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I think Adobe is getting beat on a number of fronts, not just what Figma and Canva are addressing. There is a slow but steady rise in the number of people movin

I think Adobe is getting beat on a number of fronts, not just what Figma and Canva are addressing. There is a slow but steady rise in the number of people moving away from Adobe Premiere to DaVinci Resolve for example. Adobe have been short-sighted with their very expensive subscription model which has resulted in people seeking out alternatives. Sure it was very profitable for them in the short-term but at what long-term cost? It has done nothing but foster resentment in even its most loyal user base. Personally I can't wait for mature Adobe After Effects alternative, and then I'm gone for good.

maxerickson 6y ago
$600 a year isn't expensive for software for a US professional worker. I understand that there's lots of people that don't fit that description. That they would also like to use Adobe's tools is perhaps not entirely a sign of decline.
- steve_adams_86 6y ago
  Agreed, it seemed outrageous to me 10 years ago but I believe now that Adobe simply focused on a certain segment. I wasn't in it. But that's just it; I had very little money, and I was mad that they'd excluded me. But of course they'd exclude me, haha.
  - ipaddr 6y ago
    You were never their target. But there were people thinking about you. The cracked adobe products from 10 years ago provide most of the functionality the new subscription does at a big discount. In a way those warez (sp) crackers cared about you more than adobe ever did.
- mrj 6y ago
  But that's a ton of cost for something you don't use often or if you're just starting out. That price tag eliminates the low end on-ramp into the products. They moved away from perpetual licenses and raised prices, which ensured there was room for competitors with a lower initial price and "good enough" quality.
- OscarTheGrinch 6y ago
  I respectfully disagree. $600 USD per worker, per year is a massive expense for a small to medium firm, and those rates will only rise in the future. In my country at today’s exchange it's more like $830 per user per year! I much preferred the model of paying once and owning a copy of the software. Sure you get updates now, Adobe was very bad at even basic patching before the CC era, they offer features that no one I know is requesting. It's like a fishmonger backing up the van and dumping a bunch of fish you don't need then billing you every month. So bring on the competitors. I'm a big fan of Sketch on the Mac.
  - rmah 6y ago
    Massive? Oh come on, $600 is the cost of a moderately expensive chair.
    - KaiserPro 6y ago
      Chairs are not replaced every year, plus that capital expenditure, not opex. For a design house, licensing is not an insignificant cost of business. Its justifiable because thats the fastest tool for their workforce. for a small company without a design team, it probably makes sense to just use the cheap/free stuff and style it out.
    - andreilys 6y ago
      Or you can pay a one time $99 fee for Sketch which in most cases has all you need. I took that route and haven’t missed Adobe at all.
      - Nkuna 6y ago
        Not all designers (creative work really) work on Macs!
      - zakki 6y ago
        I went to sketch.com and it said $99 annual subscription. Do you mean we can use the software even though we don’t subscribe anymore?
    - 6y ago
- wongarsu 6y ago
  It's a lot for teenagers and students. People prefer to use software they know, and if you keep your creative software from people in their formative years then you are going to struggle. This might be less of a problem if they hadn't also slashed education discounts (pupils and students used to get 80-90% discount, presumably to discourage buying used or pirating)
  - dna_polymerase 6y ago
    Exactly. The SaaS model largely lacks a gameplan for long term sustainability.
    - vlovich123 6y ago
      How so? The SaaS model lets you price segment more flexibly. You can do a free (or very cheap) loss leader version that has a more limited feature-set (that students & hobbyists don't need) and a non-commercial license. Charge more for larger shops that need collaborative/more professional features. Just because Adobe is doing the transition poorly (albeit you wouldn't know from their share price), I don't necessarily buy that it's a fundamental flaw in the SaaS business model. Indeed Figma & Canva are both SaaS companies themselves. As MSFT has shown, it doesn't take much for a giant to come back. I don't think Adobe is particularly cash-strapped so they can weather out a bunch of mistakes/internal realignment.
      - maxerickson 6y ago
        Their financials have done great since they switched. Strong growth in revenue, gross profit and net income.
        vendiddy 6y ago
        This may be short-term growth at the expense of long-term sustainability. The younger generation will reach for the more affordable options like Figma, Sketch, Canva. Everyone will know how to use these tools a lot better so this these will become the new standards in the workplace.
- selfhoster11 6y ago
  I am so glad that only US-based professional workers are considered worthy of playing with Big Boys' Toys like Adobe products. /s
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    I'm not sure why you are being sarcastic about how a mega-corp approaches business decisions. Of course they do what makes the most money. Part of my point is that people would do well to consider how Adobe approaches the situation before they expend a bunch of emotional energy wishing it were otherwise.
