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Excellent news. I think there should be more products, more companies, and more competition. Adobe just buying up it's competition will only ever directly hurt

Excellent news. I think there should be more products, more companies, and more competition. Adobe just buying up it's competition will only ever directly hurt consumers. See also, "Adobe says the FTC is looking into its subscription cancellation practices." https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/15/24003532/adobe-says-the-ftc-is-looking-into-its-subscription-cancellation-practices https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/15/24003532/adobe-says-the-...

dkyc 3y ago
Except outlawing acquisitions by larger tech companies will absolutely reduce funding and incentives to start companies, and result in less products, less companies, and less competition.
- michaelcampbell 3y ago
  Just like when there WERE no megacorps to buy smaller companies and we were left with none at all.
- kwertyoowiyop 3y ago
  This is so far from outlawing. And we are soooooo far from having a shortage of tech startups.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    > This is so far from outlawing It's not that far. A bureaucrat will decide if you can exit the way you want to. Still want to fund this venture? > And we are soooooo far from having a shortage of tech startups. Because there hasn't been a fear of them blocking exits.
    - airstrike 3y ago
      > A bureaucrat will decide if you can exit the way you want to. It's not up to the bureaucrat but to the courts. The FTC doesn't "approve" or "reject" deals--it can just take legal action to try to stop a deal, but that still gets adjudicated either in a federal court or in an FTC administrative law court to a judge which is appointed independently. https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/merger-review https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/merger-review https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/administrative-law-judge-system https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/administrative-law-...
      - matthewowen 3y ago
        True in the US, not true in the UK or EU.
        airstrike 3y ago
        Fair, I'm not as familiar with the UK/EU regulatory environment
        junofan 3y ago
        That’s who’s blocking the sale according to Adobe’s press release: https://news.adobe.com/news/news-details/2023/Adobe-and-Figma-Mutually-Agree-to-Terminate-Merger-Agreement/default.aspx https://news.adobe.com/news/news-details/2023/Adobe-and-Figm... Depending on specifics, the EU stopping blockbuster acquisitions in the US startup ecosystem feels ripe for abuse.
        airstrike 3y ago
        I can assure you the EU isn't blocking this to prevent US founders from making money
      - evrydayhustling 3y ago
        Adding a legal battle with the FTC to the cost of any acquisition can chill and kill otherwise obvious deals, and or sap value out of those that push through. FWIW, I think there are good reasons to limit tech consolidation, including this one. But anyone should realize that it will reshape the industry in unpredictable ways, including some that harm "real" consumers and builders.
        airstrike 3y ago
        But anti-trust isn't being invented now. It's always existed. Companies already factor in anti-trust risk when doing M&A—it's just hard to quantify the expected value of that risk If anything, IMHO, we've been too lenient with anti-trust in Tech in particular over the past 5-10 years. This just dials things back a little, and makes it so that "hard to quantify" risk is a little more likely than it was before, and certainly a little more likely than zero I don't think Adobe / Figma specifically is an "otherwise obvious deal" precisely because it has such obvious anti-trust risk. The fact that this merger was even announced is all the proof I need that we were being too lenient. Figma can still sell to any number of huge Tech companies
    - passwordoops 3y ago
      Or, and this is a crazy idea I know, maybe start a company with the notion that it will be a profitable, long-term success instead of a lottery ticket
    - Drakim 3y ago
      A bureaucrat also decides the amount of lead you can put in your product and sell. In fact, there are all kinds of things you can't arbitrarily do because it hurts consumers, both physically and financially. This includes strengthening industry monopolies which has time and time again demonstrated that it causes incredible harm to entire segments of society.
      - robertlagrant 3y ago
        > This includes strengthening industry monopolies which has time and time again demonstrated that it causes incredible harm to entire segments of society I don't think you can take a hypothetical worst case and make it apply here. You could also say that we shouldn't have governments, because look at WW2 and all the war they declared. Adobe buying Figma wouldn't cause incredible harm to entire segments of society. It's barely even a monopoly, in that Adobe doesn't really do what Figma does already, and there is incredible potential in just making another Figma competitor if Adobe ruins Figma.
    - zztop44 3y ago
      I’m pretty sure no VCs are kicking themselves for having invested in Figma.
- maxehmookau 3y ago
  This isn't that though. This is a company with a clear monopoly trying to hoover up smaller competition to reduce competition. We shouldn't incentivise this behaviour, on either end. If this is the liquidity event that Figma were betting on from day 1 that's their mistake for not foreseeing regulators being unhappy about it.
- DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
  I'm fine with some other company buying-up Figma, just not Adobe. Microsoft could buy them (and hopefully not repeat what happened to Expression Blend) - or maybe Alludo could resurrect the Corel brand and launch Figma under that title?
  - dkyc 3y ago
    The reality is that for extremely high-growth companies such as Figma, only companies with an extremely strong existing business and strategic fit can afford to acquire them. Corel, for example, was valued at $1bn in their 2019 acquisition. There's absolutely no way they could acquire Figma. At the same time, VCs are betting on Figma-like outsized exits for their model work. I get people are dying to stick it to the big tech cos, but the reality is that the long-term effect of actions like this is reduced funding and less new, disruptive companies – and strengthening the situation for the cash-rich behemoths like Microsoft, Google, etc.
    - tonyedgecombe 3y ago
      They couldn't acquire Figma for $20 billion but that doesn't mean Figma isn't acquirable. It just means the founders and investors get a bit less. > and strengthening the situation for the cash-rich behemoths like Microsoft, Google, etc. It certainly isn't good for Adobe as they will have a strong competitor in Figma to deal with.
      - DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
        > It certainly isn't good for Adobe It is good for Adobe: they'll be forced to make their products better. ...I hope!
        tonyedgecombe 3y ago
        >It is good for Adobe: they'll be forced to make their products bette Which they thought was harder than spending $20 billion acquiring a competitor.
- madeofpalk 3y ago
  I think this is net-negative for consumers, in a pretty significant way. If the most incentivised lifecycle is to seek VC investment to make a non-susitainable product in the hope of being acquired and swallowed into The Borg and shut down, we still end up with less good products. - Product life-cycles become short, consumers are weary of anything new. How many times have you seen product launches here on HN where the top comments are worrying about sustainability? That either there will be a rug-pull for consumers in the future, or they just plan to be acquired and shut down. - Larger companies continue to have no incentive to actually improve their product and compete with others if they just purchase everything in the market.
  - Pet_Ant 3y ago
    > If the most incentivised lifecycle is to seek VC investment to make a non-susitainable product in the hope of being acquired and swallowed into The Borg and shut down, we still end up with less good products. "Aim for the moon so if you miss you still end up amongst the stars." The actual _goal_ is to be an independent successful company, but getting bought is the back up option that provides a safety net. If it was success-or-bust (no "-or-get-bought") the risk calculus would not make it worth it. It would make the American economy much more conservative and much more like Europe.
    - floren 3y ago
      But when the most common business plan is "1. Spend VC millions, 2. Acquire non-paying customers, 3. ???, 4. Profit!" it kinda seems like the un-written step 3 is "get acquired by a MAGMA company". You just say something like "oh, we'll get revenue by adding advertising / premium accounts later" as a fig-leaf for the public.
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- brendoelfrendo 3y ago
  If your only goal in founding a company is to get acquired, you haven't made a company; you've made a product, and probably not a profitable one. We should be encouraging way more medium-sized companies, that operate sustainable business models, make money for their founders and employees, and aren't subsidized by cheap money. I think if startups actually had to sustain themselves we'd see a lot less grift and waste in VC.
  - jen20 3y ago
    I don’t disagree with the notion that there should be more medium sized, self sustaining (“lifestyle?”) companies, but such statements are rarely if ever followed up with _why_ this is a desirable outcome for everyone involved.
    - graphe 3y ago
      Or no lifestyle companies. What would be the harm without them?
    - brendoelfrendo 3y ago
      I guess it comes back to how you view the current system. If you find the idea of unicorns and acquisitions and the further centralization of capital distasteful, it's kind of self-evident why you'd want to see something that represents a break from that norm. For me, yes, I see the obvious argument that more money leads to more (and faster) innovation. But it can also result in an economy that is too tightly coupled and dependent on the might of a few massive companies, whereas an economy that is distributed across more smaller businesses is more robust. At the extreme, you might imagine South Korea: a country that is highly consolidated into one or two major cities and propped up by massive, economy-shaping corporations. I don't think anyone would disagree that Korea made massive economic strides in a short period of time, but I think there's much more debate about the long-term health of the Korean economy and people now that their continued prosperity is so centralized. And, of course, there's the consumer angle; though I can't claim any scientific methodology, my impression of the sentiments surrounding this merger are that it was pretty popular with Figma's investors and employees (understandably so, as they stood to gain from the merger), but was deeply unpopular with their customers. You could make the argument that "a Figma owned by Adobe is better than no Figma at all," but consumers have seen it all before at this point: a good product is acquired, and then either a) the pricing model changes, b) the rate of innovation slows down, c) the product is ultimately abandoned somewhere down the line, etc, etc. None of these outcomes are essential truths, but they are common outcomes of companies getting larger and larger to the point where a business unit that is otherwise healthy is deprioritized because it is not profitable enough or growing fast enough for the larger parent to care; or, conversely, the smaller parts suffer because the larger parent encounters trouble and can no longer sustain their acquisitions, even if they are keeping the bloat afloat.
- whatisthiseven 3y ago
  I think it's fine if no one starts vampiric companies that dump free services on the public destroying the perceived value of software for the purpose of a fast unicorn exit. Of course, these companies always look to advertising for funding so they are obtrusive. Unless you are thinking of real companies that would be affected by this ban? Retail stores don't care about this ban. Companies that sell real products wouldn't care. If they sell real software services and plan to turn a positive profit rather than exit this wouldn't impact anyone other than unicorn chasers, which are bad for everyone.
  - matthewowen 3y ago
    But Figma isn’t a vampiric company dumping free services for the purpose of a fast exit. It’s been around for over a decade and charges _more_ for its principal product than Adobe charges for comparable products. So by your own definition, real companies are affected by this!
    - ivan_gammel 3y ago
      The company will probably do well for the reasons you mentioned, only some late shareholders are affected. A good exit for the economy would be actually an IPO.
    - Lutger 3y ago
      I didn't know Figma was going bankrupt, is it?
      - matthewowen 3y ago
        I don’t see the relevance of that question: outcomes for companies fall onto positivity/negativity ranges beyond merely a bankrupt / not bankrupt bjnary.
    - whatisthiseven 3y ago
      I'm also ok with mega corps not buying smaller companies. It encourages further mega-corpification.
- piva00 3y ago
  Acquisitions also reduce competition. If competition only exists to be acquired you are only funding an ever-growing oligopoly, the more acquisitions into the oligopoly the more power they have, diminishing the number of available markets to compete in (since one of the oligopolistic companies will certainly have more capital than a newcomer). Anti-trust is not a new thing, it's even considered a foundational aspect of competitive capitalism by some thinkers...
