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It’s a shame that the competition authorities don’t seem to have any interest in these type of acquisitions which destroys competition and harms consumers. Same

It’s a shame that the competition authorities don’t seem to have any interest in these type of acquisitions which destroys competition and harms consumers. Same thing happened with Architecture software eg when Autocad bought Revit - end result is extortionately priced software that many architects cannot afford because they are paid so poorly. Same will happen for graphic designers.

myth_drannon 4y ago
The company is Autodesk, the product is Autocad.
- mynameisvlad 4y ago
  Is this level of pedantry needed? Even without the clarification, everyone knew what the parent comment meant.
vouaobrasil 4y ago
I actually think we need new antitrust laws that are a bit more proactive when it comes to super-massive companies like Adobe. Such companies have learned to be much more cunning when it comes to get around existing laws, and plus they have much more money than ever.
- javajosh 4y ago
  >we need new antitrust laws that are a bit more proactive Bingo! Adobe has a de facto monopoly on vector and bitmap editing software tools, and it would make total sense for this acquisition to be stopped by the government on that basis. "The government" in this case would be the DoJ's antitrust division headed by Jonathan Kanter [1]. Looks like the process is to send a letter requesting a "Business Review" [2]. It's probably a "fill out this simple 30 page form, wait 2.5 years (max!) and then have your review request politely declined" situation, but I suppose it's foolish to complain before trying. 1 - https://www.justice.gov/atr https://www.justice.gov/atr 2 - https://www.justice.gov/atr/business-reviews https://www.justice.gov/atr/business-reviews
  - dylan604 4y ago
    >wait 2.5 years (max!) and then have your review request politely declined" situation >2 - https://www.justice.gov/atr/business-reviews https://www.justice.gov/atr/business-reviews "3. The Division may, in its discretion, refuse to consider a request. "
  - legitster 4y ago
    >a de facto monopoly This isn't a terribly meaningful distinction. There are a dozen+ editing tools out there, most of them are pretty good and free. If Photoshop/Illustrator have 90% of the market because they are superior products, I'm not sure how much the government could/should do. Apple controls something like 90% of all mobile phone profits across the entire industry. I'm not sure how breaking them would actually provide any consumer benefit.
    - itsoktocry 4y ago
      >Apple controls something like 90% of all mobile phone profits across the entire industry. Profits don't have anything to do with it though. Apple has sub-50% market share. Competition in the mobile space is so competitive there are few profits to be had.
      - legitster 4y ago
        If profits have nothing to do with it, then there's even less case to call it a monopoly. They nowhere near match the install base of all the free editing softwares (GIMP, Inkscape, Paint.net, etc).
    - mrcartmeneses 4y ago
      I used to like Freehand.
  - CamelCaseName 4y ago
    But why? What is stopping competitors from coming out and beating them?
- scarface74 4y ago
  What do you think happens to VC investments when it’s harder for companies to be acquired? If you were a founder and wanted to sell your company, would you want the government telling you that you can’t sell it for the best price?
  - bmitc 4y ago
    It’s a problem that the MO of venture capitalism is just pump and dump. The only thing VC investments optimize for are exit strategies and not creating actual value. So I wouldn’t see it as a bad thing that such investments are diminished.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      So who are you going to get to take their place?
  - vouaobrasil 4y ago
    Of course not, I would be selfish and want the billion dollars. But maybe a culture of creating small companies out of VC capital only to be acquired by megacorps is not the best way forward for society. I also don't like paying taxes, but that doesn't mean there shouldn't be any.
    - robbiemitchell 4y ago
      Figma turned ~$330M in investments into a $20B outcome and gave countless companies a better way to do their work. How is this a bad path for society?
      - m3at 4y ago
        I think you misread, the parent agree with you that Figma created value, the issue is the acquisition by Adobe that might stop or slow this.
        supportlocal4h 4y ago
- snarf21 4y ago
  No, we just need to fund the SEC and FTC and let them do their job. We also need to enforce consumer protection not simply maximize shareholder value.
  - capableweb 4y ago
