No more boxed Adobe apps/licenses

[Wayland]

Blackmailed for? Are you serious?

Very serious. If I move to CC and continued my current practice of non destructive, re-workable layered files then at the point that I stop paying Adobe I lose access to my own work.

I'm not going down the route of legal definitions which is the last resort of the desperate but in my book and the thoughts of many others that is blackmail or being held to ransom whatever you like to call it.

You conveniently skipped my concerns as laid out in post #124, perhaps because you did not have a good answer, but my concerns are unlikely to just go away and those concerns seem to be reflected by a large part of the customer base.

I suggest you stop imagining that everyone that does not buy into the Adobe mantra on this issue is deluded and try to understand why they are so upset.

I am both intelligent and highly rational. I am able to sort the disinformation, from both sides of the argument from the clear reality of the situation. I am writing this while PSP X5 downloads onto my machine so that I can start changing the structure of my lectures.

[James G]

I'm not particularly surprised at either the range of opinions, or the heat with which they are expressed in this thread.
For me key points are:-
1) Adobe has made a strategic decision to develop Cloud services further . As a commercial, profit making organisation, this comes as no surprise.
2) Disappointingly, the new model is focused on the graphic design/major players of the imaging industry, and marginalises amateur or part time professional photographers who are unable to benefit from 'multi-instance' licensing pricing advantages that do come into play with the big users.
3) Intentionally or unintentionally this also turns Creative Cloud into something like 'ransomeware' for users like myself, who have valued the developing functionality of CS over the years. This does not however disprove or invalidate the economic analyses that Colin champions, it just shows that we always were of marginal importance as customers. (Hurtful, but I'm a grown up and used to being marginalised, I'm only important to my own story)
4) Make no mistake though, I was always aware of the relatively 'high' cost of buying CS over the years. It was a considered decision getting 'best of breed' software at a premium price. Adobe has now changed the game and it's no longer a question of whether I buy the latest upgrade or wait 1 or 2 generations before I feel justified in paying again for 'best of breed'.
5) I have not yet made up my mind as to whether I will buy into the Creative Cloud. I do resent the idea that I have to pay Adobe an open ended rental fee to use whatever 'new' enhancements are introduced . I suspect that with CS6 I truly do not really need more bells and whistles, and while this obviously relates to my use of the product, it may not be the same for others.
6) What does worry me, slightly, is that Adobe could generate changes to the core package at some time in the future that would force me buying into the cloud to continue to open/use my PSD files.
I have however retained all RAW sources, and although I do revisit and reprocess older images quite frequently because of the 'increased' functionality of CS over the years, this is not something that will seriously disrupt my 'imaging adventures'. So I'll wait and see.
7) What I would Adobe to do is recognise that there is a niche area where their software has been exploited successfully and with great satisfaction by photographers who will always be singleton, low volume users, and as such marginal to their profit targets, and consider a pricing package to recognise this . They could for instance release freestanding apps (ACR as an example), with a more realistic one off or annual fee. I suspect though that this would not be seen as significantly profitable given their view of the 'marginal' importance of Lightroom when compared to CC. (Sorry, I seem to be using the word marginal rather a lot, but it seems particularly apt.)7) Like a few others, I think I'll be exploring other software options, but will continue to use CS6 until I no longer can.

In an earlier post, I said the IT world is changing and developing, and Cloud Apps will be ubiquitous. I'm not going to waste time ranting about the 'unfairness' of change. Rather I intend to continue taking photographs and enjoy developing my somewhat limited creative abilities.
If that means finding new software, fine, I'm up for the challenge. After all I spent more than 30 years playing around with film before going digital.
Isn't that what this Forum is really about?

James

[Simon Garrett]

Yes - it's software that DOES make you feel good about being able to achieve things that may be very difficult (or even impossible) to do with other tools. This is the bit I just don't get; folks don't bat an eyelid about spending many times the cost of a CC subscription on things that don't bring anywhere near the pleasure. We're talking - worst case - 66c a day for goodness sake - how many people spend 5 or 10 times that amount on a cup or two of coffee because they're too lazy to make it themselves? Or far more than that on credit card interest (from full-product purchases perhaps -- there's an interesting dynamic to add to the cost of ownership) - they waste it on junk food - they waste it on any one of a number of things - and yet when they're offered something like this that I think represents INCREDIBLE value considering what it can do people want to burn them at the stake?

Crazy thinking.

Colin, if I may say so, you're trying to rationalise what are essentially emotional value judgements. At the same time you're applying your own value judgements to others by using emotive terms like "lazy", "waste" and "crazy".