    - selfhoster11 6y ago
      That's not the point. The point is that Adobe are being extractive assholes, and they know it. Setting the price point this high basically communicates that they consider anyone unable to pay this much a pleb, where all of their competitors don't. This is quite insulting, considering that we're talking about a graphic manipulation program rather than some hyper-specialised piece of enterprise financial markets software that only a few can use to its fullest.
    - Nkuna 6y ago
      > Of course they do what makes the most money. Launching features on iOS/macOS first is a business decision that makes the most money (probably) but it's this very reason I slowly started replacing Adobe software. Adobe XD, especially in the beginning, would leave Android and Windows users in a lurch focusing their efforts primarily on Mac/iPhone users. For instance, real time mobile preview via USB (MISSION CRITICAL!!!!!), a feature requested December 16, 2016 ¹ was implemented on iOS on February 04, 2019. Worse still, this feature works on iDevices but only with a Mac. As of last December when I last checked, this was still not possible on Windows for either mobile platforms. Sure, as late as 2009, users were evenly split between Mac and Windows. Prior, it was more Mac users. It has since changed with majority of Adobe users on Windows. ² So this steadfast commitment to Apple users makes no sense when the majority of your users are on Windows! Switched to Figma once I started using Linux as my daily driver. 1. https://adobexd.uservoice.com/forums/353007-adobe-xd-feature-requests/suggestions/17453770-android-tethered-usb-mobile-device-preview-on-wi https://adobexd.uservoice.com/forums/353007-adobe-xd-feature... 2. https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop/adobe-cc-os-market-percentage/td-p/8956683 https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop/adobe-cc-os-market-...
- ipaddr 6y ago
  600 dollars a year is a huge amount for a software product. If that was their enterprise/seat pricing you may have a point but this is the standard price for everyone.
- kradeelav 6y ago
  $600 is larger than most comic cover commissions (source: have been paid to do them), and unfortunately Photoshop is still a standard in many tangential industries that pay far below the minimum I strongly suspect that you assume for many (corporate) graphic designers. I started creating graphics in high school on the Gimp, which was a natural transition to a (gifted) copy of PSCS2, and I've been using my college version of CS5 ever since afterwards. That route to graphic design would've never happened at their current prices. They're burning a whole generation of designers.
  - egypturnash 6y ago
    Fifty bucks a month for the whole suite is half of one page of comics posted to my Patreon. And my Patreon is pretty tiny. Fifty bucks a month is less than I charge for one single-character flat color commission, which is something I can do in an hour or two. I am not at all surprised that most comic cover gigs pay like shit. Comics generally pay like shit. And all that said I sure did pirate Illustrator for a decade until I was at the point where paying the full subscription was the easiest route. If I was a broke student now I’d probably be getting into Affinity Designer instead of Illustrator.
- bluefirebrand 6y ago
  The problem is the kind of work that Adobe's tools are used for. Designers, video editors, artists, illustrators, etc. These are all careers that people get into by having a strong portfolio of prior work, which usually requires them to make stuff outside of professional work. So they need tools for personal use to get hired. Then when they start working they are going to want to use the tools they are familiar with. That absolutely has the result of eating into Adobe's bottom line. Even big companies that can easily afford Adobe's prices aren't going to pay them if their employees don't even want to use the software.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
  You have everyone arguing about whether $600 is too much for photoshop, but everyone should note that you can also get it for $10/mo. It doesn’t get you all the other adobe products, just photoshop and lightroom, but that’s fine for a ton of people.
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    The post I replied to was talking about multiple Abode products, so I don't think the focus on Photoshop is my fault.
    - 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
      Oh yeah definitely not blaming you, just trying to do a PSA for the discussion. People are probably focusing on it because the article emphasized it.
  - bdcravens 6y ago
    Depending on your use case, you can get similar products for a one-time purchase of less than $40.
  - whywhywhywhy 6y ago
    That’s just photoshop though, honestly if you work in a field that needs this software photoshop alone is just one piece of the puzzle, once you add another app the cost goes so high it forces you to get all of them.
- bdcravens 6y ago
  There are plenty of "US professional workers" who do not need all of Photoshop's functionality. I've found Pixelmator meets all of my needs, for a one time purchase of less than $40. The moment that changes, I can purchase Photoshop; doing so now would be a premature optimization. I believe many still use Adobe products merely because they accepted that as a default.
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    I believe many still use Adobe products merely because they accepted that as a default. This supports the notion that it isn't particularly expensive! I didn't say "it's the cheapest" or "it's the best value", I said it wasn't expensive, and qualified the remark with a statement about the group of users I believe that Adobe targets. People are replying that they think it's a bad decision to ignore user acquisition from less expensive licensing options, but that is separate from whether Adobe is having any trouble finding users (they appear to be printing money).