- bayindirh 3y ago
  I think it's the opposite. Because many companies start with the dream of an exit with a high price tag, and what they end up developing is a missing feature from a bigger software suite, which is already enshittified by a big software house to the core. Instead, smaller companies can start and slowly get bigger while getting bigger. Affinity suite is a great example. While their photo tool is not my cup of tea, designer is great, IMHO.
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- 34679 3y ago
  I doubt that is true. Let's say you're pitching your startup to a potential investor. Would you pitch it as "the next Adobe" or "something Adobe might want to buy"? Which one would you be more likely to invest in?
  - andsoitis 3y ago
    > pitch it as "the next Adobe" or "something Adobe might want to buy"? Which one would you be more likely to invest in? I get your point, but that is not really the right framing because that is not how to pitch your startup. Tell me what it does, what its long term vision is, how and by when you’ll make money, what’s your moat, how you will grow.
- benterix 3y ago
  Yeah, I get it, some founders start their startup motivated by a potential MA. And this is great for them. However, as a customer, I absolutely hate this. Instead of finding a way to actually make the product/service self-sustainable, they just increase the number of (usually) free users. But once they sell, normally the new owner either shuts the service down or turns it into crap.
  - coldpie 3y ago
    Yeah. Keybase was the one that really showed this model to me, and soured me on the whole startup scene. What a crap way that is to run a business.
  - afavour 3y ago
    Agreed. I think if you’re passionate about an idea then you should be able to channel that energy into making it a sustainable business. If you can’t motivate yourself to do that… maybe let someone else who is motivated do it.
  - chongli 3y ago
    It’s a personality thing. The type of person who starts companies tends to start a lot of them. The idea of sticking around at a company and keeping a steady hand on the tiller (after all the big product problems have been solved) is anathema to these folks. What they need is a succession plan. It just happened that mergers and acquisitions turned out to be the cleanest, easiest way for founders to hand over the reins. In days past, companies would go through this transition process internally, often by succession through the founder’s family. The founder may have been a very entrepreneurial type, but the child who was raised to be the successor was more of a managerial type. When it worked out, anyway. Sometimes none of the founder’s kids were suitable. Or the founder tapped the wrong kid to take over.
- monkey_monkey 3y ago
  Tech acquisitions haven't been outlawed. And this particular situation is applicable to perhaps 2 or 3 a year (all of which are multi-billion dollar values). I doubt very much if this will stop funding of new companies except perhaps at the level of Uber/WeWork.
- Ckirby 3y ago
  "Oh no!, this hampers my ability to harm industry competition and hurt society, this isn't fair!" How about you go and fling yourself in front of a bus
bilekas 3y ago
I agree to be honest, I do find it refreshing too that they're both Willing to part ways instead of trying to manipulate the system. I don't think this could just customers but even the companies themselves I don't see a loss.
- andybak 3y ago
  Maybe they failed to find a way round the rules? That seems more likely than a spontaneous desire to "do the right thing".
- popcorncowboy 3y ago
  This genuinely made me laugh thank you. But no, they're not refreshingly "willing to part ways", just that their extensive legal teams assessed every possible angle to force this through and the big chairs made a call that proceeding in the face of such harsh opposition was going to be too costly.
- j4yav 3y ago
  It is refreshing that they weren't able to get away with it, anyway.
- vikramkr 3y ago
  They themselves said they spent 15 months trying to manipulate the system and are only doing this because they failed, let's not be naive about them doing this out of the goodness of their hearts lol
- eviks 3y ago
  They were trying to manipulate the system, just failed at that
noirscape 3y ago
Adobes cancellation practices are literally illegal in the Netherlands by the way. The deceptive trick of "pay monthly for a full year" and then hitting you with the cancellation fee is against local law. (It's called de wet van Dam for the curious.) You have to threaten their customer support with legal complaints to make them comply with it, it's super frustrating to deal with. They do fold immediately when you do this though, so they know it's illegal but hope the frustration of getting through customer support will deter people (and avoids the legal problems). And yes I know you can just switch subscriptions and use the early cancellation period there to avoid the hit back fee from cancelling. It's the principle that's scummy.
- thelittleone 3y ago
  I recommend using virtual credit cards for subscriptions. I just cancel the card if the account cancellation process is hostile in anyway.
  - Perz1val 3y ago
    What's the best way to acquire those?
    - leshenka 3y ago
      The bank's smartphone app?
      - ativzzz 3y ago
        Not all banks have these unfortunately, even though one time virtual cards should really be the standard for all online purchases
        leshenka 3y ago
        Yeah, sadly. But really it's the best way to do virtual cards. If a bank doesn't offer these, next best thing is to go to the bank that does.
bomewish 3y ago
Totally agree. I resent the fact that they’d try cash out that way. At least ipo or something. More fragmentation is good for preventing monopoly.
- junofan 3y ago
  If Adobe’s a buyer at $20b, they’re a buyer at $20b. I don’t see how selling stock to the public along the way increases fragmentation or prevents monopoly.
cantSpellSober 3y ago
What Adobe product is intended to compete with Figma, Adobe XD?
- madeofpalk 3y ago
  Once upon a time, digital product design happened in Photoshop and Illustrator. Then competitors like Sketch and Figma came out with a better product. This made Adobe create XD to compete, but it was unable to make a good product so instead they tried to purcahse their competition instead of making something better. 9 months after Adobe announced it was to purchase Figma (and 3 months before it hoped the deal would close), Adobe discontinued XD.
  - cantSpellSober 3y ago
    Fireworks tried to fill the gaps between PS and Illustrator, but never got traction. > Adobe discontinued XD That was my understanding as well, hmm
    - cartermatic 3y ago
      RIP to Fireworks, it's the first tool I ever used for design.
