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Speaking on behalf of a group of more recent leaders at the helm of creative products at Adobe, this thread is obviously frustrating and hard to read but also m

Speaking on behalf of a group of more recent leaders at the helm of creative products at Adobe, this thread is obviously frustrating and hard to read but also motivating. Many fair criticism and suggestions, and many of these are now (finally) being addressed. We have undertaken a massive effort to deliver web apps that are deeply collaborative, cloud services that are resilient, and are rearchitecting many of our apps (some decades old!) to be more performant (less memory hog) and incorporate some pretty mind-blowing ai capabilities that save tons of time in creative workflows. The policy stuff is being updated and redesigned for clarity, and our daily challenge is to innovate and build next generation experiences while not tampering with the muscle memory of our legacy customers. Admittedly, this has slowed development of certain products in the past. But as I look around the team these days, people are here for the mission and determined to do the hard work. The shift to subscription was before my time, but modern apps are cloud enabled and we see a ton more ways to leverage this model for customer value (including today’s 20k+ fonts, stock, ai tools computing in cloud, collab, web apps…). Ultimately, my hope is that the next generation of creative will work together better than ever (interoperability, dev ecosystem will be important across many of the point solutions emerging), enable new forms of collaboration, and unlock new possibilities (via ai, new approaches to democratize 3d creation, new mediums emerging like AR/VR). But it is up to the Adobe team to absorb the feedback and show rather than tell.

systemvoltage 5y ago
> modern apps are cloud enabled and we see a ton more ways to leverage this model for customer value (including today’s 20k+ fonts, stock, ai tools computing in cloud, collab, web apps…) I think the average consumer doesn't care about this and it makes sense from corporate strategy standpoint - this is your bread and butter. It generates enormous cashflows. But you're not going to get good reception on HN - we wan't none of these features. We want 2008 version of Adobe products. Install. Get the job done. Close it. We're happy to pay for that. Also, let's cut to the chase, Adobe's advertisement platform is where its shareholders wants it to go: https://business.adobe.com/products/advertising/adobe-advertising-cloud/products.html https://business.adobe.com/products/advertising/adobe-advert...
- gatonegro 5y ago
  > We're happy to pay for that. Preferably once, not monthly.
  - systemvoltage 5y ago
    I pay monthly $7.99 or whatever for Jet Brains products. Predictable and sustainable revenue stream makes good business. And it is cheap enough for the value I get from it. Totally OK IMO. I charge a subscription fee of $X/year to my employer for my services ;-) which keeps me alive, pays the bills and everything stays healthy.
    - gatonegro 5y ago
      Those are all valid points, but software subscriptions still make me extremely uncomfortable. I'm not a fan of subscription services in general, but that's a little off-topic. Paying a monthly fee to Adobe in particular strikes me as a horrible proposition: extortionate early termination fees, constant price increases, the inability to use the software whenever their servers or CC program throw a fit, finding that your programs were broken by an update you didn't ask for... And, of course, there's the fact that you're essentially locked out of your own files if you ever terminate your subscription, even if you were a paying customer for years. I really miss the days where you could just pay for something and have it.
    - humanlion87 5y ago
      But Jetbrains allows you to "own" a version of their product after you have paid for 1 year. So if you decide to stop your subscription you still have at least something to use for your existing files. You don't get something like that with Adobe. Everything is gone if you stop paying.
no-privacy 5y ago
Hi Scott, you might want to see a recent HN thread about Adobe's billing practices here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30222165 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30222165 It is a manipulative trick to offer users a 7 day free trial, and then lock them onto an annual plan, with penalty for early termination.
- scottbelsky 5y ago
  yes - we addressed this on the twitter thread and also posted the new design that addresses the concerns. originally, the “buy annual, billed monthly” was a response to customers who use CC for years and wanted a 30%+ discount, but didn’t want to pay all up front. But UX needed to be improved and team had responded.
  - systemvoltage 5y ago
    I think the issue isn't about fixing it, which is nice but how did this happen in the first place and what kind of marketing culture is being cultavated inside of Adobe. It didn't happen by chance. It was a deliberate dark pattern to screw the gullible customer.
    - achow 5y ago
      Yes, particularly when considering how much of text is all over that page [0]. An extra sentence saying something to the effect of '50% of any remaining annual plan will be charged on early termination, [see more details link]' could have been easily incorporated without disturbing the Zen of the page. [0] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FK0pes-WQAM8bkK?format=jpg&name=large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FK0pes-WQAM8bkK?format=jpg&name=...
uxcolumbo 5y ago
I don't use Adobe products anymore. Too many dark UX patterns and bad business practices, e.g. pulling all user access in Venezuela, taking away the ability to earn money - the entire country - back in 2019 [0]. This couldn't have happened before the move to the subscription model. I recently had to use Adobe XD. The installation process - extremely bad UX and the Adobe cloud thing - bloatware. On top of that... trying to open the XD file a week later, it asks me to login first before I can use the app. And you can only export to PDF 3 times - otherwise you have to upgrade. In my view Adobe is user hostile. Not sure how you can turn around that ship - Adobe has a shareholder value uber alles mentality. But thanks for trying. [0] https://www.pcmag.com/news/adobe-pulls-all-user-access-in-venezuela-due-to-us-sanctions https://www.pcmag.com/news/adobe-pulls-all-user-access-in-ve...
MonaroVXR 5y ago
It's impressive, really and still having the edge over your competitors, if it was this simple to "overtake" Adobe, this thread or other complaints would be far less. I'm not that long in the tech industry.