    - bdcravens 6y ago
      There's plenty of power users, but I think Adobe makes plenty of money off of users who don't need the product(s), but don't seek lower priced alternatives out of ignorance or apathy. The same could be said of things like computers and fitness equipment.
  - coldcode 6y ago
    I use Affinity Photo, and previously used Pixelmator; I don't miss any of Adobe's overpriced products.
- TrevorJ 6y ago
  For every freelancer who sits in an Adobe product 40 hours a week, there's many who need an Adobe product for a couple hours every few months. For these people, it's a pretty terrible deal, and feels more alike a tax, or rent-seeking than it does like paying for a useful service.
  - thendrill 6y ago
    This exactly. I am not asking my employer to spend so much money on something I am not using for free in my free time.
    - mattkrause 6y ago
      Subscriptions are also tricky to "purchase(?)" at some places. I'm pretty sure I'm not actually allowed to charge them to a grant.
      - ncpa-cpl 6y ago
        I tried buying a student discount subscription in my country and I could never finish the process. I then contacted two local partners and none of them allowed me to buy the license as a student. One said that the student discount did not exist, and the other one siad thst my University had to buy it for me.
  - dylan604 6y ago
    use it for one month. stop paying for it. pay for it again the next month you need it. stop paying for it.
    - visarga 6y ago
      frictionless process, smooth as butter
      - dylan604 6y ago
        How is it any different than renting a car, or a hotel, or any other various things one might rent? There's just this illusive concept people seem to have of owning software. This kind of model would have had me as a legit paying Adobe customer way back when I did "borrow" their software. I never had enough money to buy a >$1k bit of software for a couple of things, but I could have found $50 (maybe closer to $60 if not doing 12 months??) for a month's legit use of the software for a random freelance gig
- mox1 6y ago
  I think the better way to look at it: Is $600 / year / employee enough of an incentive for competitors to step up? I think lots of software companies( and entrepreneurs) are seeing Adobe's revenue stream and asking "Whats the moat?, What's stopping us from building the top 5-10 Adobe features and charging $300 / year?" It would seem that Adobe doesn't have much of a moat and that perhaps their software will be commoditized as we move forward.
- danShumway 6y ago
  Yes and no. People become professionals using tools that they're familiar with. 600$ a year for an industry standard that makes a person productive isn't a lot. But what happens when 50% of your workforce is using a different tool that they're more comfortable with because they've already invested 5-10 years into learning it? It's not expensive for a productivity boost once you're a professional. The question is, if you are a professional, and you're just now getting to the point where you can afford to start using Adobe tools, are they so much better than the tools you've been using your entire life that they're still worth $600 a month? Will they still provide a productivity boost that justifies their cost if they're not an industry standard anymore? Right now, Adobe products are still at least arguably (if not obviously) an industry standard. But when we talk about a market decline, a current decline in hobbyist usage may signal a heavy future decline in the professional market. It's not necessarily the case that they're completely separate from each other.
- ska 6y ago
  > $600 a year isn't expensive for software for a US professional worker. It's expensive for what a lot of those workers use it for. In the pre-SAAS days, companies would handle this by having an few license and not necessarily following the upgrade churn. Going SAAS only "solved" that for Adobe, but disgruntled that user base that is now no longer served. This obviously creates market room. $600 is nothing for a worker who is going to be in a software an appreciable part of every week. When it's $600 here, $300 there, $1000 here for stuff they only use a few times a month? Not a good deal.
  - dylan604 6y ago
    >but disgruntled that user base The user base that is disgruntled are the ones that would have been using the cracked versions anyways, so there's no monetary loss to adobe at all in that regard. I get being a poor student that can't afford the software that you eventually need to know how to use. I grew up learning Adobe products from those cracked versions. However, now that I'm a working stiff, I pay for my software. I can't think of the last time I used a cracked version. Everyone has to start somewhere. Adobe now gives full version access via trials for 30-days.
    - ska 6y ago
      > The user base that is disgruntled are the ones that would have been using the cracked versions anyways, I disagree; I think I correctly identified a user base of corporations and users who would much rather do things right, but don't have 600/yr/user of need. Currently they are paying adobe subscriptions, or juggling free trials. If someone offers them good-enough software for significantly less, they won't think twice about jumping. This is separate from the issues of students etc. using cracked or 'educational' versions. Some of them may not like the subscription only approach, but as you say that isn't a real impact to bottom line because they would never buy it.