    - nolok 3y ago
      Fireworks wasn't an original Adobe product but a Macromedia one they got during the acquisition. Adobe seems to have had some massive lack of effort for those (Flash being the prime exemple).
    - madeofpalk 3y ago
      Yet another example of Adobe purchasing their biggest competition and then shutting it down!
    - i_am_jl 3y ago
      >Fireworks tried to fill the gaps between PS and Illustrator, but never got traction. I couldn't disagree more. Fireworks was a perfect blend of raster and vector editing and was killer for early 2000s web design work. It was an amazing Macromedia product that got neglected by Adobe. If I'm in a cynical mood I sometimes think it's because an up-to-date Fireworks would have cannibalized the sales of PS/AI, but I think that gives too much credit to Adobe.
spaceman_2020 3y ago
imo, Adobe is falling behind. Photoshop's generative AI is substantially worse than what I can get from models on Tensorart/CivitAI + an upscaler. It's way easier to produce something that can go live right now without much editing in CivitAI -> Upscale in Magnific -> Add to Canva.
- facialwipe 3y ago
  I think what you mean to say is Stable Diffusion. CivitAI is primarily a host for SD models to download and run locally.
  - spaceman_2020 3y ago
    You can run many of the models directly through CivitAI. You get lower quality images, but you can upscale them through an upscaler. Just go to any model and click "Create". You can even use examples from the model to prefill the prompt. For example, you can scroll down and click "Start Creating" on this page: https://civitai.com/images/3908138 https://civitai.com/images/3908138
    - facialwipe 3y ago
      CivitAI’s web tools are great for someone getting their feet wet but it presents an extremely stripped down options UI relative what’s available in Draw Things on iOS/macOS or SHARK on Windows.
      - spaceman_2020 3y ago
        True, but that's precisely my point: even with this stripped down version, I was able to hack together exactly what I wanted for an upcoming project in far less time. I got a model in the exact hairstyle, pose, and costume I wanted. The upscaler did a pretty good job of making it production ready. This stuff is wildly productive for noobs who just want to get stuff out. Maybe its not something you'd see in an Apple ad, but its definitely something you'll see in a small business ad.
- 3y ago
SnowingXIV 3y ago
Got bit by this. It felt absolutely horrible to not have any recourse. We had a yearly adobe sign contract, it was based on a particular usage estimate and quite high. Called in weeks before the renewal and they said we missed the window to cancel. There was no option out of it. No escalation. Had to stomach a massive bill for of a product we weren't going to use.
- GoRudy 3y ago
  Is not paying an option? Ran into this issue with a large software provider once but they had some actual account management negligence / weren't responsive so we used that to hang our hat on not paying and eventually they let it go.
  - jdewerd 3y ago
    No, because contract law is built for centuries past and lets Adobe screw you for trying this. Not sure if they do, but they definitely could. Back when communication latency was days or weeks, allowing sticky auto-renew that ignored payment failure and asked for a lot of heads up time on a cancellation made sense. It was exploitable, but it was worth it to buffer the latency. Now we don't have the latency, so it's just exploitable, the law hasn't caught up yet, and Adobe is happy to exercise this advantage against you.
    - nightski 3y ago
      I'm curious, what exactly are the ramifications of this "contract law" in the context of Adobe subscriptions? Adobe will sue you? Are they suing large amounts of customers?
      - ceejayoz 3y ago
        They'll send you to collections, which'll ruin your credit.
        xyzzy4747 3y ago
plagiarist 3y ago
Glad the FTC is going after them. All predatory subscription practices need to be abolished by law.
- coldpie 3y ago
  If you like what the FTC has been doing lately, be sure to vote in 11 months...
  - plagiarist 3y ago
    I mean, sure, but what the FTC is doing is not a concern in the slightest compared to the issues at stake there. It's nice that the agency is doing something I like, though.
danpalmer 3y ago
> Adobe says the FTC is looking into its subscription cancellation practices Great news, where do I testify? Adobe tried to bribe me personally to not fight their subscription cancellation policies for the company I was representing. Given how obviously unimpressed I was with the whole thing and how I was clearly not the target market of a creative cloud subscription, I can only assume that this is a policy that the sales rep tried to push, rather than a one-off they thought might work.
- ehoh 3y ago
  Most effective thing to do relative to your time is probably participating in relevant FTC requests for public comments: https://www.ftc.gov/policy/public-comments https://www.ftc.gov/policy/public-comments
- dtx1 3y ago
  Looking at your profile, it says you work for Google, so I assume this is in the context of google? You guys probably have the internal legal resources to advice you. If it was not in that context, ChatGPT at least suggest that this is first of all a federal fucking crime (Domestic Bribery Act seems to apply here) and you can contact the Department of Justice, the FBI or report it to the SEC which offers a whistleblower program. Please consider your next steps carefully though and contact legal counsel basically immediately since you just publicly accused adobe representatives of a federal crime! Frankly, I would ask Dan to remove your comment ASAP. Fun Fact: The SEC offers financial incentives to people who report those violations!
  - anthuswilliams 3y ago
    This sounds it might be like a hallucination. I've never heard of any "Domestic Bribery Act" and I'm unable to find one in cursory online searching. (In 18 USC there are prohibitions on bribing public officials, but that doesn't seem relevant here.)
    - dtx1 3y ago
      Fascinating, i think you are correct. This website at least suggests that there are some other laws regarding domestic bribes: https://www.globalcompliancenews.com/anti-corruption/anti-corruption-in-the-united-states/ https://www.globalcompliancenews.com/anti-corruption/anti-co... But "Domestic Bribery Act" seems to be a hallucination. I have so far only encountered fake sources or links that don't exist, this kind of hallucination is new and unexpected. Thanks for making me aware of this, quite scary how utterly convincing chatGPT was in this instance.
dclowd9901 3y ago
> Adobe just buying up it's competition will only ever directly hurt consumers. I can't tell if this is a general statement about monopolies or a statement about Adobe's products.
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dkyc 3y ago