    Doesn't current laws require harm to competition to have already been made in order for them to enforce anything? So Adobe acquiring Figma isn't unlawful, until it is proven to have a bad effect on consumers. I think what parent is saying, is that we should adjust laws to be more pro-active, that if there is a possibility/high-risk of the acquisition to have a bad effect on consumers, it should maybe be considered a bit more than usual.
    - lvzw 4y ago
      Current antitrust laws do not require harm to have already occurred to challenge a merger. Once an intent to merge has been filed, the FTC/DOJ has a certain amount of time to issue a 'second request'. [1] If the FTC/DOJ finds during their review of the materials turned over from the second request that the merger is likely to be anticompetitive, they will sue to block the merger. This merger in particular would likely be mostly scrutinized according to the horizontal merger guidelines, given the parties' overlap in a specific product/market. [2] [1]: https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/mergers/premerger-notification-merger-review-process https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui... [2]: https://www.justice.gov/atr/horizontal-merger-guidelines-08192010 https://www.justice.gov/atr/horizontal-merger-guidelines-081...
pastor_bob 4y ago
Yeah, i don't get this. Seems like textbook anti-competitive behavior to me. Doesn't Adobe already have their own version of Figma (XD)?
- ryanSrich 4y ago
  They do, but it’s not nearly as popular (or as valuable) as Figma. In the last couple of years Figma has essentially overtaken Adobe and Sketch in terms of designer mindshare and usage. I don’t know a single designer (I know hundreds), that doesn’t use Figma. Of course, I’m focused 100% on software, so I’m strictly talking about product, UI/UX design. Not print or graphic design. The way I see it, Adobe had to buy Figma.
  - capableweb 4y ago
    > The way I see it, Adobe had to buy Figma. It's so fucked up though. Just because Adobe has existed for a long time and managed to squeeze their existing customers enough, they been able to stop innovating. And instead of innovating enough to be able to beat their competition (Figma), they'll just buy the competition and continue doing the same thing. Until another competitor appears, rinse-and-repeat.
    - ryanSrich 4y ago
      I’m definitely less anti-acquisition than most of HN. I think bigger companies buying new startups and smaller companies is a fine growth strategy. However, in this case, I have to agree. Adobe buying any product is essentially the death of said product.
  - exodust 4y ago
    > had to Or didn't have to, instead improving what they already have. I wonder if their aim is to own the designer's pipeline, from raw concepts to sharing finished work, nudging price hikes over time? All within Adobe walls and everyone agreeing to Adobe terms. I'm sure it's all fine and not creepy at all. A designer recently sent me XD links to review, and for the most part it was a smooth experience to preview those assets and designs. She seemed to like XD. Other times I get Figma links, and it's gonna be weird if they're both Adobe. For me I can find one criticism of Figma. It's loose. Gets messy when there's lots of pieces spread out. Sometimes I want an anchoring page, latched, not zoom slippery... just constrained for my viewing control. Figma doesn't want you doing such things, it wants you hovering above a carpark looking down at the free and occupied spaces. That said, I haven't spent a huge amount of time in Figma, I log out quickly.
detritus 4y ago
> Same will happen for graphic designers. I'm not so sure about that, I know quite a few graphic designers who've either reverted to the pirating ways of their youthful years, many years ago - or have moved over to Affinity's offerings. The latter's still a bit rough around the edge - I can't work with Designer (I've been using Illustrator for too many decades to), but I've stopped paying for old rope and nixed my once-beloved Photoshop as it's frankly a waste of cash. Affinity Photo's got some quirks and has a wholly different workflow that I struggle with, but it does the trick in the end.
- zippergz 4y ago
  The point is, if Affinity gets too good or competitive, Adobe will acquire them too.
  - detritus 4y ago
    But they're a British company! British companies NEVER sell out to forei... oh.
  - quest88 4y ago
    Let's reword it: The founders may want a payout and sell to Adobe too.
  - CuriousCosmic 4y ago
    This kinda highlights the real solution. Instead of investing in a product which will eventually get bought up by some monopoly and used to hold the users hostage, people should be donating to FOSS tools and/or paying for support contracts with FOSS companies. Eventually the FOSS alternative becomes competitive and then outright better. It happened quickly in the SW space given that SWEs could dogfood the tools but it's slowly happening in almost every other industry as well. Blender is probably the best example while Krita (raster drawing), QGIS(GIS), Qflow(HDL synthesis tooling collection), FreeCAD(2D/3D CAD), KiCAD(EDA), Darktable(RAW editor, photography tooling) and Ardour (Audio mixer and nonlinear editor) are all catching up in their various spaces. And there's a reasonable chance that some industries won't be able to develop their own FOSS tooling for whatever reason. In those cases it may be worthwhile for governments to step in and fund open source tooling (like the EU does) to protect their industries from the whims of a foreign company.
