5 ms·

I bought CS6 Suite back in 2012 and used it well into 2021. Before that I had a patchwork of CS3 programs from 2005 I was given the discs for second-hand. Nowad

by Tanoc 6mo ago

I bought CS6 Suite back in 2012 and used it well into 2021. Before that I had a patchwork of CS3 programs from 2005 I was given the discs for second-hand. Nowadays I use Krita, ffmpeg, Blender, Zim Desktop Wiki, and Inkscape to replace Flash/Animator, Photoshop, Premier, Dreamweaver, and Fireworks. CS6 cost me $549 back in 2012 under a pretty generous student discount, but would've been $1,800 otherwise. That's $790 and $2,500 adjusted for inflation if you still trust the BLS' CPI calculations. If you buy Adobe CC Pro's all-in-one bundle you get one year at a time to use it, for almost the same price as it cost me to use CS6 Suite for nine. You can't even get secondhand instances of the software like I did as a youth with CS3. The only way to get that nowadays is through piracy, which predisposes users to piracy anyways because the pirates actually disable Adobe's broken cloud features that hinder your work. Meanwhile Blender, ffmpeg, Krita, ZIM, and Inkscape are all free but which I support with donations. We all saw this coming back in 2015 when CC first came out. It's just that the revolt was expected to happen sooner.

wongarsu 6mo ago
For regular, undiscounted prices the subscription prices were somewhat fair. Regular Photoshop CS5 was $700, or $1000 for the extended version. And $200 to upgrade. Now it's a $300/year subscription. But students really got shafted. You used to get 80-90% student discounts, and could keep using the same version for years. Including keeping the software when you were no longer a student
- nradov 6mo ago
  You're not wrong, but students often have to spend more than $300 per semester (not year) just on textbooks.
  - ctoth 6mo ago
    Textbooks cost more, therefore what?
    - rolph 6mo ago
      course materials packages, lab books, lecture slides, published in house by the prof/instructor/lecturer. or, someone in the cohort copies and disseminates from textbook[s]. copyrightist would have to put an investigator, in the institution to break it up, but ive never heard of that beyond monitoring library usage of photocopiers.
  - cableshaft 6mo ago
    Why don't you ask the students how much they love doing that. I'm sure they'll have nothing but nice things to say.
    - nradov 6mo ago
      I don't need to ask, I didn't love it when I was a student. I wasn't claiming that this is a good thing.
  - dghlsakjg 6mo ago
    There is a massive amount of criticism around textbook pricing, especially since they include licenses for the software you need to do your homework. Adobe and text book publishers are both inexcusably exploitative.
  - newsclues 6mo ago
    Oh no books cost money. Have you seen how much tuition is? To be in an old classroom and learn decades old math and English? It's almost like I could drop out, work on campus and read books at the library for free. I just wasn't Good Looking Will Hunting.
    - DroneBetter 6mo ago
      age doesn't inherently make math less useful, and the parts it does affect it does non-uniformly. i have undergone an undergrad differential equations module that taught exclusively ad-hoc methods for certain families of equation that no working mathematician needs to know since they were all subsumed into and superseded by computer algebra systems, but the subject i would enjoy replacing it with (generating functions) is similarly old in origin (perhaps even earlier, since Euler used most of the techniques that an undergrad class would cover before diffeqs were considered an object of study) but has happened to become more useful with the advent of CASes instead of less.
  - bnj 6mo ago
    In my circles it is regular and routine for students to use an older edition, pirate, and/or use library copies. Many students literally can’t afford to buy the books at list price and find other ways to manage.
  - anigbrowl 6mo ago
    The fact that students are scammed in one area isn't a compelling argument for them to get scammed in others.
  - rolymath 6mo ago
    Only in America.
- vondur 6mo ago
  At the CSU we had a deal for students to get the Adobe suite for $20 per semester. At certain CSU’s it’s now free for every student. CSU is the California State University system.
Unbeliever69 6mo ago
I bought the master collection CS6 in 2010 and still use it to this day to maintain legacy files. To my delight, it still does 99% of everything I need to do. I haven't given Adobe a dime since. Unlike Autodesk that has maintained its moat (vendor lock-in) around AutoCAD through patents, Adobe has not had a piece of software I couldn't replace with a free or low-cost alternative for the last 15 years. I'm not against paying companies for their software, but it is clear that the conflated subscription models/licenses have come at a cost to their reputation.
- ghighi7878 6mo ago
  I am surprised that patents (and not regulatory requirements) is what keeps autodesk alive in the field
- gljiva 6mo ago
  ProgeCAD seems to be a viable alternative lately. I have heard positive reviews from a perfectionist that does _a lot_ of telecom-related projects in it after years of AutoCAD.
Lammy 6mo ago
> You can't even get secondhand instances of the software like I did as a youth with CS3. Were you able to get the DRM-free “offline” CS3 installers during the time they were offered? I will cherish mine forever lol https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24865636 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24865636 Still using Photoshop CS3 for my daily image-editing needs in Windows 11 on my Framework Laptop 12. Mostly cleaning up album art for my music library metadata and cleaning up my flatbed scans (removing damaged spots, fixing UV fade, hiding the glare from the scanner passing a horizontal light over something that has been creased for years (like a DVD/BD case sleeve), etc.
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- Tanoc 6mo ago
  No. I have a copy of Flash CS3 for helping with archival efforts or digging into Skyrim and Fallout 4 when friends ask though. As far as I know it's the last version that accepts all three versions of Actionscript.