Except outlawing acquisitions by larger tech companies will absolutely reduce funding and incentives to start companies, and result in less products, less companies, and less competition.

michaelcampbell 3y ago
Just like when there WERE no megacorps to buy smaller companies and we were left with none at all.
kwertyoowiyop 3y ago
This is so far from outlawing. And we are soooooo far from having a shortage of tech startups.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  > This is so far from outlawing It's not that far. A bureaucrat will decide if you can exit the way you want to. Still want to fund this venture? > And we are soooooo far from having a shortage of tech startups. Because there hasn't been a fear of them blocking exits.
  - airstrike 3y ago
    > A bureaucrat will decide if you can exit the way you want to. It's not up to the bureaucrat but to the courts. The FTC doesn't "approve" or "reject" deals--it can just take legal action to try to stop a deal, but that still gets adjudicated either in a federal court or in an FTC administrative law court to a judge which is appointed independently. https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/merger-review https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/merger-review https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/administrative-law-judge-system https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/administrative-law-...
    - matthewowen 3y ago
      True in the US, not true in the UK or EU.
      - airstrike 3y ago
        Fair, I'm not as familiar with the UK/EU regulatory environment
        junofan 3y ago
        That’s who’s blocking the sale according to Adobe’s press release: https://news.adobe.com/news/news-details/2023/Adobe-and-Figma-Mutually-Agree-to-Terminate-Merger-Agreement/default.aspx https://news.adobe.com/news/news-details/2023/Adobe-and-Figm... Depending on specifics, the EU stopping blockbuster acquisitions in the US startup ecosystem feels ripe for abuse.
        airstrike 3y ago
        I can assure you the EU isn't blocking this to prevent US founders from making money
    - evrydayhustling 3y ago
      Adding a legal battle with the FTC to the cost of any acquisition can chill and kill otherwise obvious deals, and or sap value out of those that push through. FWIW, I think there are good reasons to limit tech consolidation, including this one. But anyone should realize that it will reshape the industry in unpredictable ways, including some that harm "real" consumers and builders.
      - airstrike 3y ago
        But anti-trust isn't being invented now. It's always existed. Companies already factor in anti-trust risk when doing M&A—it's just hard to quantify the expected value of that risk If anything, IMHO, we've been too lenient with anti-trust in Tech in particular over the past 5-10 years. This just dials things back a little, and makes it so that "hard to quantify" risk is a little more likely than it was before, and certainly a little more likely than zero I don't think Adobe / Figma specifically is an "otherwise obvious deal" precisely because it has such obvious anti-trust risk. The fact that this merger was even announced is all the proof I need that we were being too lenient. Figma can still sell to any number of huge Tech companies
  - passwordoops 3y ago
    Or, and this is a crazy idea I know, maybe start a company with the notion that it will be a profitable, long-term success instead of a lottery ticket
  - Drakim 3y ago
    A bureaucrat also decides the amount of lead you can put in your product and sell. In fact, there are all kinds of things you can't arbitrarily do because it hurts consumers, both physically and financially. This includes strengthening industry monopolies which has time and time again demonstrated that it causes incredible harm to entire segments of society.
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      > This includes strengthening industry monopolies which has time and time again demonstrated that it causes incredible harm to entire segments of society I don't think you can take a hypothetical worst case and make it apply here. You could also say that we shouldn't have governments, because look at WW2 and all the war they declared. Adobe buying Figma wouldn't cause incredible harm to entire segments of society. It's barely even a monopoly, in that Adobe doesn't really do what Figma does already, and there is incredible potential in just making another Figma competitor if Adobe ruins Figma.
  - zztop44 3y ago
    I’m pretty sure no VCs are kicking themselves for having invested in Figma.
maxehmookau 3y ago
This isn't that though. This is a company with a clear monopoly trying to hoover up smaller competition to reduce competition. We shouldn't incentivise this behaviour, on either end. If this is the liquidity event that Figma were betting on from day 1 that's their mistake for not foreseeing regulators being unhappy about it.
DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
I'm fine with some other company buying-up Figma, just not Adobe. Microsoft could buy them (and hopefully not repeat what happened to Expression Blend) - or maybe Alludo could resurrect the Corel brand and launch Figma under that title?
- dkyc 3y ago
  The reality is that for extremely high-growth companies such as Figma, only companies with an extremely strong existing business and strategic fit can afford to acquire them. Corel, for example, was valued at $1bn in their 2019 acquisition. There's absolutely no way they could acquire Figma. At the same time, VCs are betting on Figma-like outsized exits for their model work. I get people are dying to stick it to the big tech cos, but the reality is that the long-term effect of actions like this is reduced funding and less new, disruptive companies – and strengthening the situation for the cash-rich behemoths like Microsoft, Google, etc.
  - tonyedgecombe 3y ago
    They couldn't acquire Figma for $20 billion but that doesn't mean Figma isn't acquirable. It just means the founders and investors get a bit less. > and strengthening the situation for the cash-rich behemoths like Microsoft, Google, etc. It certainly isn't good for Adobe as they will have a strong competitor in Figma to deal with.
    - DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
      > It certainly isn't good for Adobe It is good for Adobe: they'll be forced to make their products better. ...I hope!
      - tonyedgecombe 3y ago
        >It is good for Adobe: they'll be forced to make their products bette Which they thought was harder than spending $20 billion acquiring a competitor.
madeofpalk 3y ago
I think this is net-negative for consumers, in a pretty significant way. If the most incentivised lifecycle is to seek VC investment to make a non-susitainable product in the hope of being acquired and swallowed into The Borg and shut down, we still end up with less good products. - Product life-cycles become short, consumers are weary of anything new. How many times have you seen product launches here on HN where the top comments are worrying about sustainability? That either there will be a rug-pull for consumers in the future, or they just plan to be acquired and shut down. - Larger companies continue to have no incentive to actually improve their product and compete with others if they just purchase everything in the market.
- Pet_Ant 3y ago
  > If the most incentivised lifecycle is to seek VC investment to make a non-susitainable product in the hope of being acquired and swallowed into The Borg and shut down, we still end up with less good products. "Aim for the moon so if you miss you still end up amongst the stars." The actual _goal_ is to be an independent successful company, but getting bought is the back up option that provides a safety net. If it was success-or-bust (no "-or-get-bought") the risk calculus would not make it worth it. It would make the American economy much more conservative and much more like Europe.
  - floren 3y ago
    But when the most common business plan is "1. Spend VC millions, 2. Acquire non-paying customers, 3. ???, 4. Profit!" it kinda seems like the un-written step 3 is "get acquired by a MAGMA company". You just say something like "oh, we'll get revenue by adding advertising / premium accounts later" as a fig-leaf for the public.