    - Nkuna 6y ago
      Trial period was shortened to a week in May 2016. See https://prodesigntools.com/adobe-cc-7-day-free-trials.html https://prodesigntools.com/adobe-cc-7-day-free-trials.html
- at-fates-hands 6y ago
  >> $600 a year isn't expensive for software for a US professional worker. Let's be crystal clear here. $600 is the subscription for ALL of the Adobe Apps. That means you're paying $600 for what? 15-20 different apps? That means you're averaging around $40 per app. Which is roughly the same cost per month as other competitors products. Adobe XD is $9.99/month which is the same cost as Sketch $99/year and has more functionality then Sketch. If you toss in the additional $8/month for InVision, then XD is now cheaper. A lot of orgs like having one vendor for all of those apps as opposed to having multiple subs for several different companies. I'm no Adobe apologist, but let's make sure when people are tossing around the $600 cost, we're comparing apples to apples. You can hack on them for their lack luster customer support, new versions not working on newer PC's and completely ignoring Linux users - but arguing about price? Not really a good enough reason not to use them in my opinion. Over the past few years, the newer apps they've come out with, they're keeping their pricing competitive: XD vs Sketch/InVision vs Figma. Their pricing has also slowly come down as more competitors come into the market. I agree, I don't see them declining, they just need to stay competitive now that they are a number of legit products to compete with several of their products.
- chrischen 6y ago
  Professionals use an assortment of tools, maybe one of which may be Photoshop. I would agree if your hypothetical processional only used and needed Photoshop.
- ncpa-cpl 6y ago
  One thing I don't like about Adobe is that they set the same price for high and low income countries. For many people and companies in my region their license is unafordable. Other companies that offer subscription based es services, like Microsoft, Spotify, Disney, several antivirus vendors offer lower prices. I mean, I could afford the student price, but not the commercial price of their subscription .
- mekster 6y ago
  That's not how pricing works. Just because "you" can/are willing to pay doesn't mean the pricing is right. What other software/service with the amount of users of Adobe charge $50/mo? The pricing is set based on their lockdown through their closed file format, so the competitions can't exist.
burlesona 6y ago
Just as a counter point, when the first CS subscription came out it allowed me to use Photoshop and Illustrator legally for $30 or so for a month at a time on an as-needed basis (I didn’t always need it), when the alternative was to pay like $1k up front (I don’t remember exactly). As a bootstrapped and low income person at the time this made it possible for me to access the software when I otherwise couldn’t have. So, it’s not exclusively a bad thing.
- dekerta 6y ago
  That's fair, but it's terrible for people like me. I hate not being able to own my desktop software. I'm a hobbyist photographer, and I use Lightroom quite a bit. I purchased Lightroom 4.0 back in 2013, and it has been worth every penny, but now I'm stuck on version 4.0 forever because I refuse to pay a never-ending monthly fee for software that I use as an amateur. I use Darktable now. It's an excellent open-source competitor, but it's not as good as Lightroom. I would gladly pay a few hundred dollars to buy a perpetual license for a new version.
  - dylan604 6y ago
    Would 4.0 even run on modern OS? 32bit vs 64bit considerations. Hooks into graphics libraries in OS changes as well. No hardware acceleration in debayering RAW, etc. There have been a lot a lot a lot of changes since perpetual licensed versions of software that nobody would be happy sticking with just for license sake.
    - dekerta 6y ago
      Yes it runs fine on Windows 10. Version 4 came out in 2012. Old, but not ancient by any means. Edit: I mispoke, I'm using version 4.4.1. Not sure, how different that is from 4.0
      - dylan604 6y ago
        Pretty sure you would not be able to on macOS. While not your problem, it could be for others.
usaphp 6y ago
> very expensive subscription model which has resulted in people seeking out alternatives I disagree, from my own experience and people I know in graphic design field, Adobe products just feel clunky and unintuitive. First time I've tried Sketch, I was blown away by how simple and intuitive the interface is and I would not mind paying the same or more for Sketch compared to Adobe suite. The goal of software is to make me work faster and more efficient, if 2x more expensive software makes me work 3x faster - it's always worth the price.
- deltron3030 6y ago
  Sketch is focused on UI design, it's more specialized tool than e.g. Photoshop. Of course you're able to design faster and more streamlined in it than in a tool that was repurposed for the job.
dharma1 6y ago
I’m with you. I use Figma for all UI/UX work, Resolve for editing/grading but still reach for AE for motion graphics and some video things. Even though After Effects is super slow and doesn’t seem to get much faster with newer CPUs/GPUs, there’s nothing else that comes close. Maybe Fusion in Resolve if Blackmagic spent enough development effort on it. Having said that, I think Adobe can still continue to grow with the overall digital/creative market growth, even if they are losing market share on a couple of the flagship products. They have some enterprise cloud software and I guess the photography/print design/illustration users are still there.
- scyzoryk_xyz 6y ago
  This. It’s still a long way down for Adobe to descend, and they have strategic control over many “cash cows” which aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. The entire publishing industry has no reasonable alternative to InDesign for instance. That’s a lot of software subscriptions getting paid for. Adobe must know this, and their lack of agility must be no accident. It’s like they’ve turned from being a versatile army of innovative creative developers into a strategically located stronghold of trolls.