It's not entirely rational - you might say it's totally irrational - but you simply can't (usefully) say that people are "right" or "wrong" in their likes and dislikes. If I like coffee and you like tea: does that make me wrong? I like to pay for upgrades as and when I choose, you like a monthly subscription. Does that make me wrong?

We can't even agree on a valid basis of comparing the cost, because we are each making different decisions about how to factor costs in ways that may be right for us individually, even if they are different (though I still think you're wrong). These aren't business decisions, you can't apply some absolute accountants' logic.

Ultimately, neither your logic nor mine matters a jot. If customers don't like something, and they've a choice, they won't buy it. They don't have to justify their likes and dislikes.

[Adrian]

Good post with rational arguments James.

I suspect that Adobe is well aware that it has some amateur clients on the fringes of its business model. Adobe may not consider this a sufficient market to justify a direct approach to it with a different pricing or delivery model.

Wayland asserts that a concerns we have seen in this thread "seem to be reflected by a large part of the customer base". With respect, I surmise this is nonsense. It is not meaningful to extrapolate form internet chatter on forums to an assertion about the views of a customer base, when we have no idea at all of the scale of that customer base. It is the nature of internet forums when "issues" emerge, that the nay sayers wade in vocally, whereas the happy or indifferent largely keep quiet or are blithely unaware. It is therefore difficult to draw useful conclusions from forum chatter. All we know with certainty is that some people are unhappy. We do not know whether these people are relevant to Adobe or what proportion of the total customer base they represent.

Getting overly het up about these things might lead to unbalanced viewpoints

[Colin Southern]

Very serious. If I move to CC and continued my current practice of non destructive, re-workable layered files then at the point that I stop paying Adobe I lose access to my own work.

I'm not going down the route of legal definitions which is the last resort of the desperate but in my book and the thoughts of many others that is blackmail or being held to ransom whatever you like to call it.

You conveniently skipped my concerns as laid out in post #124, perhaps because you did not have a good answer, but my concerns are unlikely to just go away and those concerns seem to be reflected by a large part of the customer base.

I suggest you stop imagining that everyone that does not buy into the Adobe mantra on this issue is deluded and try to understand why they are so upset.

I am both intelligent and highly rational. I am able to sort the disinformation, from both sides of the argument from the clear reality of the situation. I am writing this while PSP X5 downloads onto my machine so that I can start changing the structure of my lectures.

Goodbye Gary.

[Wayland]

I asserted nothing, I said "seems to be" and that does not just seem to be people on the Internet, it also seems to be the people that I speak to in the real world as well.

I know at least a dozen former Adobe customers that are livid at the moment. Some of them may calm down, bend over and grab their ankles but I don't think all of them will by any means.

If that just represents the people I know in my relatively small social circle, it is not unreasonable to extrapolate that to being a significant part of the whole customer base. Maybe not a majority but still significant.

[Colin Southern]

Colin, if I may say so, you're trying to rationalise what are essentially emotional value judgements. At the same time you're applying your own value judgements to others by using emotive terms like "lazy", "waste" and "crazy".

It's not entirely rational - you might say it's totally irrational - but you simply can't (usefully) say that people are "right" or "wrong" in their likes and dislikes. If I like coffee and you like tea: does that make me wrong? I like to pay for upgrades as and when I choose, you like a monthly subscription. Does that make me wrong?

We can't even agree on a valid basis of comparing the cost, because we are each making different decisions about how to factor costs in ways that may be right for us individually, even if they are different (though I still think you're wrong). These aren't business decisions, you can't apply some absolute accountants' logic.

Ultimately, neither your logic nor mine matters a jot. If customers don't like something, and they've a choice, they won't buy it. They don't have to justify their likes and dislikes.

Simon,

If the question is "are people making irrational / emotional judgments about this" then the answer is "absolutely".

No - it doesn't make you "wrong" if you like coffee and I like tea - and it doesn't make you wrong to want the traditional licencing either. What I do feel is wrong - in fact I'm quite disgusted by it - is this whole rabid dog / pack mentality / public vilification / attack on Adobe. It's totally irrational - uncalled for in a so-called civilised society - and 90% of it isn't even based on fact.

In my opinion, a lot of people have revealed their true character to the world over this -- and it's not been a pretty sight. And frankly, I'm really starting to question just how much I selflessly want to give away my expertise in helping people with those kinds of venomous & self-centered-to-the-extreme mentalities.

[wmoore]

Sorry haven't read all the posts so this may of been posted.

http://kelbytv.com/thegrid/2013/05/0...reative-cloud/

*You don't have to pay $50 a month to get photoshop.
*It will only cost you $10 a month

More on the video.

