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I think this article is an example of attribution error. To conclude that it is a free model that has caused Canva, Figma, or Notion to take the lead is missing

I think this article is an example of attribution error. To conclude that it is a free model that has caused Canva, Figma, or Notion to take the lead is missing on multiple fronts. To me, the more likely conclusion about these products is that they were better products, and that they created fundamentally different user interactions. I can't remember where I read it, but I read a great article that argued that Google Docs was successfully not because it duplicated Microsoft Word (many had tried and failed with this approach), but because it focused on how work had changed and the need for collaboration. Canva is very, very successful, but I don't think that's at Adobe's expense. By any measure, Adobe is probably one of the best examples of a company shifting to SaaS: https://producthabits.com/adobe-95-billion-saas-company/ https://producthabits.com/adobe-95-billion-saas-company/. Also, regardless of whether they offered their products in a SaaS model (Adobe introduced them in 2012 I believe), there was still free trial. Maybe a better explanation is that Canva tapped into a different audience - people that needed to produce graphics but did not have design capabilities. On Figma, it seems to me to be a better online collaboration design tool than what has been offered by other companies. The author seems to forget that companies like InDesign existed at the same time, offered a collaborative tool, and had a similar freeium offer. I won't belabor the point - freeium might have helped these companies succeed, but I think it is a big leap to say freeium = unicorn killer.