RunSet 4y ago
> Same thing happened with Architecture software eg when Autocad bought Revit - end result is extortionately priced software that many architects cannot afford I only hope Macromedia's story doesn't repeat itself: Adobe buying the superior offering just to take it off the market.
- pier25 4y ago
  You mean Freehand, right?
- toxican 4y ago
  I don't know what specific piece of software you're referring to, but I think of Fireworks. It was never a 1:1 replacement for Photoshop, but for my uses (as a web developer, during the era of slicing up designs) it was leaps and bound better.
skizm 4y ago
Meanwhile FTC blocking Meta from buying a VR fitness app and gif keyboard lol.
- bredren 4y ago
  I think that the fitness app is more strategic than figma by far.
legitster 4y ago
Anti-trust laws were written to address certain perceptions of how businesses operated back in the late 1800s. They were not particularly grounded in reality, and as such they are hard to actually implement as written in most situations.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > Anti-trust laws were written to address certain perceptions of how businesses operated back in the late 1800s Source? First I’ve heard of Teddy Roosevelt’s trust busting being a grandiose PR campaign.
  - bmitc 4y ago
    It sort of was in the sense of Taft, Roosevelt’s successor, being much more aggressive and effective in actually bringing anti-trust lawsuits to fruition.
  - legitster 4y ago
    Trusts in particular (cooperation agreements between competitors) were entirely a fad of businesses in the 1800s, particularly amongst more progressive-leaning Chairman. It is doubtful they would have had long term success even without government intervention. https://southerncalifornialawreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/85_605.pdf https://southerncalifornialawreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2... We also know that things like predatory pricing and trying to undercut businesses to acquire them was somewhat of a myth. If Standard oil sold for less than you, it was because their operation costs were lower because they were bigger. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~twod/oil/NEW_SCHOOL_COURSE2005/articles/research-oil/john_mcgee_predatory_pricing_standard_oil1958.pdf http://www-personal.umich.edu/~twod/oil/NEW_SCHOOL_COURSE200... The enforcement of the Anti-trust act mostly relied on companies suing each other for grievances. But most companies never brought grievances about being acquired. It was a PR campaign! But for protective tariffs: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1890/10/01/103268337.pdf https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1890/10/01/103... Sherman himself was pretty open that he wanted to blame rising costs on businesses when a new round of tariffs was passed into law.
frakkingcylons 4y ago
The FTC and other regulatory bodies could still move to block this, it’s not final in any way.
buovjaga 4y ago
> Same thing happened with Architecture software eg when Autocad bought Revit - end result is extortionately priced software that many architects cannot afford because they are paid so poorly. Architects rolled up their sleeves and are solving the problem by writing open source software: https://osarch.org/ https://osarch.org/
- nashashmi 4y ago
  I rolled up my sleeve too. And found it completely impractical. Especially for non technical experts to undertake such a massive project.
bearmode 4y ago
I used to be a graphic designer, have my degree in it etc before I switched to development. Adobe's pricing is more than fair. At least compared to what it used to be, where you'd have to shell out a couple of grand every 2-3 years to keep up with major releases. For me, it worked out a bit cheaper now than it did back then, but I also got a massive, high-quality font library thrown in as well as a bunch of other newer programs like Dimension. They already have a functional monopoly in the industry and the prices aren't too bad. Also Figma was a rival to Adobe XD, which was already actually cheaper than Figma was/is.
cjbgkagh 4y ago
VCs have just been given 20B new reasons to fund a new startup in this domain. Could result in a cornucopia of new startups.
s3r3nity 4y ago
Fam - we can’t even make climate change laws without oil lobbies paying lawmakers off…what makes you think that yet another corruptible organization in govt is going to help?