  - dharma1 6y ago
    Yep. This happens to many businesses as they grow and get older - the people change, early innovators leave and decision making starts becoming dominated by milking the cash cows. The company becomes too large and too risk averse to be able to move fast.

maxerickson 6y ago

$600 a year isn't expensive for software for a US professional worker. I understand that there's lots of people that don't fit that description. That they would also like to use Adobe's tools is perhaps not entirely a sign of decline.

steve_adams_86 6y ago
Agreed, it seemed outrageous to me 10 years ago but I believe now that Adobe simply focused on a certain segment. I wasn't in it. But that's just it; I had very little money, and I was mad that they'd excluded me. But of course they'd exclude me, haha.
- ipaddr 6y ago
  You were never their target. But there were people thinking about you. The cracked adobe products from 10 years ago provide most of the functionality the new subscription does at a big discount. In a way those warez (sp) crackers cared about you more than adobe ever did.
mrj 6y ago
But that's a ton of cost for something you don't use often or if you're just starting out. That price tag eliminates the low end on-ramp into the products. They moved away from perpetual licenses and raised prices, which ensured there was room for competitors with a lower initial price and "good enough" quality.
OscarTheGrinch 6y ago
I respectfully disagree. $600 USD per worker, per year is a massive expense for a small to medium firm, and those rates will only rise in the future. In my country at today’s exchange it's more like $830 per user per year! I much preferred the model of paying once and owning a copy of the software. Sure you get updates now, Adobe was very bad at even basic patching before the CC era, they offer features that no one I know is requesting. It's like a fishmonger backing up the van and dumping a bunch of fish you don't need then billing you every month. So bring on the competitors. I'm a big fan of Sketch on the Mac.
- rmah 6y ago
  Massive? Oh come on, $600 is the cost of a moderately expensive chair.
  - KaiserPro 6y ago
    Chairs are not replaced every year, plus that capital expenditure, not opex. For a design house, licensing is not an insignificant cost of business. Its justifiable because thats the fastest tool for their workforce. for a small company without a design team, it probably makes sense to just use the cheap/free stuff and style it out.
  - andreilys 6y ago
    Or you can pay a one time $99 fee for Sketch which in most cases has all you need. I took that route and haven’t missed Adobe at all.
    - Nkuna 6y ago
      Not all designers (creative work really) work on Macs!
    - zakki 6y ago
      I went to sketch.com and it said $99 annual subscription. Do you mean we can use the software even though we don’t subscribe anymore?
  - 6y ago
wongarsu 6y ago
It's a lot for teenagers and students. People prefer to use software they know, and if you keep your creative software from people in their formative years then you are going to struggle. This might be less of a problem if they hadn't also slashed education discounts (pupils and students used to get 80-90% discount, presumably to discourage buying used or pirating)
- dna_polymerase 6y ago
  Exactly. The SaaS model largely lacks a gameplan for long term sustainability.
  - vlovich123 6y ago
    How so? The SaaS model lets you price segment more flexibly. You can do a free (or very cheap) loss leader version that has a more limited feature-set (that students & hobbyists don't need) and a non-commercial license. Charge more for larger shops that need collaborative/more professional features. Just because Adobe is doing the transition poorly (albeit you wouldn't know from their share price), I don't necessarily buy that it's a fundamental flaw in the SaaS business model. Indeed Figma & Canva are both SaaS companies themselves. As MSFT has shown, it doesn't take much for a giant to come back. I don't think Adobe is particularly cash-strapped so they can weather out a bunch of mistakes/internal realignment.
    - maxerickson 6y ago
      Their financials have done great since they switched. Strong growth in revenue, gross profit and net income.
      - vendiddy 6y ago
        This may be short-term growth at the expense of long-term sustainability. The younger generation will reach for the more affordable options like Figma, Sketch, Canva. Everyone will know how to use these tools a lot better so this these will become the new standards in the workplace.
selfhoster11 6y ago
I am so glad that only US-based professional workers are considered worthy of playing with Big Boys' Toys like Adobe products. /s
- maxerickson 6y ago
  I'm not sure why you are being sarcastic about how a mega-corp approaches business decisions. Of course they do what makes the most money. Part of my point is that people would do well to consider how Adobe approaches the situation before they expend a bunch of emotional energy wishing it were otherwise.
  - selfhoster11 6y ago
    That's not the point. The point is that Adobe are being extractive assholes, and they know it. Setting the price point this high basically communicates that they consider anyone unable to pay this much a pleb, where all of their competitors don't. This is quite insulting, considering that we're talking about a graphic manipulation program rather than some hyper-specialised piece of enterprise financial markets software that only a few can use to its fullest.
