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Now that the basic tools are all free, they no longer make money. AI features are the only thing that makes money, so all development is going to funneled into

Now that the basic tools are all free, they no longer make money. AI features are the only thing that makes money, so all development is going to funneled into the AI features exclusively.

jessep 1y ago
That doesn't make sense. The free part is the marketing, the more people like it, the faster it spreads. I run a freemium business and all the motivation internally is to increase growth by improving the free product. Once you achieve a good conversion to pro, any more will slow down growth. At that point, all you care about is improving the product for free users to generate word of mouth, and building features that will do so.
dannyw 1y ago
Hi, Canva employee & Affinity user+lover for 10+ years (pre-acquisition) here. That’s not true. We really do want to make all design, including professional design, as widely accessible as possible; including those who can’t afford it. I understand this could be interpreted as ‘corporate PR’, but even from a game-theory sense, you’d want to maximize the top of your funnel, which is free users.
- meindnoch 1y ago
  We don't believe you.
  - browningstreet 1y ago
    I've used free Canva and premium Canva on and off for years. Based on their track record, I'm keeping an open mind.
- slig 1y ago
  Will we still be able to use our paid license without having to connect it to a Canva account?
- drivingmenuts 1y ago
  Why did you combine the products into one? Separately, each product was focused and capable; each product did one thing well, and integrated cleanly with the other products. There was no need to combine them, even if you wanted to add in the AI features. And I sure as hell can design just fine without a Canva account.
  - yoz-y 1y ago
    Publisher was already the combined version, kind-of. I never needed that one but it has the three personas.
- microflash 1y ago
  I loved Affinity v1 suite's offline activation model. Sadly that changed in v2 and the same thing is happening now. Is there any hope to enable activating v2 offline? That way I can still install and use it when you eventually shutdown the activation server.
  - dannyw 1y ago
    I understand why this is important. I’ll try my best to see what we can do :) Thank you for the great feedback.
    - freeAgent 1y ago
      It would be great to patch the v2 apps into an "offline mode." Then you don't have to worry about maintaining the license servers.
      - ryandrake 1y ago
        +1, I'm still on v1, partially because it required no account, no tether to the developer to activate. Just a straightforward purchase. I give them money, they give me an activation key, and our relationship is OVER. Why companies keep insisting on complicating this with accounts and online activations, I'll never know and never agree to.
- MatthiasPortzel 1y ago
  > We really do want to make all design, including professional design, as widely accessible as possible In the lead up to this launch, for the last month, Serif products were unavailable for purchase, leaving me unable to open the document that I created while on a free-trial. It would be dumb of me to create more documents in the proprietary affinity format, because there's nothing stopping you from deciding to do some other marketing stunt that involves removing my access to open my documents in the future. I'm advocating for open source not as "moving the goal post" but as the ONLY thing that guarantees that I have the right and ability to continue running the software on my own device.
- underlipton 1y ago
  >We really do want to make all design, including professional design, as widely accessible as possible; including those who can’t afford it. Open source it, then.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- KevinDonnot 1y ago
  Hello, As a professional book designer and graphic design professor, I am sorry but I can’t rely to switch my main tools (and student guidance) over policy claim from Canva. I totally get that inference and maintaining software is very costly. If the business model is only oriented toward AI tools, a very good proof of good faith would be to open source and provide a pay-per-use AI API. I have no doubts that a good part of the graphic design community would quickly shift to free as in free speech tools with a foreseeable future. We desperately need a Blender for DTP…

Now that the basic tools are all free, they no longer make money. AI features are the only thing that makes money, so all development is going to funneled into the AI features exclusively.

jessep 1y ago

That doesn't make sense. The free part is the marketing, the more people like it, the faster it spreads. I run a freemium business and all the motivation internally is to increase growth by improving the free product. Once you achieve a good conversion to pro, any more will slow down growth. At that point, all you care about is improving the product for free users to generate word of mouth, and building features that will do so.

dannyw 1y ago

Hi, Canva employee & Affinity user+lover for 10+ years (pre-acquisition) here. That’s not true. We really do want to make all design, including professional design, as widely accessible as possible; including those who can’t afford it. I understand this could be interpreted as ‘corporate PR’, but even from a game-theory sense, you’d want to maximize the top of your funnel, which is free users.

meindnoch 1y ago
We don't believe you.
- browningstreet 1y ago
  I've used free Canva and premium Canva on and off for years. Based on their track record, I'm keeping an open mind.
slig 1y ago
Will we still be able to use our paid license without having to connect it to a Canva account?
drivingmenuts 1y ago
Why did you combine the products into one? Separately, each product was focused and capable; each product did one thing well, and integrated cleanly with the other products. There was no need to combine them, even if you wanted to add in the AI features. And I sure as hell can design just fine without a Canva account.
- yoz-y 1y ago
  Publisher was already the combined version, kind-of. I never needed that one but it has the three personas.
microflash 1y ago
I loved Affinity v1 suite's offline activation model. Sadly that changed in v2 and the same thing is happening now. Is there any hope to enable activating v2 offline? That way I can still install and use it when you eventually shutdown the activation server.
- dannyw 1y ago
  I understand why this is important. I’ll try my best to see what we can do :) Thank you for the great feedback.
  - freeAgent 1y ago
    It would be great to patch the v2 apps into an "offline mode." Then you don't have to worry about maintaining the license servers.
    - ryandrake 1y ago
      +1, I'm still on v1, partially because it required no account, no tether to the developer to activate. Just a straightforward purchase. I give them money, they give me an activation key, and our relationship is OVER. Why companies keep insisting on complicating this with accounts and online activations, I'll never know and never agree to.
MatthiasPortzel 1y ago
> We really do want to make all design, including professional design, as widely accessible as possible In the lead up to this launch, for the last month, Serif products were unavailable for purchase, leaving me unable to open the document that I created while on a free-trial. It would be dumb of me to create more documents in the proprietary affinity format, because there's nothing stopping you from deciding to do some other marketing stunt that involves removing my access to open my documents in the future. I'm advocating for open source not as "moving the goal post" but as the ONLY thing that guarantees that I have the right and ability to continue running the software on my own device.
underlipton 1y ago
>We really do want to make all design, including professional design, as widely accessible as possible; including those who can’t afford it. Open source it, then.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
KevinDonnot 1y ago
Hello, As a professional book designer and graphic design professor, I am sorry but I can’t rely to switch my main tools (and student guidance) over policy claim from Canva. I totally get that inference and maintaining software is very costly. If the business model is only oriented toward AI tools, a very good proof of good faith would be to open source and provide a pay-per-use AI API. I have no doubts that a good part of the graphic design community would quickly shift to free as in free speech tools with a foreseeable future. We desperately need a Blender for DTP…