myth_drannon 4y ago

The company is Autodesk, the product is Autocad.

mynameisvlad 4y ago
Is this level of pedantry needed? Even without the clarification, everyone knew what the parent comment meant.

vouaobrasil 4y ago

I actually think we need new antitrust laws that are a bit more proactive when it comes to super-massive companies like Adobe. Such companies have learned to be much more cunning when it comes to get around existing laws, and plus they have much more money than ever.

javajosh 4y ago
>we need new antitrust laws that are a bit more proactive Bingo! Adobe has a de facto monopoly on vector and bitmap editing software tools, and it would make total sense for this acquisition to be stopped by the government on that basis. "The government" in this case would be the DoJ's antitrust division headed by Jonathan Kanter [1]. Looks like the process is to send a letter requesting a "Business Review" [2]. It's probably a "fill out this simple 30 page form, wait 2.5 years (max!) and then have your review request politely declined" situation, but I suppose it's foolish to complain before trying. 1 - https://www.justice.gov/atr https://www.justice.gov/atr 2 - https://www.justice.gov/atr/business-reviews https://www.justice.gov/atr/business-reviews
- dylan604 4y ago
  >wait 2.5 years (max!) and then have your review request politely declined" situation >2 - https://www.justice.gov/atr/business-reviews https://www.justice.gov/atr/business-reviews "3. The Division may, in its discretion, refuse to consider a request. "
- legitster 4y ago
  >a de facto monopoly This isn't a terribly meaningful distinction. There are a dozen+ editing tools out there, most of them are pretty good and free. If Photoshop/Illustrator have 90% of the market because they are superior products, I'm not sure how much the government could/should do. Apple controls something like 90% of all mobile phone profits across the entire industry. I'm not sure how breaking them would actually provide any consumer benefit.
  - itsoktocry 4y ago
    >Apple controls something like 90% of all mobile phone profits across the entire industry. Profits don't have anything to do with it though. Apple has sub-50% market share. Competition in the mobile space is so competitive there are few profits to be had.
    - legitster 4y ago
      If profits have nothing to do with it, then there's even less case to call it a monopoly. They nowhere near match the install base of all the free editing softwares (GIMP, Inkscape, Paint.net, etc).
  - mrcartmeneses 4y ago
    I used to like Freehand.
- CamelCaseName 4y ago
  But why? What is stopping competitors from coming out and beating them?
scarface74 4y ago
What do you think happens to VC investments when it’s harder for companies to be acquired? If you were a founder and wanted to sell your company, would you want the government telling you that you can’t sell it for the best price?
- bmitc 4y ago
  It’s a problem that the MO of venture capitalism is just pump and dump. The only thing VC investments optimize for are exit strategies and not creating actual value. So I wouldn’t see it as a bad thing that such investments are diminished.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    So who are you going to get to take their place?
- vouaobrasil 4y ago
  Of course not, I would be selfish and want the billion dollars. But maybe a culture of creating small companies out of VC capital only to be acquired by megacorps is not the best way forward for society. I also don't like paying taxes, but that doesn't mean there shouldn't be any.
  - robbiemitchell 4y ago
    Figma turned ~$330M in investments into a $20B outcome and gave countless companies a better way to do their work. How is this a bad path for society?
    - m3at 4y ago
      I think you misread, the parent agree with you that Figma created value, the issue is the acquisition by Adobe that might stop or slow this.
      - supportlocal4h 4y ago
snarf21 4y ago
No, we just need to fund the SEC and FTC and let them do their job. We also need to enforce consumer protection not simply maximize shareholder value.
- capableweb 4y ago
  Doesn't current laws require harm to competition to have already been made in order for them to enforce anything? So Adobe acquiring Figma isn't unlawful, until it is proven to have a bad effect on consumers. I think what parent is saying, is that we should adjust laws to be more pro-active, that if there is a possibility/high-risk of the acquisition to have a bad effect on consumers, it should maybe be considered a bit more than usual.
  - lvzw 4y ago
    Current antitrust laws do not require harm to have already occurred to challenge a merger. Once an intent to merge has been filed, the FTC/DOJ has a certain amount of time to issue a 'second request'. [1] If the FTC/DOJ finds during their review of the materials turned over from the second request that the merger is likely to be anticompetitive, they will sue to block the merger. This merger in particular would likely be mostly scrutinized according to the horizontal merger guidelines, given the parties' overlap in a specific product/market. [2] [1]: https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/mergers/premerger-notification-merger-review-process https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui... [2]: https://www.justice.gov/atr/horizontal-merger-guidelines-08192010 https://www.justice.gov/atr/horizontal-merger-guidelines-081...