  - Nkuna 6y ago
    > Of course they do what makes the most money. Launching features on iOS/macOS first is a business decision that makes the most money (probably) but it's this very reason I slowly started replacing Adobe software. Adobe XD, especially in the beginning, would leave Android and Windows users in a lurch focusing their efforts primarily on Mac/iPhone users. For instance, real time mobile preview via USB (MISSION CRITICAL!!!!!), a feature requested December 16, 2016 ¹ was implemented on iOS on February 04, 2019. Worse still, this feature works on iDevices but only with a Mac. As of last December when I last checked, this was still not possible on Windows for either mobile platforms. Sure, as late as 2009, users were evenly split between Mac and Windows. Prior, it was more Mac users. It has since changed with majority of Adobe users on Windows. ² So this steadfast commitment to Apple users makes no sense when the majority of your users are on Windows! Switched to Figma once I started using Linux as my daily driver. 1. https://adobexd.uservoice.com/forums/353007-adobe-xd-feature-requests/suggestions/17453770-android-tethered-usb-mobile-device-preview-on-wi https://adobexd.uservoice.com/forums/353007-adobe-xd-feature... 2. https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop/adobe-cc-os-market-percentage/td-p/8956683 https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop/adobe-cc-os-market-...
ipaddr 6y ago
600 dollars a year is a huge amount for a software product. If that was their enterprise/seat pricing you may have a point but this is the standard price for everyone.
kradeelav 6y ago
$600 is larger than most comic cover commissions (source: have been paid to do them), and unfortunately Photoshop is still a standard in many tangential industries that pay far below the minimum I strongly suspect that you assume for many (corporate) graphic designers. I started creating graphics in high school on the Gimp, which was a natural transition to a (gifted) copy of PSCS2, and I've been using my college version of CS5 ever since afterwards. That route to graphic design would've never happened at their current prices. They're burning a whole generation of designers.
- egypturnash 6y ago
  Fifty bucks a month for the whole suite is half of one page of comics posted to my Patreon. And my Patreon is pretty tiny. Fifty bucks a month is less than I charge for one single-character flat color commission, which is something I can do in an hour or two. I am not at all surprised that most comic cover gigs pay like shit. Comics generally pay like shit. And all that said I sure did pirate Illustrator for a decade until I was at the point where paying the full subscription was the easiest route. If I was a broke student now I’d probably be getting into Affinity Designer instead of Illustrator.
bluefirebrand 6y ago
The problem is the kind of work that Adobe's tools are used for. Designers, video editors, artists, illustrators, etc. These are all careers that people get into by having a strong portfolio of prior work, which usually requires them to make stuff outside of professional work. So they need tools for personal use to get hired. Then when they start working they are going to want to use the tools they are familiar with. That absolutely has the result of eating into Adobe's bottom line. Even big companies that can easily afford Adobe's prices aren't going to pay them if their employees don't even want to use the software.
6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
You have everyone arguing about whether $600 is too much for photoshop, but everyone should note that you can also get it for $10/mo. It doesn’t get you all the other adobe products, just photoshop and lightroom, but that’s fine for a ton of people.
- maxerickson 6y ago
  The post I replied to was talking about multiple Abode products, so I don't think the focus on Photoshop is my fault.
  - 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
    Oh yeah definitely not blaming you, just trying to do a PSA for the discussion. People are probably focusing on it because the article emphasized it.
- bdcravens 6y ago
  Depending on your use case, you can get similar products for a one-time purchase of less than $40.
- whywhywhywhy 6y ago
  That’s just photoshop though, honestly if you work in a field that needs this software photoshop alone is just one piece of the puzzle, once you add another app the cost goes so high it forces you to get all of them.
bdcravens 6y ago
There are plenty of "US professional workers" who do not need all of Photoshop's functionality. I've found Pixelmator meets all of my needs, for a one time purchase of less than $40. The moment that changes, I can purchase Photoshop; doing so now would be a premature optimization. I believe many still use Adobe products merely because they accepted that as a default.
- maxerickson 6y ago
  I believe many still use Adobe products merely because they accepted that as a default. This supports the notion that it isn't particularly expensive! I didn't say "it's the cheapest" or "it's the best value", I said it wasn't expensive, and qualified the remark with a statement about the group of users I believe that Adobe targets. People are replying that they think it's a bad decision to ignore user acquisition from less expensive licensing options, but that is separate from whether Adobe is having any trouble finding users (they appear to be printing money).
  - bdcravens 6y ago
    There's plenty of power users, but I think Adobe makes plenty of money off of users who don't need the product(s), but don't seek lower priced alternatives out of ignorance or apathy. The same could be said of things like computers and fitness equipment.
- coldcode 6y ago
  I use Affinity Photo, and previously used Pixelmator; I don't miss any of Adobe's overpriced products.
