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Adobe Creative Cloud (or: Monopolies in Action)

Started by Jim_Campbell, 14 May, 2013, 05:32:47 PM

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(Yes, I'm still banging this drum).

Just downloaded an Adobe update intended to address security fixes in Flash and Air and - somehow - now I have a Creative Cloud icon on my desktop, and a new Creative Cloud background service running. Very annoying how they're trying to foist this damn thing on me.

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: Banners on 13 November, 2013, 08:33:47 AM
(Yes, I'm still banging this drum).

Good man. So am I... I can't believe I keep coming across otherwise intelligent people who:

1) Still believe they're saving money on CC

and

2) Don't think Adobe will absolutely gouge everyone on the CC monthly sub fee as soon as they feel confident that they've moved enough people onto the subscription model.

Cheers

Jim
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

Steve Green

I'm amazed too - presumably they just see that it's a small amount to buy in and are blind to the fact they are now locked in to paying every single month.

The attitude seems to be more 'that's the way it's going, get used to it'

My response 'well it will if you idiots roll over and support it'

CheechFU

Not everyone is a struggling artist, some of us have CC subscriptions paid for us by our employers  :lol:


IndigoPrime

Quote from: Steve Green on 15 November, 2013, 05:13:31 PMThe attitude seems to be more 'that's the way it's going, get used to it'
Screw-ups with card details notwithstanding, I'm willing to give Adobe a year or so more on this, to see if it helps regarding updates. It's been clear since at least CS3 that the 18-month upgrade cycle was really hurting Adobe products, leading the company to push 'screen-grab friendly' updates on certain apps and press-friendly ones elsewhere. Monthly subscriptions and the eradicating of big version-number updates could lead to more ongoing iteration, bug fixes and ad-hoc addition of new features.

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: IndigoPrime on 18 November, 2013, 10:35:20 AM
Monthly subscriptions and the eradicating of big version-number updates could lead to more ongoing iteration, bug fixes and ad-hoc addition of new features.

And cost me twice as much as my perpetual license until the end of time? No, thank you.

Don't misunderstand me: if people want to get bent over and fucked in the arse by Adobe on their subscription model, fine. I have no problem with that, but there's no reason why they couldn't aggregate the ongoing CC updates into a single annual CS version and flog that as a perpetual license to those of us who object in principle to the idea of paying Adobe a monthly fee for the privilege of being able to open our own files.

Cheers

Jim
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

Steve Green

Quote from: IndigoPrime on 18 November, 2013, 10:35:20 AM
Quote from: Steve Green on 15 November, 2013, 05:13:31 PMThe attitude seems to be more 'that's the way it's going, get used to it'
Screw-ups with card details notwithstanding, I'm willing to give Adobe a year or so more on this, to see if it helps regarding updates. It's been clear since at least CS3 that the 18-month upgrade cycle was really hurting Adobe products, leading the company to push 'screen-grab friendly' updates on certain apps and press-friendly ones elsewhere. Monthly subscriptions and the eradicating of big version-number updates could lead to more ongoing iteration, bug fixes and ad-hoc addition of new features.

I don't see how it was hurting - personally I think 18-month cycles are about right for apps of a certain complexity - I really wouldn't want to risk perpetually breaking something with an update.

I know you can forego these, but that seems to be one of the major selling points of CC.

I have no objection to CC for those who want it, but I paid a massive chunk of money for CS6 up front and see absolutely no value in switching to a CC model.

I put it to those who rave about it elsewhere.

"If you're on CC, what are you going to do if you aren't happy with the speed of updates, or the price of updates, or the direction something's going?

With CS you could hold back and still be able to use your software - with CC you simply can't do that."

It doesn't help that I've been much more impressed by what the plugin manufacturers are doing, VideoCopilot, Trapcode, Imagineer/Mocha than the devs of the host application.

The same applies to Autodesk, although they haven't gone quite past the finishing post of shit that is CC.

Both Autodesk and Adobe seem to be on a mission to out-dick move each other.

IndigoPrime

Quote from: Steve Green on 18 November, 2013, 11:26:06 AMI don't see how it was hurting - personally I think 18-month cycles are about right for apps of a certain complexity - I really wouldn't want to risk perpetually breaking something with an update.
The problem is, what really happened was every 18 months, Adobe had to try and make the shareholders happy by firing out an update to the entire suite, whether individual apps needed updating or not. This resulted in apps getting half-arsed features they didn't need, other apps not getting the updates they really did need, and quite a few occasions of desperately needed fixes essentially not occurring until the next 18-month cycle.

