7 ms·

I am not quite sure why people don't grasp that it's an annual plan for really expensive software. "Annual plan, billed monthly" is about as easy as it's going

I am not quite sure why people don't grasp that it's an annual plan for really expensive software. "Annual plan, billed monthly" is about as easy as it's going to be in four words on a button or by a button. If you could rent it for just a month now and then, wouldn't you only rent it in the months you need it? They make it so you can't. There's a solution: DON'T USE IT. Ask yourself seriously: what is it you want to do that the Affinity Suite (which costs about, what, £150 and then £20 each for the two iPad apps) cannot do for you. It's not toy software; it's enormously capable (and improves on Adobe's approach in several places). It has surprisingly complete PSD and Illustrator import, it runs Photoshop plugins, it's cross-platform and it runs well on old hardware (at least on the Mac). Failing that, you have Krita, Inkscape, Scribus, Darktable, Rawtherapee, GIMP if you must, and they are all pretty surprisingly good. Plus there are video options that are cost-effective or free (Resolve, for example, runs on Linux). There are all sorts of viable competitor apps on other platforms. Adobe aren't really evil -- they are a giant, slow-witted, largely benevolent monopoly, weighed down by a lot of cruft. (They are also fairly reasonable on the phone and support portals). But you don't need to use their stuff; you can create a sane workflow that routes around them with decent tools. Complaining about a "dark" pattern that up front tells you that you're getting into an annual commitment for something incredibly expensive strikes me as missing the point; the point is subscriptions are tricky and you shouldn't expect to be able to game them. Vote with your feet.

civilized 5y ago
You're just defending the right of a giant corporation to communicate poorly in a way that enriches them at the expense of customers, who are often struggling artists. > "Annual plan, billed monthly" is about as easy as it's going to be in four words on a button or by a button. It's absolutely insane that you think Adobe has fulfilled their obligations to communicate to the customer what they're getting into by putting "annual plan paid monthly" in a drop-down next to a button. Adobe should warn the user of the early cancellation fees in big red letters. We all know why they don't: because they benefit from some users taking a deal that they don't realize is very bad for them. That's what you're defending.
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  > You're just defending the right of a giant corporation to communicate poorly in a way that enriches them. Thanks for the downvote (I guess) but no, I'm doing no such thing. I'm explaining that the giant monopoly is going to do what the giant monopoly does. Really almost all subscriptions are like this -- they depend on you forgetting to cancel. And this one is a bit more up-front than most. > It's absolutely insane that you think Adobe has fulfilled their obligations to communicate to the customer what they're getting into by putting "annual plan paid monthly" in a drop-down next to a button. Sorry, this is a straw man. I didn't at all say that I thought those four words fulfilled their obligations. What I said is, they have a maximally clear four word way of summarising the plan right at the beginning of the payment flow. I'm quite sure they need to do a bit more to explain what the early cancellation options are at some point in the payment flow. But right before you even try to buy, they do explain you're buying an annual plan, don't they? FWIW, if you do not grasp that "annual plan" means an annual plan and then think about what your early cancellation options might be, perhaps you shouldn't be using the company credit card. Complaining loudly that you can't use something clearly marked as an annual plan for just one month is a bit of a stretch.
  - civilized 5y ago
    What a staggering battery of distortions. Company credit card? You're just assuming that everyone doing this is spending someone else's money? Everything you've written functions to blame the victim and leave Adobe harmless here.
    - CharlesW 5y ago
      > You're just assuming that everyone doing this is spending someone else's money? To be fair, you're also assuming that starving artists are paying for Photoshop. A quick "Adobe" search on your BitTorrent tracker of choice may change your mind.
      - civilized 5y ago
        Plenty of low-income people do their best to follow the law out of conscientiousness. I know some of them personally. I object passionately to the idea that, when people misunderstand communication that's designed to be maximally misleading, subject only to the constraint of legal defensibility, they are entirely to blame for falling into the trap. Adobe should be very clear and upfront about their early cancellation fees.
peferron 5y ago
> There are all sorts of viable competitor apps > monopoly You lost me there. Are you using a different definition of monopoly than the usual one?
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  I am using a different definition of monopoly than the USA one. They are a monopoly according to the EU definition (which used to be the UK definition; may still be). They control clearly more than 50% of the market; that is enough to attract regulatory scrutiny as a monopoly. The reality is that a monopoly need not have 100% control of the market. It is more that they have control over some barrier of entry to the market. That, combined with half the market share, is a powerful tool. In the case of Adobe, as well as market share, they also have de facto control over a set of file formats that the market depends on (the so-called 'industry standard'). And they have a level of product integration/tying in the Creative Suite that could be monopolistic. That limits the competing apps; they cannot together offer a truly competing suite. Affinity is I think close to rolling back some of Adobe's monopoly power, because the Affinity Suite is so capable, and it might well be in Adobe's interest to allow them to do that; it certainly must help them when they talk to EU regulators. The real question is whether they are an "abusive" monopoly. And I don't believe they are quite there yet. There are some hints that they may risk becoming technically abusive but this "dark pattern" ain't one. One such hint is that you can't buy just the two arbitrary apps you want in the suite -- it's either one app, the photography plan, or the lot. It is certainly the case that any further acquisitions by Adobe could attract monopoly regulation in the EU.
brailsafe 5y ago
I disagree with your implication that people are basically dim for falling for intentionally malicious design. You could put a push sign on the door of the physics department in a Uni, but if the handle was designed to be pulled, most people would be doing so. I agree with the rest of your sentiment for the most part. Vote with your feet. Affinity is great, and there are other good alternatives. Most people who are stuck on Photoshop used it when it wasn't as good, you can do the same again
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  I am not saying people are dim for "falling for intentionally malicious design", because I do not see what is intentionally malicious -- that word has a meaning. It is not malicious. It might be unclear; I'm not convinced it is even misleading. I am saying I do not understand why people don't grasp that "annual plan, billed monthly" means something priced yearly but paid for in monthly pieces. Not that I think they are dim, but I do want to understand what the comprehension gap is here. After reading many replies I think that if people are saying that "annual plan" is too ambiguous for anyone with a credit card, then "yearly, billed in monthly instalments after free trial" should do the job. But then I expect we will still see people expecting this means they can cancel after a month. Because the thing is if they say "one year commitment, billed in monthly instalments" that is actually untrue; you can in fact get out before a year is out, it just costs you an early closing penalty. (I _am_ saying they are dim if they are expecting to game it by cancelling after a month.)
dataflow 5y ago
> Ask yourself seriously: what is it you want to do that the Affinity Suite (which costs about, what, £150 and then £20 each for the two iPad apps) cannot do for you. I tried to open a raw image and it didn't seem to process the XMP sidecar file I had alongside it properly. The photo looks quite different from what it looks like in Photoshop. This is despite the fact that I can confirm via Process Monitor that it actually does actually read the XMP file. It just seems to ignore the contents for some reason.
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  I think there are some elements of the XMP it is trying to make sense of, and perhaps failing. Or possibly the XMP-reading code is in production but none of the decoding is yet. Or maybe it will get keywords from XMP but nothing else? Not sure. The thing is, XMP is not any kind of independent standard; it's largely a set of instructions specific to Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop. I do think we should expect them ultimately to be able to interpret most of it, and I half expect them to support XMP in their eventual DAM product as one sidecar type, (which is why I think there is probably code in Photo that is ready to read it) but they don't commit to it yet. I must say that if I process a raw file in one package then open it up in a competitor's raw processing package, I expect the second to ignore the work of the first The main thing that the suite really can't do is a Bridge-type function, though.
Too 5y ago
Sure, it says annual plan. But if we are going to be marking words, the very same screenshot also say: "You can cancel your subscription anytime", without any conditions declared up front, except a tiny "Learn more" link. Given this you'd likely win a consumer case or chargeback if you tried. If only this text had a more clear disclaimer i would give Adobe a pass, even though whole process contains a full load of other dark patterns.