TrevorJ 6y ago
For every freelancer who sits in an Adobe product 40 hours a week, there's many who need an Adobe product for a couple hours every few months. For these people, it's a pretty terrible deal, and feels more alike a tax, or rent-seeking than it does like paying for a useful service.
- thendrill 6y ago
  This exactly. I am not asking my employer to spend so much money on something I am not using for free in my free time.
  - mattkrause 6y ago
    Subscriptions are also tricky to "purchase(?)" at some places. I'm pretty sure I'm not actually allowed to charge them to a grant.
    - ncpa-cpl 6y ago
      I tried buying a student discount subscription in my country and I could never finish the process. I then contacted two local partners and none of them allowed me to buy the license as a student. One said that the student discount did not exist, and the other one siad thst my University had to buy it for me.
- dylan604 6y ago
  use it for one month. stop paying for it. pay for it again the next month you need it. stop paying for it.
  - visarga 6y ago
    frictionless process, smooth as butter
    - dylan604 6y ago
      How is it any different than renting a car, or a hotel, or any other various things one might rent? There's just this illusive concept people seem to have of owning software. This kind of model would have had me as a legit paying Adobe customer way back when I did "borrow" their software. I never had enough money to buy a >$1k bit of software for a couple of things, but I could have found $50 (maybe closer to $60 if not doing 12 months??) for a month's legit use of the software for a random freelance gig
mox1 6y ago
I think the better way to look at it: Is $600 / year / employee enough of an incentive for competitors to step up? I think lots of software companies( and entrepreneurs) are seeing Adobe's revenue stream and asking "Whats the moat?, What's stopping us from building the top 5-10 Adobe features and charging $300 / year?" It would seem that Adobe doesn't have much of a moat and that perhaps their software will be commoditized as we move forward.
danShumway 6y ago
Yes and no. People become professionals using tools that they're familiar with. 600$ a year for an industry standard that makes a person productive isn't a lot. But what happens when 50% of your workforce is using a different tool that they're more comfortable with because they've already invested 5-10 years into learning it? It's not expensive for a productivity boost once you're a professional. The question is, if you are a professional, and you're just now getting to the point where you can afford to start using Adobe tools, are they so much better than the tools you've been using your entire life that they're still worth $600 a month? Will they still provide a productivity boost that justifies their cost if they're not an industry standard anymore? Right now, Adobe products are still at least arguably (if not obviously) an industry standard. But when we talk about a market decline, a current decline in hobbyist usage may signal a heavy future decline in the professional market. It's not necessarily the case that they're completely separate from each other.
ska 6y ago
> $600 a year isn't expensive for software for a US professional worker. It's expensive for what a lot of those workers use it for. In the pre-SAAS days, companies would handle this by having an few license and not necessarily following the upgrade churn. Going SAAS only "solved" that for Adobe, but disgruntled that user base that is now no longer served. This obviously creates market room. $600 is nothing for a worker who is going to be in a software an appreciable part of every week. When it's $600 here, $300 there, $1000 here for stuff they only use a few times a month? Not a good deal.
- dylan604 6y ago
  >but disgruntled that user base The user base that is disgruntled are the ones that would have been using the cracked versions anyways, so there's no monetary loss to adobe at all in that regard. I get being a poor student that can't afford the software that you eventually need to know how to use. I grew up learning Adobe products from those cracked versions. However, now that I'm a working stiff, I pay for my software. I can't think of the last time I used a cracked version. Everyone has to start somewhere. Adobe now gives full version access via trials for 30-days.
  - ska 6y ago
    > The user base that is disgruntled are the ones that would have been using the cracked versions anyways, I disagree; I think I correctly identified a user base of corporations and users who would much rather do things right, but don't have 600/yr/user of need. Currently they are paying adobe subscriptions, or juggling free trials. If someone offers them good-enough software for significantly less, they won't think twice about jumping. This is separate from the issues of students etc. using cracked or 'educational' versions. Some of them may not like the subscription only approach, but as you say that isn't a real impact to bottom line because they would never buy it.