[Mike Buckley]

Adobe releases an annual document required by U. S. regulations called the 10-K. The primary purpose of the requirement is to disclose to stockholders and potential stockholders all fundamental aspects of the ongoing business. The most recent document addresses the fiscal year ending November 2012.

You may or may not like what Adobe explains in the document and you may or may not even believe the truthfulness of what they explain. Regardless, the information might be helpful to those of us who use their products (I barely use one of their cheaper products) and want to make plans about whether or not we want to continue using their products.

If you are interested in the official explanations of Adobe's gradual migration to a subscription revenue model in general and specifically to its offering of Creative Cloud, begin reading the document at the bottom half of page 3 and continue through page 5. You might also find the next to last paragraph of page 8 very interesting.

As for adoption of subscription-based models relative to Adobe's expectations, page 62 discloses "higher than expected customer adoption of Creative Cloud and point product subscriptions."

I was hoping to find some very specific information that would be especially pertinent to this discussion, such as the relative amount of revenue and cost pertaining to Photoshop, Creative Suite, Creative Cloud and the like. I was also hoping to learn the relative amount of revenue attributed to individual consumers, as opposed to businesses. The document doesn't disclose information according to those segments.

Instead, the information is segmented according to Digital Media products, which includes all Photoshop and Creative Suite applications as well as a huge amount of other applications, and two other segments. Page 119 discloses that the Digital Media segment comprises about 71% of total revenue. The document does not disclose the revenue derived from Photoshop or Creative Suite relative to revenue attributed to the Digital Media segment.

The information is also segmented according to three types of revenue. Two of the segments represent the lion's share of the business and are pertinent to this discussion -- Product revenue (one-time licensing fees) and Subscription revenue.

Page 80 discloses that subscription revenue has been growing very rapidly the last few years and is the fastest growing type of revenue. However, at 15% of total revenue, it is still relatively small. By comparison, product revenue is 76% of the total revenue. Interestingly, subscription costs are 45% of total costs and product costs are only 25% of total costs. I didn't take the time to delve into the details that would perhaps explain why Adobe's relative costs attributed to subscription-based models are so high.

Hope this helps!

[Ady]

Some of them may calm down, bend over and grab their ankles but I don't think all of them will by any means.

Gary, this is the second time in this thread you have suggested that people who continue to use Adobe products are:

a) bending over for a seeing to by Adobe
b) implying that they are dumb for doing so

I resisted using Adobe products for years and when Adobe bought Aldus I believed it was going to be the end of PageMaker as Adobe were bound to ruin it. It turned out that the initial developments Adobe applied to PageMaker were positive and they have continued the good work with InDesign.

I eventually realised that in refusing to use Adobe products I was cutting my nose off to spite my face. Despite any reservations I had/have about Adobe as a business it just didn't make sense for me to exclude the best tools available from my kit.

There are plenty of reasonable arguments either way regarding the move to Creative Cloud, most of which depend on the type of user you are. However the implication that I (and many other users) are stupid and want to grab our ankles to be taken up the rear by Adobe is offensive.

The Creative Cloud may not be right for you based on any number of reasonable and rational arguments but it does suit me for the reasons I've stated in my previous post. That doesn't make me a fan boy or someone happy to be shafted by Adobe, it makes me someone who has considered the pros and cons and made a rational decision based on my requirements as a user.

I always do my best to remain dispassionate and rational in my posts, I don't always get it right but as you will see if you dig around on this site I am more than happy to offer public apologies if I do overstep the mark. So rather than respond in an equally offensive manner I will just reiterate the point:

You have a choice; subscribe or don't subscribe

It's entirely up to you, just as it is up to Adobe to choose how to deliver their products.

But either way I won't be making derogatory comments about your personal desires (or otherwise) to be done in any orifice you chose (or not) regardless of the choice you make.

I'm not saying you shouldn't have an opinion, or that you shouldn't voice it, or even that you shouldn't argue your case as strongly as you are able. But I do think that making personal, derogatory statements directed at a large group of people who have made a reasoned decision that doesn't fit with your opinion is crossing a line.

Yours
Ady

[John Morton]

I might add that there's a saying in aviation "how do you improve aviation safety?" and the answer is "one accident at a time".

Crimes like that are annoying, but ultimately, all we can do is learn from them and move on; to not repeat the same mistake twice. There is risk with anything in life, but we need to apply a little logic and less emotion in assessing it (or we may just as well forget about air travel - or car travel - or boat travel for that matter). In the real world sometimes the bad guys win (but that's not to say they won't get caught). $45M is an amount I'd sure like to have in my account, but in the grand scheme of things, it's a pretty paltry amount for a bank -- even our paltry-in-comparison make around $1,000,000 dollars profit a day.

