5 ms·

> The aging activation servers for those apps had to be retired. Oh come on. Surely a company with the resources of Adobe can figure out a way to keep an activ

> The aging activation servers for those apps had to be retired. Oh come on. Surely a company with the resources of Adobe can figure out a way to keep an activation server running. In fact I'll bet you could find one competent sysadmin to keep it running indefinitely. I hate when companies spew out obvious utter B.S. like this.

kristopolous 6y ago
CS3 was in 2007. It's not like we're talking about an IBM 709 here. It's probably a Core 2 Duo or a Clovertown Xeon. Give me a break. When producing digital goods you never want to be in a position where honest people who want to pay you money will get a better customer experience by going through thepiratebay.
- Jolter 6y ago
  The hardware doesn’t really matter, does it? You clone the setup into a VM and stash it away somewhere on your massive corporate cloud and. I’m sure a very small machine could handle the minuscule amounts of activation traffic for the legacy versions.
- azalemeth 6y ago
  But that's almost always the case with these companies. The fundamental problem with DRM is that it inconveniences paying customers: pirates get a better product after solving a fun puzzle game, and the rest of us get shafted.
aaron695 6y ago
What would you think it would cost per year? What $ amount? What would be the break down? Legacy software, security and the constant upgrades, a manager, HR, customer support. Training your all your call centres to know about it and who to re-direct issues to.
- seg_lol 6y ago
  Pennies
- core-questions 6y ago
  > What would you think it would cost per year? The real cost is the people who don't go and subscribe to Adobe CC because they still have a totally functional release of CS3. Once their old machines die, they'll be forced to become a renter.
  - justinclift 6y ago
    > Once their old machines die, they'll be forced to become a renter. Or they'll look into alternatives, for which there are many available avenues.
- kristopolous 6y ago
  * Legacy software - unsupported, $0 * security and the constant upgrades - unsupported, $0 * a manager - unsupported, $0 * HR - unsupported, $0 * customer support - unsupported, $0 * Training your all your call centres to know about it and who to re-direct issues to - unsupported, $0 all non-issues. Adobe is intentionally breaking the software. Those arguments are like saying an Apple ][ shouldn't be able to run "The Print Shop" anymore because someone might haul their IIe and an ImageWriter into the Genius Bar. People know it's unsupported but they still want to use it for whatever reason. It has zilch to do with the reasons you listed. Adobe is making being a legitimate customer needlessly difficult by hustling their customers to pay for the software again. They will learn the same lesson the RIAA and the MPAA did.
  - noobermin 6y ago
    What lesson? With the consildation of youtube and twitter and them now being the arbiters (with a nice backdoor to rights holders) they won.
    - kristopolous 6y ago
pfranz 6y ago
A lot of game studios release a final patch removing DRM. That would have been nice.
- noobermin 6y ago
  That would be nice but these are completely different types of people.
- ShinTakuya 6y ago
  Even if Adobe were that generous, I'd argue the situation is different. All Adobe product releases are just evolutions of the same fundamental products, meaning making a previous version free diminishes the value of the newest version. For game developers, removing DRM can drive sales for the sequel since most games have a story and players want to see what happens next.
  - mcv 6y ago
    Knowing that they will stop working in a couple of years also devalues them. Seriously, a patch to remove DRM for those who are unable or unwilling to upgrade. A company that can be trusted to deliver that patch will have a more valuable product because customers know they will not lose access to it.
    - ShinTakuya 6y ago
      Yeah that's a fair point in the other direction. But I guess to some extent when you have a de-facto monopoly on a market it doesn't matter what you do to your customers, most of them will buy your new subscription model anyway out of necessity.
      - mcv 6y ago
        That's probably why there are suddenly a lot of Photoshop competitors. A monopolist abusing their market creates an incentive for competition. Of course some monopolised markets can be very hard to impossible to enter for competitors, but that's apparently not the case here.

kristopolous 6y ago

CS3 was in 2007. It's not like we're talking about an IBM 709 here. It's probably a Core 2 Duo or a Clovertown Xeon. Give me a break. When producing digital goods you never want to be in a position where honest people who want to pay you money will get a better customer experience by going through thepiratebay.

Jolter 6y ago
The hardware doesn’t really matter, does it? You clone the setup into a VM and stash it away somewhere on your massive corporate cloud and. I’m sure a very small machine could handle the minuscule amounts of activation traffic for the legacy versions.
azalemeth 6y ago
But that's almost always the case with these companies. The fundamental problem with DRM is that it inconveniences paying customers: pirates get a better product after solving a fun puzzle game, and the rest of us get shafted.

aaron695 6y ago

What would you think it would cost per year? What $ amount? What would be the break down? Legacy software, security and the constant upgrades, a manager, HR, customer support. Training your all your call centres to know about it and who to re-direct issues to.

seg_lol 6y ago
Pennies
core-questions 6y ago
> What would you think it would cost per year? The real cost is the people who don't go and subscribe to Adobe CC because they still have a totally functional release of CS3. Once their old machines die, they'll be forced to become a renter.
- justinclift 6y ago
  > Once their old machines die, they'll be forced to become a renter. Or they'll look into alternatives, for which there are many available avenues.
kristopolous 6y ago
* Legacy software - unsupported, $0 * security and the constant upgrades - unsupported, $0 * a manager - unsupported, $0 * HR - unsupported, $0 * customer support - unsupported, $0 * Training your all your call centres to know about it and who to re-direct issues to - unsupported, $0 all non-issues. Adobe is intentionally breaking the software. Those arguments are like saying an Apple ][ shouldn't be able to run "The Print Shop" anymore because someone might haul their IIe and an ImageWriter into the Genius Bar. People know it's unsupported but they still want to use it for whatever reason. It has zilch to do with the reasons you listed. Adobe is making being a legitimate customer needlessly difficult by hustling their customers to pay for the software again. They will learn the same lesson the RIAA and the MPAA did.
- noobermin 6y ago
  What lesson? With the consildation of youtube and twitter and them now being the arbiters (with a nice backdoor to rights holders) they won.
  - kristopolous 6y ago

pfranz 6y ago

A lot of game studios release a final patch removing DRM. That would have been nice.

noobermin 6y ago
That would be nice but these are completely different types of people.
ShinTakuya 6y ago
Even if Adobe were that generous, I'd argue the situation is different. All Adobe product releases are just evolutions of the same fundamental products, meaning making a previous version free diminishes the value of the newest version. For game developers, removing DRM can drive sales for the sequel since most games have a story and players want to see what happens next.
- mcv 6y ago
  Knowing that they will stop working in a couple of years also devalues them. Seriously, a patch to remove DRM for those who are unable or unwilling to upgrade. A company that can be trusted to deliver that patch will have a more valuable product because customers know they will not lose access to it.
  - ShinTakuya 6y ago
    Yeah that's a fair point in the other direction. But I guess to some extent when you have a de-facto monopoly on a market it doesn't matter what you do to your customers, most of them will buy your new subscription model anyway out of necessity.
    - mcv 6y ago
      That's probably why there are suddenly a lot of Photoshop competitors. A monopolist abusing their market creates an incentive for competition. Of course some monopolised markets can be very hard to impossible to enter for competitors, but that's apparently not the case here.