civilized 5y ago

You're just defending the right of a giant corporation to communicate poorly in a way that enriches them at the expense of customers, who are often struggling artists. > "Annual plan, billed monthly" is about as easy as it's going to be in four words on a button or by a button. It's absolutely insane that you think Adobe has fulfilled their obligations to communicate to the customer what they're getting into by putting "annual plan paid monthly" in a drop-down next to a button. Adobe should warn the user of the early cancellation fees in big red letters. We all know why they don't: because they benefit from some users taking a deal that they don't realize is very bad for them. That's what you're defending.

unfocussed_mike 5y ago
> You're just defending the right of a giant corporation to communicate poorly in a way that enriches them. Thanks for the downvote (I guess) but no, I'm doing no such thing. I'm explaining that the giant monopoly is going to do what the giant monopoly does. Really almost all subscriptions are like this -- they depend on you forgetting to cancel. And this one is a bit more up-front than most. > It's absolutely insane that you think Adobe has fulfilled their obligations to communicate to the customer what they're getting into by putting "annual plan paid monthly" in a drop-down next to a button. Sorry, this is a straw man. I didn't at all say that I thought those four words fulfilled their obligations. What I said is, they have a maximally clear four word way of summarising the plan right at the beginning of the payment flow. I'm quite sure they need to do a bit more to explain what the early cancellation options are at some point in the payment flow. But right before you even try to buy, they do explain you're buying an annual plan, don't they? FWIW, if you do not grasp that "annual plan" means an annual plan and then think about what your early cancellation options might be, perhaps you shouldn't be using the company credit card. Complaining loudly that you can't use something clearly marked as an annual plan for just one month is a bit of a stretch.
- civilized 5y ago
  What a staggering battery of distortions. Company credit card? You're just assuming that everyone doing this is spending someone else's money? Everything you've written functions to blame the victim and leave Adobe harmless here.
  - CharlesW 5y ago
    > You're just assuming that everyone doing this is spending someone else's money? To be fair, you're also assuming that starving artists are paying for Photoshop. A quick "Adobe" search on your BitTorrent tracker of choice may change your mind.
    - civilized 5y ago
      Plenty of low-income people do their best to follow the law out of conscientiousness. I know some of them personally. I object passionately to the idea that, when people misunderstand communication that's designed to be maximally misleading, subject only to the constraint of legal defensibility, they are entirely to blame for falling into the trap. Adobe should be very clear and upfront about their early cancellation fees.

