5 ms·

Adobe Account Expiration

92 points by janandonly 3y ago

Mistletoe 3y ago
Adobe pioneered the software subscription dystopia we live in and now they will pioneer the lack of engagement account inactivation dystopia that is coming.
- dylan604 3y ago
  This isn’t uncommon in business. Banks have done “shut down inactive accounts” with low balances for as long as I know (I’ve had a couple of accounts shut down). Uber also dropped my account since I never used them after learning of their history. More than no ride activity, I’m guessing the fact the only card I had on my account was no longer valid. So it’s not like Adobe is inventing something here.
- officialchicken 3y ago
  Autodesk predates Adobe's SaaS model by several years; Creative Suite was still a disk-in-a-box offering while AutoCAD started upfront + required annual subscription-only for new seats around 2008. Dropbox has been in the news here several times over the past year for account inactivation, but that's hardly new. I guess what I'm trying to convey is I highly doubt Adobe will pioneer anything - good or bad.
  - Wistar 3y ago
    High-end 3D software of the 80s and 90s, Softimage, Wavefront, Alias, etc., all required annual “support” payments and often in the many thousands of dollars. We called it digital ransom. Oh, and SGI had some pretty outlandish annual payment requirements as well.
    - officialchicken 3y ago
      To be fair, the "support" payments for these systems started at the beginning; in the late 50's / early 60's. But it wasn't considered "Subscription Software". AutoCAD was considered on of the first to make the transition away from box sales and they definitely lowered the purchase prices (vs annual subscription) to make adoption easier.
- treprinum 3y ago
  I never had their subscription yet I received the same email for my CS6 suite. The company turned into a complete user-unfriendly **.
Nocturium 3y ago
[flagged]
- ianbutler 3y ago
  You know you can just e-mail dang right instead of spamming every post like an unhinged person. hn@ycombinator.com
  - gaucheries 3y ago
    i don't think you're supposed to call people names here.
    - loeg 3y ago
      Dan G is his name.
      - delecti 3y ago
        Huh. I had never even considered the possibility that it wasn't just a kinda neat handle.
      - LocalH 3y ago
        I believe gaucheries may be referring to “unhinged person”
mandmandam 3y ago
Anyone looking to jump ship, the Affinity suite is very close to Illustrator, Publisher, and Photoshop in capability. It's also a lot nicer to use in many ways. For example, using Export Persona in Designer is soo much better than Adobe, I'd regret moving back. Best part is that for less than the cost of two months renting Adobe, you own the entire suite. Not affiliated whatsoever; I just despise Adobe's business practices.
- eropple 3y ago
  For visual design, I can see the value; a lot of people say Affinity is pretty great. The bummer for me is that there remains no great alternative for video. FCPX Resolve, by itself, is good to great, and Resolve's CG package, Fusion, is okay (don't love the editing model), but there isn't the kind of tight integration between components that makes bouncing between tools pleasant to use. Throwing a PSD into an AE composition and having a text-templated instance of the AE comp within a Premiere timeline is something I just never think about, while having to manually go bake intermediaries drives me up the wall. This week I tried to make a go of switching from Premiere to Resolve for real(tm), and I lasted like...two hours. Finding myself saying "but where are the buttons?" was maybe the first time I have felt truly old trying to use a computer. Adobe can have my $30/mo forever, I guess.
- juujian 3y ago
  Has anyone tried running their software on Linux through Wine or similar?
  - prox 3y ago
    I just read a whole thread on their forums, apparently no one has. There seem to be a few issues with getting it over. Affinity mentions it takes $500k to develop a Linux version and their market research says they will never recoup that.
  - latexr 3y ago
    According to the rating on Wine’s website, version 1 runs like garbage (their word). https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=17927 https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=applicatio... https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=18332 https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=applicatio... For version 2 of Affinity Photo: > It looks like someone got the program working. Unfortunately, it requires some work. https://forum.winehq.org/viewtopic.php?t=37300 https://forum.winehq.org/viewtopic.php?t=37300
esprehn 3y ago
Strangely I received this notification but when I go to login it says there's no account with that email. In general it seems like this account expiration process is kind of sloppy. It definitely doesn't make sense to expire accounts in use by desktop software where the user doesn't login to the website. When I've seen companies do sloppy stuff like this in the past it's because some employee manually queried for accounts but their SQL query was missing a bunch of cases.
rchaud 3y ago
I have Affinity Publisher (InDesign) and Affinity Designer (Illustrator). One-time purchase, no account required, just a license key is needed. It more that suits my needs, but it has a clear ceiling. This is a prosumer app, and works fine for those needs. If your workflow requires Adobe-only features, then obviously it won't be the right fit.
- davb 3y ago
  Their (Serif / Affinity) site license costs are exceedingly reasonable, too. Especially for education customers.
- nullindividual 3y ago
  $100 for the entire Affinity 2 suite -- and they give you the apps on macOS, iPad, and Windows.
- scrapcode 3y ago
  Interesting. How was the learning curve coming from Illustrator?
electic 3y ago
I got this email and I went to sign in and my account is gone even though the email said I have 90 days. I guess they deleted everything and all my Behance data as well.
crazygringo 3y ago
Not sure why this is posted here? So Adobe has a bug in their algorithm for detecting unused accounts. Get in touch with Adobe support to file a bug or something? I get mistaken e-mails from companies all the time, but not one of them is HN-worthy.
- nullindividual 3y ago
  To your point, not every small bump in life needs to be a blog post. This certainly falls under first world problems. A small annoyance, like spilling coffee in the morning. And the author spilling coffee on himself is just something I can't get outraged behind.
themagician 3y ago
This is big brain vendor lock strategy. They'll delete your account, but keep your billing active. Can't easily cancel your subscription when your account no longer works. And when you call they can be like, "Sorry, we can't find that account."