tppiotrowski 6y ago
Anecdotally, my main reason for switching to Google docs was that Office was $$$$. A lot of people collaborate but I doubt it’s anywhere near the majority. Would you use Google docs if it cost $200 a year?
- villasv 6y ago
  And why did you choose Google Docs over LibreOffice or OpenOffice or something else also free? Not because the product was better?
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    LibreOffice & OpenOffice are so bad that converting Markdown to .docx via Pandoc is a better option even for non-technical users.
  - tppiotrowski 6y ago
    Simple. It basically comes preinstalled and works the same on all machines regardless of operating system (via web browser)
    - villasv 6y ago
      Exactly. Product fit, not just being free.
- Mauricebranagh 6y ago
  The trouble with that argument is is the cost of office is trivial compared to the cost of employing some one.
zdragnar 6y ago
I have used sketch, figma and InDesign over the past handful of years, and for the companies I have used these products at, figma has won hands down. The ease with which stakeholders, designers and developers alike can work together, either by desktop app or web, is great. Not perfect, but great.
artyomavanesov 6y ago
I have worked extensively with both Sketch and Figma. And although I find Sketch to have a superior design experience, Figma works better in the context of teams. It's usually also cheaper than the Sketch stack. Figma offers design, prototyping, developer handover, team collaboration, a.o. capabilities. The basic service is free and the paid tier is fairly priced. All said capabilities are also integrated so you don't have to use plugins or switch between apps. When working with Sketch, I use Sketch for design, Marvel/InVision/Framer for prototyping, InVision/Zeplin for developer handover, and InVision Freehand/Miro for collaboration. This means dealing with multiple licenses, plugins, and copy-pasting assets. I also worked with a mid-sized company that was paying around EUR 20,000 just for their InVision license (developer inspect is expensive). With Figma you get most of these services (good enough) for a single price. So money certainly plays a role but Figma's success goes beyond just the pricing model.
- capableweb 6y ago
  Also worked a lot with both Sketch and Figma and what eventually won me over (together with the company I worked with at the time) was the ability to run Figma no matter what platform, as long as there was a browser available. It helps everyone in the company since we had marketing usually being on windows, developers usually being on linux and designers usually being on mac. With Figma anyone could browse the designs and before that (when using Sketch), we had to export designs from Sketch to something like Zeplin just in order for others to view the updated designs. Then designers need to remember to update the exports every time they changed anything. With the introduction of Figma, we didn't just get the ability for everyone to browse the designs directly, but also make smaller fixes directly in the design together with the designers, remotely or not.
  - artyomavanesov 6y ago
    Indeed, in Figma people who don't have a MacBook can also access the design.
    - wjdp 6y ago
bachmeier 6y ago
> the more likely conclusion about these products is that they were better products But here's the million dollar question for someone making those products. How do you convince your target audience? With the old business models, you'd spend a few million on advertising and hope for the best. If you have a generous free plan, you'll get people signing up, and if you're lucky they'll use it. Of course you need a good product. A good product is not enough in most cases.
nottorp 6y ago
What niche is this "Canva" succesful in? I haven't heard of any of the names in the article, with the exception of Adobe. So the author may be talking about some niche where that Canva is actually better than <whatever Adobe sells this week>. Possibly some web "content" and marketing niche, considering his vocabulary?
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  Canva is very successful in marketing circles. It allows you to trivially generate visually appealing images to accompany social media posts. I.e. it's a domain-specific tool for bottom-feeder marketing spam. You could replicate everything it does trivially with most basic features of Photoshop, or even Paint.NET - its main selling point is that it comes with lots of templates and images you can use with one click, and has a very gentle learning curve (because there isn't much to learn there).
  - gcatalfamo 6y ago
    You could say it differently, instead of impoverishing Canva value prop, by noting that many teams don't really need advanced design features, and speed of execution matters much more for daily tasks: Canva really excels in that.
  - brtkdotse 6y ago
    > You could replicate everything it does trivially with most basic features of Photoshop, or even Paint.NET Not harping on you, but this is “Dropbox is just CVS and ssh-copy, trivial” line of thinking. I have Paint.Net AND a complete Adobe CC subscription, but opt to use Canva for almost all my lighter editing. The selling point is nice looking templates that are context-aware - if you want to pull in more element they will match what’s on screen. I’m usually done faster in Canva than loading Photoshop would’ve taken
  - nottorp 6y ago
    Ah so it's used for those sites that all look the same to the point it's impossible to figure out what the product is :)
- 6y ago
tootie 6y ago
It's odd that they talk about Segment and GA not having direct competition when their biggest competition is actually also Adobe. Via their acquisitions of Omniture and a few other many years ago, they have a very robust marketing cloud offering for analytics, tag management, targeting, ad optimization and all that jazz. Plus enterprise CMS. And they sell it as a package to simplify procurement which is a huge draw. Even though their products all kinda suck.
thesuitonym 6y ago
>To me, the more likely conclusion about these products is that they were better products, and that they created fundamentally different user interactions. Maybe they are better products, I don't know, but how many people used it because it was free, then realized it was better? How many of those wouldn't have used it if they didn't have a free offering?
- inthewoods 6y ago
  I'm not arguing that freeium doesn't help - I am arguing that freeium is not the only factor in the success of these companies and to say "freeium = unicorn killer" is an attribution mistake.

tppiotrowski 6y ago

Anecdotally, my main reason for switching to Google docs was that Office was $$$$. A lot of people collaborate but I doubt it’s anywhere near the majority. Would you use Google docs if it cost $200 a year?

villasv 6y ago
And why did you choose Google Docs over LibreOffice or OpenOffice or something else also free? Not because the product was better?
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  LibreOffice & OpenOffice are so bad that converting Markdown to .docx via Pandoc is a better option even for non-technical users.
- tppiotrowski 6y ago
  Simple. It basically comes preinstalled and works the same on all machines regardless of operating system (via web browser)
  - villasv 6y ago
    Exactly. Product fit, not just being free.
Mauricebranagh 6y ago
The trouble with that argument is is the cost of office is trivial compared to the cost of employing some one.

zdragnar 6y ago

I have used sketch, figma and InDesign over the past handful of years, and for the companies I have used these products at, figma has won hands down. The ease with which stakeholders, designers and developers alike can work together, either by desktop app or web, is great. Not perfect, but great.

