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I'm dismayed by this acquisition but glad to see the near-universal dislike towards Adobe in this thread. How can a $150B+ company exist with this much disdain

by sxg 4y ago

I'm dismayed by this acquisition but glad to see the near-universal dislike towards Adobe in this thread. How can a $150B+ company exist with this much disdain for its business practices and products? I'm guessing Adobe's primary customer base is large corporations who don't care rather than individual users?

kumarvvr 4y ago
It exists because some of its products are productivity monsters and are enterprise staples.
- elliekelly 4y ago
  I think one of the reasons I hate Adobe so much is that I genuinely like a lot of their software. They make great (if bloated) products but they make terrible managerial decisions. They’re one of the few companies I think are evil to the very core. They employ dark patterns at every turn. It’s not about providing a product or even a service to customers; it’s only about extracting as much money from every customer as they possibly can.
pessimizer 4y ago
In my opinion, largely because they own a bunch of industry standard formats, so any competitor would be forced to start by cloning one of their products. Once you've successfully done that, congratulations, you've conquered 4% of the market, in that one area (let's say a photo editor), and your software still seems broken (although it's faster, bugs get fixed quicker, and the UI wasn't designed by a crazy person or filled with 30 year old cruft) because it doesn't seamlessly integrate with the rest of their suite. Affinity seems to have made some penetration by copying/innovating on an entire range of their products, but that's a huge up-front investment to grab a tiny piece of the pie. This is really a job for antitrust, but modern antitrust is just a circa mid/early 20c legend we tell children so they aren't scared that capitalism could get out of control and eat them.
- missedthecue 4y ago
  How would anti trust apply here?
apozem 4y ago
A product line can be useful, longstanding and industry-standard without being friendly, easy-to-use or cheap. I don't love Photoshop's long startup times, huge RAM usage and non-native Mac UI, but I appreciate what it lets me do. And I'm not even, for example, a graphic designer working with other people who expect me to submit Adobe assets.
cmrdporcupine 4y ago
For one, Photoshop & Illustrator have a significant history and feature advantage on most competitors. But for two: "How can a $150B+ company exist with this much disdain" -- Have you looked at Oracle lately?
- TimTheTinker 4y ago
  How does Oracle staff its engineering department with such a bad reputation? I once got an email from an Oracle recruiter, and I did not waste the opportunity to tell him how I feel about Oracle. Do not make the mistake of anthropomorphizing Oracle or Larry Ellison.
  - metadat 4y ago
    Oracle is not homogeneous, there are cool teams and projects alongside the terrible ones. Don't mistake Larry Ellison as representing all of the 200,000 people employed by Oracle.
    - manquer 4y ago
      Sure there are cool teams in every org. What is the probability I will join one of them if they are very small % of workforce, even if you do join a such a team with great manager there is higher probability that will not last in orgs with bad reputation. Also while teams have variances org culture is rarely so different. Toxic cultures , red tape bureaucracy, or how performance is evaluated is typically mostly global not localised. That's isn't to say nobody should in such places, there are plenty of people who just want a paycheck and don't care where they work or what their work environment is like, these orgs are perfect for them. If you are passionate about your work and environment, and compensation wise squeezing your current value immediately in cash is not your priority then most big orgs especially ones like Oracle are bad place for you
      - metadat 4y ago
        No doubt, fully agree with you! I'm only proposing to keep an open mind, because you never really know until you connect with the people. I used to say so many nevers, "I'll never work for X, fuck them!", etc. As I've gotten older, I regret this manner of thinking my young self did. Always better to keep an open mind while still sticking to your guns. At the same time, don't ignore red flags!
paulpan 4y ago
Adobe is the new Oracle or Intuit. Somehow it escapes the antitrust scrutiny that other Big Tech companies are subject to. Buying up smaller competitors left and right.
NeveHanter 4y ago
HackerNews represents just a part of the customers that use products like Adobe suite, so that's pretty normal that majority of people give shit about such things and just use what they were given. By the way, changing processes and software in corporations is very hard thing to do as there's so much management/staff/human/distribution issues on the way.

by sxg 4y ago

kumarvvr 4y ago

It exists because some of its products are productivity monsters and are enterprise staples.

elliekelly 4y ago
I think one of the reasons I hate Adobe so much is that I genuinely like a lot of their software. They make great (if bloated) products but they make terrible managerial decisions. They’re one of the few companies I think are evil to the very core. They employ dark patterns at every turn. It’s not about providing a product or even a service to customers; it’s only about extracting as much money from every customer as they possibly can.

pessimizer 4y ago

In my opinion, largely because they own a bunch of industry standard formats, so any competitor would be forced to start by cloning one of their products. Once you've successfully done that, congratulations, you've conquered 4% of the market, in that one area (let's say a photo editor), and your software still seems broken (although it's faster, bugs get fixed quicker, and the UI wasn't designed by a crazy person or filled with 30 year old cruft) because it doesn't seamlessly integrate with the rest of their suite. Affinity seems to have made some penetration by copying/innovating on an entire range of their products, but that's a huge up-front investment to grab a tiny piece of the pie. This is really a job for antitrust, but modern antitrust is just a circa mid/early 20c legend we tell children so they aren't scared that capitalism could get out of control and eat them.

missedthecue 4y ago
How would anti trust apply here?

apozem 4y ago

A product line can be useful, longstanding and industry-standard without being friendly, easy-to-use or cheap. I don't love Photoshop's long startup times, huge RAM usage and non-native Mac UI, but I appreciate what it lets me do. And I'm not even, for example, a graphic designer working with other people who expect me to submit Adobe assets.

cmrdporcupine 4y ago

For one, Photoshop & Illustrator have a significant history and feature advantage on most competitors. But for two: "How can a $150B+ company exist with this much disdain" -- Have you looked at Oracle lately?

TimTheTinker 4y ago
How does Oracle staff its engineering department with such a bad reputation? I once got an email from an Oracle recruiter, and I did not waste the opportunity to tell him how I feel about Oracle. Do not make the mistake of anthropomorphizing Oracle or Larry Ellison.
- metadat 4y ago
  Oracle is not homogeneous, there are cool teams and projects alongside the terrible ones. Don't mistake Larry Ellison as representing all of the 200,000 people employed by Oracle.
  - manquer 4y ago
    Sure there are cool teams in every org. What is the probability I will join one of them if they are very small % of workforce, even if you do join a such a team with great manager there is higher probability that will not last in orgs with bad reputation. Also while teams have variances org culture is rarely so different. Toxic cultures , red tape bureaucracy, or how performance is evaluated is typically mostly global not localised. That's isn't to say nobody should in such places, there are plenty of people who just want a paycheck and don't care where they work or what their work environment is like, these orgs are perfect for them. If you are passionate about your work and environment, and compensation wise squeezing your current value immediately in cash is not your priority then most big orgs especially ones like Oracle are bad place for you
    - metadat 4y ago
      No doubt, fully agree with you! I'm only proposing to keep an open mind, because you never really know until you connect with the people. I used to say so many nevers, "I'll never work for X, fuck them!", etc. As I've gotten older, I regret this manner of thinking my young self did. Always better to keep an open mind while still sticking to your guns. At the same time, don't ignore red flags!

paulpan 4y ago

Adobe is the new Oracle or Intuit. Somehow it escapes the antitrust scrutiny that other Big Tech companies are subject to. Buying up smaller competitors left and right.

NeveHanter 4y ago

HackerNews represents just a part of the customers that use products like Adobe suite, so that's pretty normal that majority of people give shit about such things and just use what they were given. By the way, changing processes and software in corporations is very hard thing to do as there's so much management/staff/human/distribution issues on the way.