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brendoelfrendo 3y ago
If your only goal in founding a company is to get acquired, you haven't made a company; you've made a product, and probably not a profitable one. We should be encouraging way more medium-sized companies, that operate sustainable business models, make money for their founders and employees, and aren't subsidized by cheap money. I think if startups actually had to sustain themselves we'd see a lot less grift and waste in VC.
- jen20 3y ago
  I don’t disagree with the notion that there should be more medium sized, self sustaining (“lifestyle?”) companies, but such statements are rarely if ever followed up with _why_ this is a desirable outcome for everyone involved.
  - graphe 3y ago
    Or no lifestyle companies. What would be the harm without them?
  - brendoelfrendo 3y ago
    I guess it comes back to how you view the current system. If you find the idea of unicorns and acquisitions and the further centralization of capital distasteful, it's kind of self-evident why you'd want to see something that represents a break from that norm. For me, yes, I see the obvious argument that more money leads to more (and faster) innovation. But it can also result in an economy that is too tightly coupled and dependent on the might of a few massive companies, whereas an economy that is distributed across more smaller businesses is more robust. At the extreme, you might imagine South Korea: a country that is highly consolidated into one or two major cities and propped up by massive, economy-shaping corporations. I don't think anyone would disagree that Korea made massive economic strides in a short period of time, but I think there's much more debate about the long-term health of the Korean economy and people now that their continued prosperity is so centralized. And, of course, there's the consumer angle; though I can't claim any scientific methodology, my impression of the sentiments surrounding this merger are that it was pretty popular with Figma's investors and employees (understandably so, as they stood to gain from the merger), but was deeply unpopular with their customers. You could make the argument that "a Figma owned by Adobe is better than no Figma at all," but consumers have seen it all before at this point: a good product is acquired, and then either a) the pricing model changes, b) the rate of innovation slows down, c) the product is ultimately abandoned somewhere down the line, etc, etc. None of these outcomes are essential truths, but they are common outcomes of companies getting larger and larger to the point where a business unit that is otherwise healthy is deprioritized because it is not profitable enough or growing fast enough for the larger parent to care; or, conversely, the smaller parts suffer because the larger parent encounters trouble and can no longer sustain their acquisitions, even if they are keeping the bloat afloat.
whatisthiseven 3y ago
I think it's fine if no one starts vampiric companies that dump free services on the public destroying the perceived value of software for the purpose of a fast unicorn exit. Of course, these companies always look to advertising for funding so they are obtrusive. Unless you are thinking of real companies that would be affected by this ban? Retail stores don't care about this ban. Companies that sell real products wouldn't care. If they sell real software services and plan to turn a positive profit rather than exit this wouldn't impact anyone other than unicorn chasers, which are bad for everyone.
- matthewowen 3y ago
  But Figma isn’t a vampiric company dumping free services for the purpose of a fast exit. It’s been around for over a decade and charges _more_ for its principal product than Adobe charges for comparable products. So by your own definition, real companies are affected by this!
  - ivan_gammel 3y ago
    The company will probably do well for the reasons you mentioned, only some late shareholders are affected. A good exit for the economy would be actually an IPO.
  - Lutger 3y ago
    I didn't know Figma was going bankrupt, is it?
    - matthewowen 3y ago
      I don’t see the relevance of that question: outcomes for companies fall onto positivity/negativity ranges beyond merely a bankrupt / not bankrupt bjnary.
  - whatisthiseven 3y ago
    I'm also ok with mega corps not buying smaller companies. It encourages further mega-corpification.
piva00 3y ago
Acquisitions also reduce competition. If competition only exists to be acquired you are only funding an ever-growing oligopoly, the more acquisitions into the oligopoly the more power they have, diminishing the number of available markets to compete in (since one of the oligopolistic companies will certainly have more capital than a newcomer). Anti-trust is not a new thing, it's even considered a foundational aspect of competitive capitalism by some thinkers...
bayindirh 3y ago
I think it's the opposite. Because many companies start with the dream of an exit with a high price tag, and what they end up developing is a missing feature from a bigger software suite, which is already enshittified by a big software house to the core. Instead, smaller companies can start and slowly get bigger while getting bigger. Affinity suite is a great example. While their photo tool is not my cup of tea, designer is great, IMHO.
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34679 3y ago
I doubt that is true. Let's say you're pitching your startup to a potential investor. Would you pitch it as "the next Adobe" or "something Adobe might want to buy"? Which one would you be more likely to invest in?
- andsoitis 3y ago
  > pitch it as "the next Adobe" or "something Adobe might want to buy"? Which one would you be more likely to invest in? I get your point, but that is not really the right framing because that is not how to pitch your startup. Tell me what it does, what its long term vision is, how and by when you’ll make money, what’s your moat, how you will grow.
benterix 3y ago
Yeah, I get it, some founders start their startup motivated by a potential MA. And this is great for them. However, as a customer, I absolutely hate this. Instead of finding a way to actually make the product/service self-sustainable, they just increase the number of (usually) free users. But once they sell, normally the new owner either shuts the service down or turns it into crap.
- coldpie 3y ago
  Yeah. Keybase was the one that really showed this model to me, and soured me on the whole startup scene. What a crap way that is to run a business.
- afavour 3y ago
  Agreed. I think if you’re passionate about an idea then you should be able to channel that energy into making it a sustainable business. If you can’t motivate yourself to do that… maybe let someone else who is motivated do it.
- chongli 3y ago
  It’s a personality thing. The type of person who starts companies tends to start a lot of them. The idea of sticking around at a company and keeping a steady hand on the tiller (after all the big product problems have been solved) is anathema to these folks. What they need is a succession plan. It just happened that mergers and acquisitions turned out to be the cleanest, easiest way for founders to hand over the reins. In days past, companies would go through this transition process internally, often by succession through the founder’s family. The founder may have been a very entrepreneurial type, but the child who was raised to be the successor was more of a managerial type. When it worked out, anyway. Sometimes none of the founder’s kids were suitable. Or the founder tapped the wrong kid to take over.
monkey_monkey 3y ago
Tech acquisitions haven't been outlawed. And this particular situation is applicable to perhaps 2 or 3 a year (all of which are multi-billion dollar values). I doubt very much if this will stop funding of new companies except perhaps at the level of Uber/WeWork.
Ckirby 3y ago
"Oh no!, this hampers my ability to harm industry competition and hurt society, this isn't fair!" How about you go and fling yourself in front of a bus