artyomavanesov 6y ago

I have worked extensively with both Sketch and Figma. And although I find Sketch to have a superior design experience, Figma works better in the context of teams. It's usually also cheaper than the Sketch stack. Figma offers design, prototyping, developer handover, team collaboration, a.o. capabilities. The basic service is free and the paid tier is fairly priced. All said capabilities are also integrated so you don't have to use plugins or switch between apps. When working with Sketch, I use Sketch for design, Marvel/InVision/Framer for prototyping, InVision/Zeplin for developer handover, and InVision Freehand/Miro for collaboration. This means dealing with multiple licenses, plugins, and copy-pasting assets. I also worked with a mid-sized company that was paying around EUR 20,000 just for their InVision license (developer inspect is expensive). With Figma you get most of these services (good enough) for a single price. So money certainly plays a role but Figma's success goes beyond just the pricing model.

capableweb 6y ago
Also worked a lot with both Sketch and Figma and what eventually won me over (together with the company I worked with at the time) was the ability to run Figma no matter what platform, as long as there was a browser available. It helps everyone in the company since we had marketing usually being on windows, developers usually being on linux and designers usually being on mac. With Figma anyone could browse the designs and before that (when using Sketch), we had to export designs from Sketch to something like Zeplin just in order for others to view the updated designs. Then designers need to remember to update the exports every time they changed anything. With the introduction of Figma, we didn't just get the ability for everyone to browse the designs directly, but also make smaller fixes directly in the design together with the designers, remotely or not.
- artyomavanesov 6y ago
  Indeed, in Figma people who don't have a MacBook can also access the design.
  - wjdp 6y ago

bachmeier 6y ago

> the more likely conclusion about these products is that they were better products But here's the million dollar question for someone making those products. How do you convince your target audience? With the old business models, you'd spend a few million on advertising and hope for the best. If you have a generous free plan, you'll get people signing up, and if you're lucky they'll use it. Of course you need a good product. A good product is not enough in most cases.

nottorp 6y ago

What niche is this "Canva" succesful in? I haven't heard of any of the names in the article, with the exception of Adobe. So the author may be talking about some niche where that Canva is actually better than <whatever Adobe sells this week>. Possibly some web "content" and marketing niche, considering his vocabulary?

TeMPOraL 6y ago
Canva is very successful in marketing circles. It allows you to trivially generate visually appealing images to accompany social media posts. I.e. it's a domain-specific tool for bottom-feeder marketing spam. You could replicate everything it does trivially with most basic features of Photoshop, or even Paint.NET - its main selling point is that it comes with lots of templates and images you can use with one click, and has a very gentle learning curve (because there isn't much to learn there).
- gcatalfamo 6y ago
  You could say it differently, instead of impoverishing Canva value prop, by noting that many teams don't really need advanced design features, and speed of execution matters much more for daily tasks: Canva really excels in that.
- brtkdotse 6y ago
  > You could replicate everything it does trivially with most basic features of Photoshop, or even Paint.NET Not harping on you, but this is “Dropbox is just CVS and ssh-copy, trivial” line of thinking. I have Paint.Net AND a complete Adobe CC subscription, but opt to use Canva for almost all my lighter editing. The selling point is nice looking templates that are context-aware - if you want to pull in more element they will match what’s on screen. I’m usually done faster in Canva than loading Photoshop would’ve taken
- nottorp 6y ago
  Ah so it's used for those sites that all look the same to the point it's impossible to figure out what the product is :)
6y ago

tootie 6y ago

It's odd that they talk about Segment and GA not having direct competition when their biggest competition is actually also Adobe. Via their acquisitions of Omniture and a few other many years ago, they have a very robust marketing cloud offering for analytics, tag management, targeting, ad optimization and all that jazz. Plus enterprise CMS. And they sell it as a package to simplify procurement which is a huge draw. Even though their products all kinda suck.

thesuitonym 6y ago

>To me, the more likely conclusion about these products is that they were better products, and that they created fundamentally different user interactions. Maybe they are better products, I don't know, but how many people used it because it was free, then realized it was better? How many of those wouldn't have used it if they didn't have a free offering?

inthewoods 6y ago
I'm not arguing that freeium doesn't help - I am arguing that freeium is not the only factor in the success of these companies and to say "freeium = unicorn killer" is an attribution mistake.