systemvoltage 5y ago

> modern apps are cloud enabled and we see a ton more ways to leverage this model for customer value (including today’s 20k+ fonts, stock, ai tools computing in cloud, collab, web apps…) I think the average consumer doesn't care about this and it makes sense from corporate strategy standpoint - this is your bread and butter. It generates enormous cashflows. But you're not going to get good reception on HN - we wan't none of these features. We want 2008 version of Adobe products. Install. Get the job done. Close it. We're happy to pay for that. Also, let's cut to the chase, Adobe's advertisement platform is where its shareholders wants it to go: https://business.adobe.com/products/advertising/adobe-advertising-cloud/products.html https://business.adobe.com/products/advertising/adobe-advert...

gatonegro 5y ago
> We're happy to pay for that. Preferably once, not monthly.
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  I pay monthly $7.99 or whatever for Jet Brains products. Predictable and sustainable revenue stream makes good business. And it is cheap enough for the value I get from it. Totally OK IMO. I charge a subscription fee of $X/year to my employer for my services ;-) which keeps me alive, pays the bills and everything stays healthy.
  - gatonegro 5y ago
    Those are all valid points, but software subscriptions still make me extremely uncomfortable. I'm not a fan of subscription services in general, but that's a little off-topic. Paying a monthly fee to Adobe in particular strikes me as a horrible proposition: extortionate early termination fees, constant price increases, the inability to use the software whenever their servers or CC program throw a fit, finding that your programs were broken by an update you didn't ask for... And, of course, there's the fact that you're essentially locked out of your own files if you ever terminate your subscription, even if you were a paying customer for years. I really miss the days where you could just pay for something and have it.
  - humanlion87 5y ago
    But Jetbrains allows you to "own" a version of their product after you have paid for 1 year. So if you decide to stop your subscription you still have at least something to use for your existing files. You don't get something like that with Adobe. Everything is gone if you stop paying.

no-privacy 5y ago

Hi Scott, you might want to see a recent HN thread about Adobe's billing practices here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30222165 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30222165 It is a manipulative trick to offer users a 7 day free trial, and then lock them onto an annual plan, with penalty for early termination.

scottbelsky 5y ago
yes - we addressed this on the twitter thread and also posted the new design that addresses the concerns. originally, the “buy annual, billed monthly” was a response to customers who use CC for years and wanted a 30%+ discount, but didn’t want to pay all up front. But UX needed to be improved and team had responded.
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  I think the issue isn't about fixing it, which is nice but how did this happen in the first place and what kind of marketing culture is being cultavated inside of Adobe. It didn't happen by chance. It was a deliberate dark pattern to screw the gullible customer.
  - achow 5y ago
    Yes, particularly when considering how much of text is all over that page [0]. An extra sentence saying something to the effect of '50% of any remaining annual plan will be charged on early termination, [see more details link]' could have been easily incorporated without disturbing the Zen of the page. [0] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FK0pes-WQAM8bkK?format=jpg&name=large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FK0pes-WQAM8bkK?format=jpg&name=...

uxcolumbo 5y ago

I don't use Adobe products anymore. Too many dark UX patterns and bad business practices, e.g. pulling all user access in Venezuela, taking away the ability to earn money - the entire country - back in 2019 [0]. This couldn't have happened before the move to the subscription model. I recently had to use Adobe XD. The installation process - extremely bad UX and the Adobe cloud thing - bloatware. On top of that... trying to open the XD file a week later, it asks me to login first before I can use the app. And you can only export to PDF 3 times - otherwise you have to upgrade. In my view Adobe is user hostile. Not sure how you can turn around that ship - Adobe has a shareholder value uber alles mentality. But thanks for trying. [0] https://www.pcmag.com/news/adobe-pulls-all-user-access-in-venezuela-due-to-us-sanctions https://www.pcmag.com/news/adobe-pulls-all-user-access-in-ve...

MonaroVXR 5y ago

It's impressive, really and still having the edge over your competitors, if it was this simple to "overtake" Adobe, this thread or other complaints would be far less. I'm not that long in the tech industry.