In John's case, the risk of temporarily connecting a PC to the internet to download & install Photoshop from Adobe (and once a month to re-activate it) would be immeasurably small.

Colin, as much as I am a firm supporter of aviation safety, I have no desire to further that cause by becoming a statistic through an accident.

You say that the risk to my computer and files caused by embracing the Adobe subscription-based business model would be "immeasurably small": but, what exactly does that phrase mean here?

The German philosopher Leibniz invented calculus (at the same time as Newton) so that he could calculate equations which included quantities that, although very small or very large, were still greater than zero or less than infinity. Thus, the most useful aspect of calculus was that it allowed quantities from different orders of magnitude to be dealt with in the same equation.

You and I, Colin, are on different sides of that division by orders of magnitude. In the course of your own business experience, the risk posed by connecting a single computer to the Internet periodically is slightly greater than nothing when compared to the risks successfully managed by large groups of continuously connected computers.

For me, though, there is zero risk posed to my unconnected computer by viruses, malware, and other threats of Internet origin. Embracing the Adobe subscription-based business model introduces a risk level which, although less than infinite, is none the less open-ended.

I prefer to use a cheap, expendable computer for anything that requires the Internet; and keep my main and considerably more expensive computer, with all of my files that I don't want to see erased / corrupted or otherwise damaged, isolated from the Internet. Adobe says I can't do that and still use their products; so, I will cease using their products.

And, Adrian: misrepresenting my position and trivializing my legitimate concerns is not a valid response to the arguments I have advanced. It would be nice if we could all continue to live in the naive and careless world which the Internet was at its inception; but less than twenty years after its emergence into common culture, the Internet has become and will continue to evolve as something through which the unwary are victimized.

I have no intention of becoming another poster boy for Internet security by being an Internet safety statistic, now or in the future.

[Wayland]

Ady, I didn't imply they were "dumb" for doing it, I suspect they know exactly what they are going to have to put up with and some may actually enjoy it. All the best to them.

I'm just darned sure I'm not going to do it.

[davidedric]

All very interesting, but I too am not going to cut off my nose to spite my face, even if I worry about being part of Adobe's less important revenue stream. So, as an amateur with only one desk top pc to worry about, I plan to:

Take delivery of my new 64bit Win7 system, which is pretty well specified
Upgrade (via download) to standalone LR5 when it is released (and hope that Adobe support RAW formats of new camera models)
Upgrade (via download) to whatever standalone version of PSE is available later this year
Keep my Nik plug-ins

Get on with shooting and PPing for a year or two, and see how things wash out.

Makes sense to me, and I suspect I won't be the only one

Dave

[John Morton]

All very interesting, but I too am not going to cut off my nose to spite my face, even if I worry about being part of Adobe's less important revenue stream. So, as an amateur with only one desk top pc to worry about, I plan to:

Take delivery of my new 64bit Win7 system, which is pretty well specified
Upgrade (via download) to standalone LR5 when it is released (and hope that Adobe support RAW formats of new camera models)
Upgrade (via download) to whatever standalone version of PSE is available later this year
Keep my Nik plug-ins

Get on with shooting and PPing for a year or two, and see how things wash out.

Makes sense to me, and I suspect I won't be the only one

Dave

Good point, Dave. I suspect that quite a few "small users" were waiting to upgrade Photoshop when they switched over to a 64 bit computer system; but the economic downturn of 2008 may have put that plan on hold for some of those people. Now that things are starting to pick up in many areas, more people might be looking to update both their computer systems and their software. I am certainly in that position; but I won't be going with Adobe products and might just jump from a PC to an Apple.

[Ady]

Ady, I didn't imply they were "dumb" for doing it

Fair enough, my misinterpretation.

Cheers,
A

[Wayland]

Interesting that Adobe's share price has been falling steadily since the announcement...

[plugsnpixels]

I checked yesterday and though falling it was still near historic highs. And it had gone way down below this a couple of years ago. FWIW.

But the fact that it didn't go UP says something, I guess!

[Wayland]

But the fact that it didn't go UP says something, I guess!

For an announcement this important it says an enormous amount.

[Mike Buckley]

I have been investing in stocks for decades and I would never construe anything about the movement of a stock price over a period of days in reaction to an announcement of this sort that is a continuation of a strategy that had begun at least two years earlier.

[Wayland]

Don't worry, I have no intention of investing...