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> Companies that choose to offer lump-sum permanent licenses have to make a bigger effort to convince customers to upgrade, which means the product improves. W

> Companies that choose to offer lump-sum permanent licenses have to make a bigger effort to convince customers to upgrade, which means the product improves. Why can't they expand their customer base instead? With a great product, you sell millions of copies, pay everybody's salaries and pay investors. Something like for example Affinity should in a rational market eat at least half of Adobes customer base with their current offerings. So maybe it's a problem of marketing? I have never in my life seen an advertisement for any app with a pay-once offer, even though I have bought most of my apps as pay-once. And they're always several levels higher in quality than other offerings.

trollbridge 1y ago
Affinity did have a growing userbase, partly because you could just buy the app for $50 and use it perpetually. I assume with Canva buying them out and making it "free", Affinity will fade away and eventually just be folded into subscription-only, cloud-only "products".
- ryandrake 1y ago
  This is exactly why I bought Affinity. That, and the fact that the old version did not require an "account" and "activation". You send them money, they give you an unlock key, and that's the end of your relationship with them.
tonyedgecombe 1y ago
>Something like for example Affinity should in a rational market eat at least half of Adobes customer base with their current offerings. So maybe it's a problem of marketing? I suspect Adobe's customers look at their tools in a different way to the typical HN poster. They don't want too many new features because that disrupts their existing workflow. They would prefer to get annoying bugs fixed over something that causes them to relearn the software. They aren't even that worried about subscriptions because the software is a means to an income.
- carlosjobim 1y ago
  You're probably right. But Adobe were also very successful when they used the pay-once model.
- okayjustonemore 1y ago
  Graphic designer here. Adobe’s products are the golden standard in the industry and are often the only products used by entire graphic teams, being the odd one out using Affinity’s or (heaven forbid) Corel’s tools makes collaboration difficult (if not entirely impossible) due to how unfriendly and unpredictable portability between apps can be, and unpredictable is the last thing you want in an environment where precision is absolutely essencial. It’s sad, really. Adobe’s apps are powerful, yes, but they’re stuck in time. They perform horrendously and have terrible UI/X that aren’t even standardised between apps (even something as simple as the icon for their own assets library cloud is not the same between apps). How I wish someone would come along and eat Adobe’s lunch to force it to pull itself together for once, but alas, that’s unlikely at best.
  - carlosjobim 1y ago
    Considering how cheap Affinity is (and now it's free). Why don't studios just get both apps? There's almost no learning curve in switching between them. I foresee a lot of smaller actors switching to Affinity in the future, just like tons of people went to Canvas.
    - okayjustonemore 1y ago
      Canva is a nice tool for light work only, but no studio, agency or design department worth their salt relies on Canva for more serious work—and rightfully so, Canva is not a player in the same space as Adobe and Affinity, for example. Affinity is nice, and I really do wish they would corner Adobe a bit more so they could get their act together. But the fact is Adobe has encroached upon every corner of this industry, pretty much all of their apps are the standard tools for any given design job (from both a software and hardware perspective). It would take a massive amount of effort to convince designers used to Adobe’s tools to switch to an unproven new tool, and it would take an even bigger effort to actually make these new tools become the standard. I would love to give Adobe the boot, but the truth is that no one has been able to meet Adobe’s apps head on as of yet.

trollbridge 1y ago

Affinity did have a growing userbase, partly because you could just buy the app for $50 and use it perpetually. I assume with Canva buying them out and making it "free", Affinity will fade away and eventually just be folded into subscription-only, cloud-only "products".

ryandrake 1y ago
This is exactly why I bought Affinity. That, and the fact that the old version did not require an "account" and "activation". You send them money, they give you an unlock key, and that's the end of your relationship with them.

tonyedgecombe 1y ago

>Something like for example Affinity should in a rational market eat at least half of Adobes customer base with their current offerings. So maybe it's a problem of marketing? I suspect Adobe's customers look at their tools in a different way to the typical HN poster. They don't want too many new features because that disrupts their existing workflow. They would prefer to get annoying bugs fixed over something that causes them to relearn the software. They aren't even that worried about subscriptions because the software is a means to an income.

carlosjobim 1y ago
You're probably right. But Adobe were also very successful when they used the pay-once model.
okayjustonemore 1y ago
Graphic designer here. Adobe’s products are the golden standard in the industry and are often the only products used by entire graphic teams, being the odd one out using Affinity’s or (heaven forbid) Corel’s tools makes collaboration difficult (if not entirely impossible) due to how unfriendly and unpredictable portability between apps can be, and unpredictable is the last thing you want in an environment where precision is absolutely essencial. It’s sad, really. Adobe’s apps are powerful, yes, but they’re stuck in time. They perform horrendously and have terrible UI/X that aren’t even standardised between apps (even something as simple as the icon for their own assets library cloud is not the same between apps). How I wish someone would come along and eat Adobe’s lunch to force it to pull itself together for once, but alas, that’s unlikely at best.
- carlosjobim 1y ago
  Considering how cheap Affinity is (and now it's free). Why don't studios just get both apps? There's almost no learning curve in switching between them. I foresee a lot of smaller actors switching to Affinity in the future, just like tons of people went to Canvas.
  - okayjustonemore 1y ago
    Canva is a nice tool for light work only, but no studio, agency or design department worth their salt relies on Canva for more serious work—and rightfully so, Canva is not a player in the same space as Adobe and Affinity, for example. Affinity is nice, and I really do wish they would corner Adobe a bit more so they could get their act together. But the fact is Adobe has encroached upon every corner of this industry, pretty much all of their apps are the standard tools for any given design job (from both a software and hardware perspective). It would take a massive amount of effort to convince designers used to Adobe’s tools to switch to an unproven new tool, and it would take an even bigger effort to actually make these new tools become the standard. I would love to give Adobe the boot, but the truth is that no one has been able to meet Adobe’s apps head on as of yet.