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Completely agree! I also refuse to put gas in my car because I know that prices will go up later... Or on a more serious note: I use Affinity professionally (p

Completely agree! I also refuse to put gas in my car because I know that prices will go up later... Or on a more serious note: I use Affinity professionally (previously PhotoShop). Why would I care the slightest about what they might or might not do with their pricing model in the future? I need software that delivers right now.

earthling8118 2y ago
I don't want to pay for the car nor the gas. Let's not let the same hostage situation extend to other aspects of our lives it we can avoid it.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  If you don't want to pay for the car, why are you complaining about car dealerships? I don't think anyone here is opposed to the concept of paying for professional tooling in any way, shape, nor form.
anonymousab 2y ago
For the same reason that you would care with Photoshop or Premier or Lightroom; you're investing money in learning and building your workflow around a tool that is guaranteed to go down the subscription and enshittification path.
- carlosjobim 2y ago
  Your computer will not explode if or when Affinity changes to a subscription model. You'll still have the software and can use it until the next ice age if you please.
  - roughly 2y ago
    Well, until there's an OS update. Most of us have gone down this road before - the old software works until it doesn't, it runs on the old hardware until that doesn't, it's usable until it's not. The actuarial table for any given software release is north of 5 years and south of 10.
    - carlosjobim 2y ago
      We're talking about professional software. If you're a professional you have a machine dedicated to that work. If a software update will break software you've paid for and need to use, you don't update that machine. Between 5 and 10 years is a perfectly reasonable run time for paid pro software. You can also keep the old machine around for the software and have a new machine for other needs.
      - roughly 2y ago
        > Between 5 and 10 years is a perfectly reasonable run time for paid pro software. Not really a reasonable run time for a career, though. What do you do after that?
        carlosjobim 2y ago
        If I was successful with my career, I hope I would have saved up 50 dollars in 10 years so I could buy the new version of the software or buy an old used computer to run my old version on.
      - TeMPOraL 2y ago
        > If you're a professional you have a machine dedicated to that work. If a software update will break software you've paid for and need to use, you don't update that machine. Yes, that's exactly the right thing to do. Only then the security folks will start whining about factories and shipping terminals being controlled by ancient PCs with WinXP (not to mention power plants with hardware and software older than most of us on this site). In fact, the security folks and the business folks align enough on it that professional software is force-feeding you updates too, and you can't do anything about it unless you're a multinational megacorp and can afford to make bespoke deals with OS vendors. > Between 5 and 10 years is a perfectly reasonable run time for paid pro software. 5 is the minimum. Legal minimum for some documents, in some cases. Still, the problem usually isn't upgrades per se, it's that universally these days, newer versions of products are almost always inferior in terms of functionality, performance and ergonomics. So, I might be easily able to afford refreshing my software tools after 5 ways of using them to earn a living, but then I discover they all went to shit and new versions are worse than the versions I have (and even worse, half of the software is now subscription-only).
  - vsuperpower2020 2y ago
    I just don't understand why you're using your own time to defend predatory business models that inevitably screw over the user. You can't just sit on an old piece of software and expect it to work forever because the companies do not want that. I know you're not being malicious but we have so many receipts of this happening. People have plenty of reasons to not want to support companies doing this, and to be wary when they move in this direction. 10 years down the line their DRM stops working because you're on locked down, ancient hardware and they don't want to support your OS anymore. Steam is relatively benevolent and now there are games you bought and paid for that require a version of windows that steam no longer supports. Maybe they just do what autodesk did, revoke your perpetual license, and tell you to buy a subscription? Maybe you need to replace your motherboard and it counts as a "new" computer, and it no longer runs on. Maybe they take away your ability to reinstall it on another device because offline authorization no longer is enabled, and their online services don't support your old license. Both of these were done by reason studio. I hope you didn't buy a $400 perpetual license and expect it to work until the ice age. Maybe they change the ToS like blizzard, and you now have to agree to the new ToS to continue using the software you bought and paid for? Maybe the company switches to a subscription model, and then updates the ToS to say you owe them an indeterminate amount of money that you never agreed to, like the whole unity fiasco? I am so sick of people pretending the free market of software isn't rigged against the user. Every single company screws us over and I hate to see people defend it because they think you can just opt out of it.
    - carlosjobim 2y ago
      And I don't understand why you would write such a long rant about something that hasn't happened and "get sick of people". Learn to love yourself and you can love others. I'm happy to pay for quality software, both professional and consumer. With Affinity it took exactly one project to recoup much more than the cost ($50) of the software, and I expect that to be true for 99% of graphics professionals. > Maybe the company switches to a subscription model, and then updates the ToS to say you owe them an indeterminate amount of money that you never agreed to Yeah, and then I'll laugh my ass off at them. It's like me writing that anybody who reads this comment owes me a hundred dollars. Now you read it, now you pay. Or not.