bilekas 3y ago

I agree to be honest, I do find it refreshing too that they're both Willing to part ways instead of trying to manipulate the system. I don't think this could just customers but even the companies themselves I don't see a loss.

andybak 3y ago
Maybe they failed to find a way round the rules? That seems more likely than a spontaneous desire to "do the right thing".
popcorncowboy 3y ago
This genuinely made me laugh thank you. But no, they're not refreshingly "willing to part ways", just that their extensive legal teams assessed every possible angle to force this through and the big chairs made a call that proceeding in the face of such harsh opposition was going to be too costly.
j4yav 3y ago
It is refreshing that they weren't able to get away with it, anyway.
vikramkr 3y ago
They themselves said they spent 15 months trying to manipulate the system and are only doing this because they failed, let's not be naive about them doing this out of the goodness of their hearts lol
eviks 3y ago
They were trying to manipulate the system, just failed at that

noirscape 3y ago

Adobes cancellation practices are literally illegal in the Netherlands by the way. The deceptive trick of "pay monthly for a full year" and then hitting you with the cancellation fee is against local law. (It's called de wet van Dam for the curious.) You have to threaten their customer support with legal complaints to make them comply with it, it's super frustrating to deal with. They do fold immediately when you do this though, so they know it's illegal but hope the frustration of getting through customer support will deter people (and avoids the legal problems). And yes I know you can just switch subscriptions and use the early cancellation period there to avoid the hit back fee from cancelling. It's the principle that's scummy.

thelittleone 3y ago
I recommend using virtual credit cards for subscriptions. I just cancel the card if the account cancellation process is hostile in anyway.
- Perz1val 3y ago
  What's the best way to acquire those?
  - leshenka 3y ago
    The bank's smartphone app?
    - ativzzz 3y ago
      Not all banks have these unfortunately, even though one time virtual cards should really be the standard for all online purchases
      - leshenka 3y ago
        Yeah, sadly. But really it's the best way to do virtual cards. If a bank doesn't offer these, next best thing is to go to the bank that does.

bomewish 3y ago

Totally agree. I resent the fact that they’d try cash out that way. At least ipo or something. More fragmentation is good for preventing monopoly.

junofan 3y ago
If Adobe’s a buyer at $20b, they’re a buyer at $20b. I don’t see how selling stock to the public along the way increases fragmentation or prevents monopoly.

cantSpellSober 3y ago

What Adobe product is intended to compete with Figma, Adobe XD?

madeofpalk 3y ago
Once upon a time, digital product design happened in Photoshop and Illustrator. Then competitors like Sketch and Figma came out with a better product. This made Adobe create XD to compete, but it was unable to make a good product so instead they tried to purcahse their competition instead of making something better. 9 months after Adobe announced it was to purchase Figma (and 3 months before it hoped the deal would close), Adobe discontinued XD.
- cantSpellSober 3y ago
  Fireworks tried to fill the gaps between PS and Illustrator, but never got traction. > Adobe discontinued XD That was my understanding as well, hmm
  - cartermatic 3y ago
    RIP to Fireworks, it's the first tool I ever used for design.
  - nolok 3y ago
    Fireworks wasn't an original Adobe product but a Macromedia one they got during the acquisition. Adobe seems to have had some massive lack of effort for those (Flash being the prime exemple).
  - madeofpalk 3y ago
    Yet another example of Adobe purchasing their biggest competition and then shutting it down!
  - i_am_jl 3y ago
    >Fireworks tried to fill the gaps between PS and Illustrator, but never got traction. I couldn't disagree more. Fireworks was a perfect blend of raster and vector editing and was killer for early 2000s web design work. It was an amazing Macromedia product that got neglected by Adobe. If I'm in a cynical mood I sometimes think it's because an up-to-date Fireworks would have cannibalized the sales of PS/AI, but I think that gives too much credit to Adobe.