peferron 5y ago

> There are all sorts of viable competitor apps > monopoly You lost me there. Are you using a different definition of monopoly than the usual one?

unfocussed_mike 5y ago
I am using a different definition of monopoly than the USA one. They are a monopoly according to the EU definition (which used to be the UK definition; may still be). They control clearly more than 50% of the market; that is enough to attract regulatory scrutiny as a monopoly. The reality is that a monopoly need not have 100% control of the market. It is more that they have control over some barrier of entry to the market. That, combined with half the market share, is a powerful tool. In the case of Adobe, as well as market share, they also have de facto control over a set of file formats that the market depends on (the so-called 'industry standard'). And they have a level of product integration/tying in the Creative Suite that could be monopolistic. That limits the competing apps; they cannot together offer a truly competing suite. Affinity is I think close to rolling back some of Adobe's monopoly power, because the Affinity Suite is so capable, and it might well be in Adobe's interest to allow them to do that; it certainly must help them when they talk to EU regulators. The real question is whether they are an "abusive" monopoly. And I don't believe they are quite there yet. There are some hints that they may risk becoming technically abusive but this "dark pattern" ain't one. One such hint is that you can't buy just the two arbitrary apps you want in the suite -- it's either one app, the photography plan, or the lot. It is certainly the case that any further acquisitions by Adobe could attract monopoly regulation in the EU.

brailsafe 5y ago

I disagree with your implication that people are basically dim for falling for intentionally malicious design. You could put a push sign on the door of the physics department in a Uni, but if the handle was designed to be pulled, most people would be doing so. I agree with the rest of your sentiment for the most part. Vote with your feet. Affinity is great, and there are other good alternatives. Most people who are stuck on Photoshop used it when it wasn't as good, you can do the same again

unfocussed_mike 5y ago
I am not saying people are dim for "falling for intentionally malicious design", because I do not see what is intentionally malicious -- that word has a meaning. It is not malicious. It might be unclear; I'm not convinced it is even misleading. I am saying I do not understand why people don't grasp that "annual plan, billed monthly" means something priced yearly but paid for in monthly pieces. Not that I think they are dim, but I do want to understand what the comprehension gap is here. After reading many replies I think that if people are saying that "annual plan" is too ambiguous for anyone with a credit card, then "yearly, billed in monthly instalments after free trial" should do the job. But then I expect we will still see people expecting this means they can cancel after a month. Because the thing is if they say "one year commitment, billed in monthly instalments" that is actually untrue; you can in fact get out before a year is out, it just costs you an early closing penalty. (I _am_ saying they are dim if they are expecting to game it by cancelling after a month.)

dataflow 5y ago

> Ask yourself seriously: what is it you want to do that the Affinity Suite (which costs about, what, £150 and then £20 each for the two iPad apps) cannot do for you. I tried to open a raw image and it didn't seem to process the XMP sidecar file I had alongside it properly. The photo looks quite different from what it looks like in Photoshop. This is despite the fact that I can confirm via Process Monitor that it actually does actually read the XMP file. It just seems to ignore the contents for some reason.

unfocussed_mike 5y ago
I think there are some elements of the XMP it is trying to make sense of, and perhaps failing. Or possibly the XMP-reading code is in production but none of the decoding is yet. Or maybe it will get keywords from XMP but nothing else? Not sure. The thing is, XMP is not any kind of independent standard; it's largely a set of instructions specific to Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop. I do think we should expect them ultimately to be able to interpret most of it, and I half expect them to support XMP in their eventual DAM product as one sidecar type, (which is why I think there is probably code in Photo that is ready to read it) but they don't commit to it yet. I must say that if I process a raw file in one package then open it up in a competitor's raw processing package, I expect the second to ignore the work of the first The main thing that the suite really can't do is a Bridge-type function, though.

Too 5y ago

Sure, it says annual plan. But if we are going to be marking words, the very same screenshot also say: "You can cancel your subscription anytime", without any conditions declared up front, except a tiny "Learn more" link. Given this you'd likely win a consumer case or chargeback if you tried. If only this text had a more clear disclaimer i would give Adobe a pass, even though whole process contains a full load of other dark patterns.