  - Nkuna 6y ago
    Trial period was shortened to a week in May 2016. See https://prodesigntools.com/adobe-cc-7-day-free-trials.html https://prodesigntools.com/adobe-cc-7-day-free-trials.html
at-fates-hands 6y ago
>> $600 a year isn't expensive for software for a US professional worker. Let's be crystal clear here. $600 is the subscription for ALL of the Adobe Apps. That means you're paying $600 for what? 15-20 different apps? That means you're averaging around $40 per app. Which is roughly the same cost per month as other competitors products. Adobe XD is $9.99/month which is the same cost as Sketch $99/year and has more functionality then Sketch. If you toss in the additional $8/month for InVision, then XD is now cheaper. A lot of orgs like having one vendor for all of those apps as opposed to having multiple subs for several different companies. I'm no Adobe apologist, but let's make sure when people are tossing around the $600 cost, we're comparing apples to apples. You can hack on them for their lack luster customer support, new versions not working on newer PC's and completely ignoring Linux users - but arguing about price? Not really a good enough reason not to use them in my opinion. Over the past few years, the newer apps they've come out with, they're keeping their pricing competitive: XD vs Sketch/InVision vs Figma. Their pricing has also slowly come down as more competitors come into the market. I agree, I don't see them declining, they just need to stay competitive now that they are a number of legit products to compete with several of their products.
chrischen 6y ago
Professionals use an assortment of tools, maybe one of which may be Photoshop. I would agree if your hypothetical processional only used and needed Photoshop.
ncpa-cpl 6y ago
One thing I don't like about Adobe is that they set the same price for high and low income countries. For many people and companies in my region their license is unafordable. Other companies that offer subscription based es services, like Microsoft, Spotify, Disney, several antivirus vendors offer lower prices. I mean, I could afford the student price, but not the commercial price of their subscription .
mekster 6y ago
That's not how pricing works. Just because "you" can/are willing to pay doesn't mean the pricing is right. What other software/service with the amount of users of Adobe charge $50/mo? The pricing is set based on their lockdown through their closed file format, so the competitions can't exist.

burlesona 6y ago

Just as a counter point, when the first CS subscription came out it allowed me to use Photoshop and Illustrator legally for $30 or so for a month at a time on an as-needed basis (I didn’t always need it), when the alternative was to pay like $1k up front (I don’t remember exactly). As a bootstrapped and low income person at the time this made it possible for me to access the software when I otherwise couldn’t have. So, it’s not exclusively a bad thing.

dekerta 6y ago
That's fair, but it's terrible for people like me. I hate not being able to own my desktop software. I'm a hobbyist photographer, and I use Lightroom quite a bit. I purchased Lightroom 4.0 back in 2013, and it has been worth every penny, but now I'm stuck on version 4.0 forever because I refuse to pay a never-ending monthly fee for software that I use as an amateur. I use Darktable now. It's an excellent open-source competitor, but it's not as good as Lightroom. I would gladly pay a few hundred dollars to buy a perpetual license for a new version.
- dylan604 6y ago
  Would 4.0 even run on modern OS? 32bit vs 64bit considerations. Hooks into graphics libraries in OS changes as well. No hardware acceleration in debayering RAW, etc. There have been a lot a lot a lot of changes since perpetual licensed versions of software that nobody would be happy sticking with just for license sake.
  - dekerta 6y ago
    Yes it runs fine on Windows 10. Version 4 came out in 2012. Old, but not ancient by any means. Edit: I mispoke, I'm using version 4.4.1. Not sure, how different that is from 4.0
    - dylan604 6y ago
      Pretty sure you would not be able to on macOS. While not your problem, it could be for others.

usaphp 6y ago

> very expensive subscription model which has resulted in people seeking out alternatives I disagree, from my own experience and people I know in graphic design field, Adobe products just feel clunky and unintuitive. First time I've tried Sketch, I was blown away by how simple and intuitive the interface is and I would not mind paying the same or more for Sketch compared to Adobe suite. The goal of software is to make me work faster and more efficient, if 2x more expensive software makes me work 3x faster - it's always worth the price.

deltron3030 6y ago
Sketch is focused on UI design, it's more specialized tool than e.g. Photoshop. Of course you're able to design faster and more streamlined in it than in a tool that was repurposed for the job.

dharma1 6y ago

I’m with you. I use Figma for all UI/UX work, Resolve for editing/grading but still reach for AE for motion graphics and some video things. Even though After Effects is super slow and doesn’t seem to get much faster with newer CPUs/GPUs, there’s nothing else that comes close. Maybe Fusion in Resolve if Blackmagic spent enough development effort on it. Having said that, I think Adobe can still continue to grow with the overall digital/creative market growth, even if they are losing market share on a couple of the flagship products. They have some enterprise cloud software and I guess the photography/print design/illustration users are still there.

scyzoryk_xyz 6y ago
This. It’s still a long way down for Adobe to descend, and they have strategic control over many “cash cows” which aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. The entire publishing industry has no reasonable alternative to InDesign for instance. That’s a lot of software subscriptions getting paid for. Adobe must know this, and their lack of agility must be no accident. It’s like they’ve turned from being a versatile army of innovative creative developers into a strategically located stronghold of trolls.
- dharma1 6y ago
  Yep. This happens to many businesses as they grow and get older - the people change, early innovators leave and decision making starts becoming dominated by milking the cash cows. The company becomes too large and too risk averse to be able to move fast.