spaceman_2020 3y ago

imo, Adobe is falling behind. Photoshop's generative AI is substantially worse than what I can get from models on Tensorart/CivitAI + an upscaler. It's way easier to produce something that can go live right now without much editing in CivitAI -> Upscale in Magnific -> Add to Canva.

facialwipe 3y ago
I think what you mean to say is Stable Diffusion. CivitAI is primarily a host for SD models to download and run locally.
- spaceman_2020 3y ago
  You can run many of the models directly through CivitAI. You get lower quality images, but you can upscale them through an upscaler. Just go to any model and click "Create". You can even use examples from the model to prefill the prompt. For example, you can scroll down and click "Start Creating" on this page: https://civitai.com/images/3908138 https://civitai.com/images/3908138
  - facialwipe 3y ago
    CivitAI’s web tools are great for someone getting their feet wet but it presents an extremely stripped down options UI relative what’s available in Draw Things on iOS/macOS or SHARK on Windows.
    - spaceman_2020 3y ago
      True, but that's precisely my point: even with this stripped down version, I was able to hack together exactly what I wanted for an upcoming project in far less time. I got a model in the exact hairstyle, pose, and costume I wanted. The upscaler did a pretty good job of making it production ready. This stuff is wildly productive for noobs who just want to get stuff out. Maybe its not something you'd see in an Apple ad, but its definitely something you'll see in a small business ad.
3y ago

SnowingXIV 3y ago

Got bit by this. It felt absolutely horrible to not have any recourse. We had a yearly adobe sign contract, it was based on a particular usage estimate and quite high. Called in weeks before the renewal and they said we missed the window to cancel. There was no option out of it. No escalation. Had to stomach a massive bill for of a product we weren't going to use.

GoRudy 3y ago
Is not paying an option? Ran into this issue with a large software provider once but they had some actual account management negligence / weren't responsive so we used that to hang our hat on not paying and eventually they let it go.
- jdewerd 3y ago
  No, because contract law is built for centuries past and lets Adobe screw you for trying this. Not sure if they do, but they definitely could. Back when communication latency was days or weeks, allowing sticky auto-renew that ignored payment failure and asked for a lot of heads up time on a cancellation made sense. It was exploitable, but it was worth it to buffer the latency. Now we don't have the latency, so it's just exploitable, the law hasn't caught up yet, and Adobe is happy to exercise this advantage against you.
  - nightski 3y ago
    I'm curious, what exactly are the ramifications of this "contract law" in the context of Adobe subscriptions? Adobe will sue you? Are they suing large amounts of customers?
    - ceejayoz 3y ago
      They'll send you to collections, which'll ruin your credit.
      - xyzzy4747 3y ago

plagiarist 3y ago

Glad the FTC is going after them. All predatory subscription practices need to be abolished by law.

coldpie 3y ago
If you like what the FTC has been doing lately, be sure to vote in 11 months...
- plagiarist 3y ago
  I mean, sure, but what the FTC is doing is not a concern in the slightest compared to the issues at stake there. It's nice that the agency is doing something I like, though.

danpalmer 3y ago

> Adobe says the FTC is looking into its subscription cancellation practices Great news, where do I testify? Adobe tried to bribe me personally to not fight their subscription cancellation policies for the company I was representing. Given how obviously unimpressed I was with the whole thing and how I was clearly not the target market of a creative cloud subscription, I can only assume that this is a policy that the sales rep tried to push, rather than a one-off they thought might work.

ehoh 3y ago
Most effective thing to do relative to your time is probably participating in relevant FTC requests for public comments: https://www.ftc.gov/policy/public-comments https://www.ftc.gov/policy/public-comments
dtx1 3y ago
Looking at your profile, it says you work for Google, so I assume this is in the context of google? You guys probably have the internal legal resources to advice you. If it was not in that context, ChatGPT at least suggest that this is first of all a federal fucking crime (Domestic Bribery Act seems to apply here) and you can contact the Department of Justice, the FBI or report it to the SEC which offers a whistleblower program. Please consider your next steps carefully though and contact legal counsel basically immediately since you just publicly accused adobe representatives of a federal crime! Frankly, I would ask Dan to remove your comment ASAP. Fun Fact: The SEC offers financial incentives to people who report those violations!
- anthuswilliams 3y ago
  This sounds it might be like a hallucination. I've never heard of any "Domestic Bribery Act" and I'm unable to find one in cursory online searching. (In 18 USC there are prohibitions on bribing public officials, but that doesn't seem relevant here.)
  - dtx1 3y ago
    Fascinating, i think you are correct. This website at least suggests that there are some other laws regarding domestic bribes: https://www.globalcompliancenews.com/anti-corruption/anti-corruption-in-the-united-states/ https://www.globalcompliancenews.com/anti-corruption/anti-co... But "Domestic Bribery Act" seems to be a hallucination. I have so far only encountered fake sources or links that don't exist, this kind of hallucination is new and unexpected. Thanks for making me aware of this, quite scary how utterly convincing chatGPT was in this instance.

dclowd9901 3y ago

> Adobe just buying up it's competition will only ever directly hurt consumers. I can't tell if this is a general statement about monopolies or a statement about Adobe's products.

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