pastor_bob 4y ago

Yeah, i don't get this. Seems like textbook anti-competitive behavior to me. Doesn't Adobe already have their own version of Figma (XD)?

ryanSrich 4y ago
They do, but it’s not nearly as popular (or as valuable) as Figma. In the last couple of years Figma has essentially overtaken Adobe and Sketch in terms of designer mindshare and usage. I don’t know a single designer (I know hundreds), that doesn’t use Figma. Of course, I’m focused 100% on software, so I’m strictly talking about product, UI/UX design. Not print or graphic design. The way I see it, Adobe had to buy Figma.
- capableweb 4y ago
  > The way I see it, Adobe had to buy Figma. It's so fucked up though. Just because Adobe has existed for a long time and managed to squeeze their existing customers enough, they been able to stop innovating. And instead of innovating enough to be able to beat their competition (Figma), they'll just buy the competition and continue doing the same thing. Until another competitor appears, rinse-and-repeat.
  - ryanSrich 4y ago
    I’m definitely less anti-acquisition than most of HN. I think bigger companies buying new startups and smaller companies is a fine growth strategy. However, in this case, I have to agree. Adobe buying any product is essentially the death of said product.
- exodust 4y ago
  > had to Or didn't have to, instead improving what they already have. I wonder if their aim is to own the designer's pipeline, from raw concepts to sharing finished work, nudging price hikes over time? All within Adobe walls and everyone agreeing to Adobe terms. I'm sure it's all fine and not creepy at all. A designer recently sent me XD links to review, and for the most part it was a smooth experience to preview those assets and designs. She seemed to like XD. Other times I get Figma links, and it's gonna be weird if they're both Adobe. For me I can find one criticism of Figma. It's loose. Gets messy when there's lots of pieces spread out. Sometimes I want an anchoring page, latched, not zoom slippery... just constrained for my viewing control. Figma doesn't want you doing such things, it wants you hovering above a carpark looking down at the free and occupied spaces. That said, I haven't spent a huge amount of time in Figma, I log out quickly.

detritus 4y ago

> Same will happen for graphic designers. I'm not so sure about that, I know quite a few graphic designers who've either reverted to the pirating ways of their youthful years, many years ago - or have moved over to Affinity's offerings. The latter's still a bit rough around the edge - I can't work with Designer (I've been using Illustrator for too many decades to), but I've stopped paying for old rope and nixed my once-beloved Photoshop as it's frankly a waste of cash. Affinity Photo's got some quirks and has a wholly different workflow that I struggle with, but it does the trick in the end.

zippergz 4y ago
The point is, if Affinity gets too good or competitive, Adobe will acquire them too.
- detritus 4y ago
  But they're a British company! British companies NEVER sell out to forei... oh.
- quest88 4y ago
  Let's reword it: The founders may want a payout and sell to Adobe too.
- CuriousCosmic 4y ago
  This kinda highlights the real solution. Instead of investing in a product which will eventually get bought up by some monopoly and used to hold the users hostage, people should be donating to FOSS tools and/or paying for support contracts with FOSS companies. Eventually the FOSS alternative becomes competitive and then outright better. It happened quickly in the SW space given that SWEs could dogfood the tools but it's slowly happening in almost every other industry as well. Blender is probably the best example while Krita (raster drawing), QGIS(GIS), Qflow(HDL synthesis tooling collection), FreeCAD(2D/3D CAD), KiCAD(EDA), Darktable(RAW editor, photography tooling) and Ardour (Audio mixer and nonlinear editor) are all catching up in their various spaces. And there's a reasonable chance that some industries won't be able to develop their own FOSS tooling for whatever reason. In those cases it may be worthwhile for governments to step in and fund open source tooling (like the EU does) to protect their industries from the whims of a foreign company.

