the CC software, including everything on my own computer or on my own backup disks, will become unavailable to me once I stop paying Adobe's "protection money." My only options to avoid that are A) back save everything in a format that is accessible via previous iterations of the Creative Suite (assuming that I still can find the disks), or in some "open" format that can be opened by some other developer's software. I have thousands of Illustrator files that I can now open and edit. Were I to switch to CC (which I am NEVER going to do) every Illustrator file from then on could be taken from me unless I keep backsaved copies. Seriously Adobe? You may be treating me like a crack [censored], but you're the one who's on crack!

I'm not sure where you are getting this from :-$

[pseudoFred]

I signed on for Creative Cloud about a year ago. First-year fee was discounted to $30 per month, since I owned CS3. I was going to have to upgrade to CS6 anyway (or at least Photoshop & Dreamweaver), and going to subscription was better for my cash flow. I'm a really, really tiny, one-person shop.

Saying that subscription is more expensive than "owning" (perpetual license) is true only if I never upgrade my software. The subscription includes all upgrades forever. Staying current means upgrading software, OS and hardware when necessary.

If I were still using Photoshop 4, I would have saved a ton of money over the last 10 years - but I doubt if I would still be in business.

[woodworks]

bamajr said:

I'm not sure where you are getting this from :-$

From Adobe. Your posts above are full of so many straw men that's hard to know where to begin. But first, yes, we're all aware that we've only been licensing software all of these years. Thank you, Captain Obvious.

Second, go to Adobe's site where they explain about having to back save in order to preserve access to any files created using CC software. Should you ever decide to (or be forced to due to illness, accident, sudden downturn in your business's fortunes) cancel your subscription to CC, all of the files you created in that software will no longer be accessible to you. They're there on your hard drive, but you have no way to open them.

If you don't believe me, as Adobe. They'll tell you that it's not a problem because of course you took the trouble to back save all of your files to be compatible with some ancient CS software or some "open" standard, right?

Right?

Ooops!