earthling8118 2y ago

I don't want to pay for the car nor the gas. Let's not let the same hostage situation extend to other aspects of our lives it we can avoid it.

johnnyanmac 2y ago
If you don't want to pay for the car, why are you complaining about car dealerships? I don't think anyone here is opposed to the concept of paying for professional tooling in any way, shape, nor form.

anonymousab 2y ago

For the same reason that you would care with Photoshop or Premier or Lightroom; you're investing money in learning and building your workflow around a tool that is guaranteed to go down the subscription and enshittification path.

carlosjobim 2y ago
Your computer will not explode if or when Affinity changes to a subscription model. You'll still have the software and can use it until the next ice age if you please.
- roughly 2y ago
  Well, until there's an OS update. Most of us have gone down this road before - the old software works until it doesn't, it runs on the old hardware until that doesn't, it's usable until it's not. The actuarial table for any given software release is north of 5 years and south of 10.
  - carlosjobim 2y ago
    We're talking about professional software. If you're a professional you have a machine dedicated to that work. If a software update will break software you've paid for and need to use, you don't update that machine. Between 5 and 10 years is a perfectly reasonable run time for paid pro software. You can also keep the old machine around for the software and have a new machine for other needs.
    - roughly 2y ago
      > Between 5 and 10 years is a perfectly reasonable run time for paid pro software. Not really a reasonable run time for a career, though. What do you do after that?
      - carlosjobim 2y ago
        If I was successful with my career, I hope I would have saved up 50 dollars in 10 years so I could buy the new version of the software or buy an old used computer to run my old version on.
    - TeMPOraL 2y ago
      > If you're a professional you have a machine dedicated to that work. If a software update will break software you've paid for and need to use, you don't update that machine. Yes, that's exactly the right thing to do. Only then the security folks will start whining about factories and shipping terminals being controlled by ancient PCs with WinXP (not to mention power plants with hardware and software older than most of us on this site). In fact, the security folks and the business folks align enough on it that professional software is force-feeding you updates too, and you can't do anything about it unless you're a multinational megacorp and can afford to make bespoke deals with OS vendors. > Between 5 and 10 years is a perfectly reasonable run time for paid pro software. 5 is the minimum. Legal minimum for some documents, in some cases. Still, the problem usually isn't upgrades per se, it's that universally these days, newer versions of products are almost always inferior in terms of functionality, performance and ergonomics. So, I might be easily able to afford refreshing my software tools after 5 ways of using them to earn a living, but then I discover they all went to shit and new versions are worse than the versions I have (and even worse, half of the software is now subscription-only).
- vsuperpower2020 2y ago
  I just don't understand why you're using your own time to defend predatory business models that inevitably screw over the user. You can't just sit on an old piece of software and expect it to work forever because the companies do not want that. I know you're not being malicious but we have so many receipts of this happening. People have plenty of reasons to not want to support companies doing this, and to be wary when they move in this direction. 10 years down the line their DRM stops working because you're on locked down, ancient hardware and they don't want to support your OS anymore. Steam is relatively benevolent and now there are games you bought and paid for that require a version of windows that steam no longer supports. Maybe they just do what autodesk did, revoke your perpetual license, and tell you to buy a subscription? Maybe you need to replace your motherboard and it counts as a "new" computer, and it no longer runs on. Maybe they take away your ability to reinstall it on another device because offline authorization no longer is enabled, and their online services don't support your old license. Both of these were done by reason studio. I hope you didn't buy a $400 perpetual license and expect it to work until the ice age. Maybe they change the ToS like blizzard, and you now have to agree to the new ToS to continue using the software you bought and paid for? Maybe the company switches to a subscription model, and then updates the ToS to say you owe them an indeterminate amount of money that you never agreed to, like the whole unity fiasco? I am so sick of people pretending the free market of software isn't rigged against the user. Every single company screws us over and I hate to see people defend it because they think you can just opt out of it.
  - carlosjobim 2y ago
    And I don't understand why you would write such a long rant about something that hasn't happened and "get sick of people". Learn to love yourself and you can love others. I'm happy to pay for quality software, both professional and consumer. With Affinity it took exactly one project to recoup much more than the cost ($50) of the software, and I expect that to be true for 99% of graphics professionals. > Maybe the company switches to a subscription model, and then updates the ToS to say you owe them an indeterminate amount of money that you never agreed to Yeah, and then I'll laugh my ass off at them. It's like me writing that anybody who reads this comment owes me a hundred dollars. Now you read it, now you pay. Or not.