RunSet 4y ago

> Same thing happened with Architecture software eg when Autocad bought Revit - end result is extortionately priced software that many architects cannot afford I only hope Macromedia's story doesn't repeat itself: Adobe buying the superior offering just to take it off the market.

pier25 4y ago
You mean Freehand, right?
toxican 4y ago
I don't know what specific piece of software you're referring to, but I think of Fireworks. It was never a 1:1 replacement for Photoshop, but for my uses (as a web developer, during the era of slicing up designs) it was leaps and bound better.

skizm 4y ago

Meanwhile FTC blocking Meta from buying a VR fitness app and gif keyboard lol.

bredren 4y ago
I think that the fitness app is more strategic than figma by far.

legitster 4y ago

Anti-trust laws were written to address certain perceptions of how businesses operated back in the late 1800s. They were not particularly grounded in reality, and as such they are hard to actually implement as written in most situations.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> Anti-trust laws were written to address certain perceptions of how businesses operated back in the late 1800s Source? First I’ve heard of Teddy Roosevelt’s trust busting being a grandiose PR campaign.
- bmitc 4y ago
  It sort of was in the sense of Taft, Roosevelt’s successor, being much more aggressive and effective in actually bringing anti-trust lawsuits to fruition.
- legitster 4y ago
  Trusts in particular (cooperation agreements between competitors) were entirely a fad of businesses in the 1800s, particularly amongst more progressive-leaning Chairman. It is doubtful they would have had long term success even without government intervention. https://southerncalifornialawreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/85_605.pdf https://southerncalifornialawreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2... We also know that things like predatory pricing and trying to undercut businesses to acquire them was somewhat of a myth. If Standard oil sold for less than you, it was because their operation costs were lower because they were bigger. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~twod/oil/NEW_SCHOOL_COURSE2005/articles/research-oil/john_mcgee_predatory_pricing_standard_oil1958.pdf http://www-personal.umich.edu/~twod/oil/NEW_SCHOOL_COURSE200... The enforcement of the Anti-trust act mostly relied on companies suing each other for grievances. But most companies never brought grievances about being acquired. It was a PR campaign! But for protective tariffs: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1890/10/01/103268337.pdf https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1890/10/01/103... Sherman himself was pretty open that he wanted to blame rising costs on businesses when a new round of tariffs was passed into law.

frakkingcylons 4y ago

The FTC and other regulatory bodies could still move to block this, it’s not final in any way.

buovjaga 4y ago

> Same thing happened with Architecture software eg when Autocad bought Revit - end result is extortionately priced software that many architects cannot afford because they are paid so poorly. Architects rolled up their sleeves and are solving the problem by writing open source software: https://osarch.org/ https://osarch.org/

nashashmi 4y ago
I rolled up my sleeve too. And found it completely impractical. Especially for non technical experts to undertake such a massive project.

bearmode 4y ago

I used to be a graphic designer, have my degree in it etc before I switched to development. Adobe's pricing is more than fair. At least compared to what it used to be, where you'd have to shell out a couple of grand every 2-3 years to keep up with major releases. For me, it worked out a bit cheaper now than it did back then, but I also got a massive, high-quality font library thrown in as well as a bunch of other newer programs like Dimension. They already have a functional monopoly in the industry and the prices aren't too bad. Also Figma was a rival to Adobe XD, which was already actually cheaper than Figma was/is.

cjbgkagh 4y ago

VCs have just been given 20B new reasons to fund a new startup in this domain. Could result in a cornucopia of new startups.

s3r3nity 4y ago

Fam - we can’t even make climate change laws without oil lobbies paying lawmakers off…what makes you think that yet another corruptible organization in govt is going to help?