92 points by janandonly 3y ago

Adobe pioneered the software subscription dystopia we live in and now they will pioneer the lack of engagement account inactivation dystopia that is coming.

dylan604 3y ago
This isn’t uncommon in business. Banks have done “shut down inactive accounts” with low balances for as long as I know (I’ve had a couple of accounts shut down). Uber also dropped my account since I never used them after learning of their history. More than no ride activity, I’m guessing the fact the only card I had on my account was no longer valid. So it’s not like Adobe is inventing something here.
officialchicken 3y ago
Autodesk predates Adobe's SaaS model by several years; Creative Suite was still a disk-in-a-box offering while AutoCAD started upfront + required annual subscription-only for new seats around 2008. Dropbox has been in the news here several times over the past year for account inactivation, but that's hardly new. I guess what I'm trying to convey is I highly doubt Adobe will pioneer anything - good or bad.
- Wistar 3y ago
  High-end 3D software of the 80s and 90s, Softimage, Wavefront, Alias, etc., all required annual “support” payments and often in the many thousands of dollars. We called it digital ransom. Oh, and SGI had some pretty outlandish annual payment requirements as well.
  - officialchicken 3y ago
    To be fair, the "support" payments for these systems started at the beginning; in the late 50's / early 60's. But it wasn't considered "Subscription Software". AutoCAD was considered on of the first to make the transition away from box sales and they definitely lowered the purchase prices (vs annual subscription) to make adoption easier.
treprinum 3y ago
I never had their subscription yet I received the same email for my CS6 suite. The company turned into a complete user-unfriendly **.

Nocturium 3y ago

[flagged]

ianbutler 3y ago
You know you can just e-mail dang right instead of spamming every post like an unhinged person. hn@ycombinator.com
- gaucheries 3y ago
  i don't think you're supposed to call people names here.
  - loeg 3y ago
    Dan G is his name.
    - delecti 3y ago
      Huh. I had never even considered the possibility that it wasn't just a kinda neat handle.
    - LocalH 3y ago
      I believe gaucheries may be referring to “unhinged person”

mandmandam 3y ago

Anyone looking to jump ship, the Affinity suite is very close to Illustrator, Publisher, and Photoshop in capability. It's also a lot nicer to use in many ways. For example, using Export Persona in Designer is soo much better than Adobe, I'd regret moving back. Best part is that for less than the cost of two months renting Adobe, you own the entire suite. Not affiliated whatsoever; I just despise Adobe's business practices.

eropple 3y ago
For visual design, I can see the value; a lot of people say Affinity is pretty great. The bummer for me is that there remains no great alternative for video. FCPX Resolve, by itself, is good to great, and Resolve's CG package, Fusion, is okay (don't love the editing model), but there isn't the kind of tight integration between components that makes bouncing between tools pleasant to use. Throwing a PSD into an AE composition and having a text-templated instance of the AE comp within a Premiere timeline is something I just never think about, while having to manually go bake intermediaries drives me up the wall. This week I tried to make a go of switching from Premiere to Resolve for real(tm), and I lasted like...two hours. Finding myself saying "but where are the buttons?" was maybe the first time I have felt truly old trying to use a computer. Adobe can have my $30/mo forever, I guess.
juujian 3y ago
Has anyone tried running their software on Linux through Wine or similar?
- prox 3y ago
  I just read a whole thread on their forums, apparently no one has. There seem to be a few issues with getting it over. Affinity mentions it takes $500k to develop a Linux version and their market research says they will never recoup that.
- latexr 3y ago
  According to the rating on Wine’s website, version 1 runs like garbage (their word). https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=17927 https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=applicatio... https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=18332 https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=applicatio... For version 2 of Affinity Photo: > It looks like someone got the program working. Unfortunately, it requires some work. https://forum.winehq.org/viewtopic.php?t=37300 https://forum.winehq.org/viewtopic.php?t=37300

esprehn 3y ago

Strangely I received this notification but when I go to login it says there's no account with that email. In general it seems like this account expiration process is kind of sloppy. It definitely doesn't make sense to expire accounts in use by desktop software where the user doesn't login to the website. When I've seen companies do sloppy stuff like this in the past it's because some employee manually queried for accounts but their SQL query was missing a bunch of cases.

rchaud 3y ago

I have Affinity Publisher (InDesign) and Affinity Designer (Illustrator). One-time purchase, no account required, just a license key is needed. It more that suits my needs, but it has a clear ceiling. This is a prosumer app, and works fine for those needs. If your workflow requires Adobe-only features, then obviously it won't be the right fit.

davb 3y ago
Their (Serif / Affinity) site license costs are exceedingly reasonable, too. Especially for education customers.
nullindividual 3y ago
$100 for the entire Affinity 2 suite -- and they give you the apps on macOS, iPad, and Windows.
scrapcode 3y ago
Interesting. How was the learning curve coming from Illustrator?

electic 3y ago

I got this email and I went to sign in and my account is gone even though the email said I have 90 days. I guess they deleted everything and all my Behance data as well.

crazygringo 3y ago

Not sure why this is posted here? So Adobe has a bug in their algorithm for detecting unused accounts. Get in touch with Adobe support to file a bug or something? I get mistaken e-mails from companies all the time, but not one of them is HN-worthy.

nullindividual 3y ago
To your point, not every small bump in life needs to be a blog post. This certainly falls under first world problems. A small annoyance, like spilling coffee in the morning. And the author spilling coffee on himself is just something I can't get outraged behind.

themagician 3y ago

This is big brain vendor lock strategy. They'll delete your account, but keep your billing active. Can't easily cancel your subscription when your account no longer works. And when you call they can be like, "Sorry, we can't find that account."