by Tanoc 6mo ago

wongarsu 6mo ago

For regular, undiscounted prices the subscription prices were somewhat fair. Regular Photoshop CS5 was $700, or $1000 for the extended version. And $200 to upgrade. Now it's a $300/year subscription. But students really got shafted. You used to get 80-90% student discounts, and could keep using the same version for years. Including keeping the software when you were no longer a student

nradov 6mo ago
You're not wrong, but students often have to spend more than $300 per semester (not year) just on textbooks.
- ctoth 6mo ago
  Textbooks cost more, therefore what?
  - rolph 6mo ago
    course materials packages, lab books, lecture slides, published in house by the prof/instructor/lecturer. or, someone in the cohort copies and disseminates from textbook[s]. copyrightist would have to put an investigator, in the institution to break it up, but ive never heard of that beyond monitoring library usage of photocopiers.
- cableshaft 6mo ago
  Why don't you ask the students how much they love doing that. I'm sure they'll have nothing but nice things to say.
  - nradov 6mo ago
    I don't need to ask, I didn't love it when I was a student. I wasn't claiming that this is a good thing.
- dghlsakjg 6mo ago
  There is a massive amount of criticism around textbook pricing, especially since they include licenses for the software you need to do your homework. Adobe and text book publishers are both inexcusably exploitative.
- newsclues 6mo ago
  Oh no books cost money. Have you seen how much tuition is? To be in an old classroom and learn decades old math and English? It's almost like I could drop out, work on campus and read books at the library for free. I just wasn't Good Looking Will Hunting.
  - DroneBetter 6mo ago
    age doesn't inherently make math less useful, and the parts it does affect it does non-uniformly. i have undergone an undergrad differential equations module that taught exclusively ad-hoc methods for certain families of equation that no working mathematician needs to know since they were all subsumed into and superseded by computer algebra systems, but the subject i would enjoy replacing it with (generating functions) is similarly old in origin (perhaps even earlier, since Euler used most of the techniques that an undergrad class would cover before diffeqs were considered an object of study) but has happened to become more useful with the advent of CASes instead of less.
- bnj 6mo ago
  In my circles it is regular and routine for students to use an older edition, pirate, and/or use library copies. Many students literally can’t afford to buy the books at list price and find other ways to manage.
- anigbrowl 6mo ago
  The fact that students are scammed in one area isn't a compelling argument for them to get scammed in others.
- rolymath 6mo ago
  Only in America.
vondur 6mo ago
At the CSU we had a deal for students to get the Adobe suite for $20 per semester. At certain CSU’s it’s now free for every student. CSU is the California State University system.

Unbeliever69 6mo ago

I bought the master collection CS6 in 2010 and still use it to this day to maintain legacy files. To my delight, it still does 99% of everything I need to do. I haven't given Adobe a dime since. Unlike Autodesk that has maintained its moat (vendor lock-in) around AutoCAD through patents, Adobe has not had a piece of software I couldn't replace with a free or low-cost alternative for the last 15 years. I'm not against paying companies for their software, but it is clear that the conflated subscription models/licenses have come at a cost to their reputation.

ghighi7878 6mo ago
I am surprised that patents (and not regulatory requirements) is what keeps autodesk alive in the field
gljiva 6mo ago
ProgeCAD seems to be a viable alternative lately. I have heard positive reviews from a perfectionist that does _a lot_ of telecom-related projects in it after years of AutoCAD.

Lammy 6mo ago

> You can't even get secondhand instances of the software like I did as a youth with CS3. Were you able to get the DRM-free “offline” CS3 installers during the time they were offered? I will cherish mine forever lol https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24865636 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24865636 Still using Photoshop CS3 for my daily image-editing needs in Windows 11 on my Framework Laptop 12. Mostly cleaning up album art for my music library metadata and cleaning up my flatbed scans (removing damaged spots, fixing UV fade, hiding the glare from the scanner passing a horizontal light over something that has been creased for years (like a DVD/BD case sleeve), etc.

deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
Tanoc 6mo ago
No. I have a copy of Flash CS3 for helping with archival efforts or digging into Skyrim and Fallout 4 when friends ask though. As far as I know it's the last version that accepts all three versions of Actionscript.