I'm also not entirely 'pro' any one type of purchase model, but I've been stitched up at least as often with boxed software/major version upgrades as I have with subs.

Professor Bear

Manga Studio is not quite there yet - I really dislike the file architecture they currently have as of MS5 to the point I downgraded back to EX4 - but one day Smith Micro will remember that they really like money, and then they'll notice that there are a lot of people who want to spend money on an art programme, and then they will bang these two thought-rocks together - probably for a little longer than one might consider necessary - until sparks appear, and then Adobe won't have to go fuck themselves like we want them to because everyone else will do that for them.

Steve Green

Quote from: IndigoPrime on 18 November, 2013, 02:55:17 PM
Quote from: Steve Green on 18 November, 2013, 11:26:06 AMI don't see how it was hurting - personally I think 18-month cycles are about right for apps of a certain complexity - I really wouldn't want to risk perpetually breaking something with an update.
The problem is, what really happened was every 18 months, Adobe had to try and make the shareholders happy by firing out an update to the entire suite, whether individual apps needed updating or not. This resulted in apps getting half-arsed features they didn't need, other apps not getting the updates they really did need, and quite a few occasions of desperately needed fixes essentially not occurring until the next 18-month cycle.

I'm also not entirely 'pro' any one type of purchase model, but I've been stitched up at least as often with boxed software/major version upgrades as I have with subs.

I'd only been using since CS5 as a suite, and that was off the back of a promotion when Apple were monkeying around with FCP. I never had a problem really - I barely use Photoshop, it's mainly After Effects and Premiere - the others are just handy for the odd thing.

I don't think suites themselves are necessarily a great thing either, for the reasons you mention, Autodesk are in an especially dumb self-imposed place with 3x3D apps that do broadly the same thing.

Pleasing shareholders seems to be a particularly shit way to drive the development of this kind of software, it doesn't matter whether it's boxed or rental model.

I'd just like to be given the opportunity to choose the least shit method, and Adobe have taken that option away.

Jim_Campbell

If I could find an alternative to Illustrator, I'd feel a lot happier. My only option when Adobe inevitably drop CS6 support to try and push everyone onto CC at present is to switch to Windows and try CorelDraw.

However, I'm going to be keeping a VERY careful eye on iDraw. There's no CMYK support at present, and I'm not convinced there are enough type-handling options, but the feature set looks like they're aiming very squarely at the Illustrator market and the developers say that CMYK  (including colour profiles) is on their 'to do' list...

It's not there yet, but it looks bloody close.

Cheers

Jim
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

IndigoPrime

The problem with indies it's they've mostly been crushed under the Adobe wheels. I've reviewed a lot of promising vector packages for OS X, but most of them are now seemingly dead, including Opacity and VectorDesigner. The one that seems still very alive is Sketch, although that's very much aimed at screen designers. A lot of web pros I know have migrated to it from a mixture of Photoshop, Illustrator and Fireworks. No CMYK support, though, and I'm not sure that and other print-oriented tools will ever happen.

radiator

I wonder if there's any chance that there could be potential for a Kickstarted Adobe alternative?

Free, open-source, with each update paid for with a successive Kickstarter.

IndigoPrime

I doubt it. For apps of this complexity, you'd need a staggering amount of money and I just can't see the cash being raised on Kickstarter. If there were no alternatives for any use-cases, it might work, but there are. It's print designers who are currently largely screwed; screen designers have enough decent existing alternatives to choose from re Illustrator/Photoshop. (For print layout, I think you'd be nuts to stray from QuarkXPress or InDesign, so that's not really an avenue a dev should pursue.)

Ancient Otter

Quote from: IndigoPrime on 29 November, 2013, 11:13:20 AM
I doubt it. For apps of this complexity, you'd need a staggering amount of money and I just can't see the cash being raised on Kickstarter.

What kind of money are we talking here? As I've seen before, sometimes KS campaigns can raise crazy amounts of money, like a million dollars for a boardgame - see Ogre (goal $20,000, amount raised $923680) and Kingdom Death: Monster (goal $35000, amount raised $2,049,721).

Here are the most funded technology projects on Kickstarter, if you want to check out how the programming projects stack up.