Stop the Monopoly. Don’t Join Adobe’s Creative Cloud

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Stop the Creative Cloud

I’ve been using Adobe software since the very first versions, and I’ve bought just about every single upgrade they’ve released over the life of the company. Throughout my entire working career, some 25 years, I’ve paid Adobe tens of thousands of dollars to use, in essence, three programs: Illustrator, Photoshop and inDesign.

But that’s not enough to satisfy the greed of this company. Now that they have virtually complete control over the graphics software market, Adobe wants to abuse that monopoly by getting access to my wallet every month. And if I continue in my profession and want to continue using their software, they want money from me every month for the rest of my life.

Adobe is stopping development on their Creative Suite and making their ‘Creative Cloud’ the only option for users of their software. No longer will I be able to buy the software, I’ll have to rent it. And as soon as the money tap turns off, I won’t be able to use it anymore, because the software checks in every month to see that I’m still paying.

This has got to stop!

I remember when Adobe stopped providing a manual with their product; replacing it first with PDF documents, and finally with an online mish-mash of user videos and badly designed Help pages. I remember being amazed that I was till paying the same amount to upgrade, but the physical manual had been taken away, and what a huge amount of money the company had just made for itself by doing so. But imagine the cash Adobe will be raking in now—no more physical product, no physical distribution, no local support, reduced piracy (piracy, I might add, that often leads to later purchasing)—just lots and lots of lovely regular cash from everyone’s Visa cards, in return for a lot of useless twiddling and bloated ‘features’ that you use in real-world situations about 0.2% of the time.

Because every design professional knows that Adobe upgrades—even the more regular ones we’ll supposedly be getting now version numbers will be done away with—are 90% useless bloat. I’ve been here since version one, and I know how fundamentally different the programs are now from the initlal releases. Strip out all the bells and whistles and you’re pretty much left with multiple redo, the history palette, and layers as the only game-changing improvements over all those years. These programs still quit and freeze, and the interfaces are a primitive, outdated mess.

But the bottom line is, we cannot live in a world where companies have a hotline to our wallets. If this business model continues we’ll all be paying out huge sums of money every month, locked in to vendors churning out mindless marketing spin as they increase their monthly kickback in return for nothing.

Adobe don’t want to give us quality software at a reasonable price; they want to be the next Facebook. It’s essential that we let Adobe know now that this forced subscription model is completely unnacceptable. Don’t sign up to the Creative Cloud. Let CS6 become the last version we use if necessary, and hope that some company has the foresight to take on Adobe and beat it at its own game. As soon as that alterative is available, it will have a ready-made audience of millions of disaffected and exploited Adobe users eager to switch.

Don’t sign up to the ‘Creative Cloud’. Let Adobe know we won’t put up with this abuse.

Update: Make your voice be heard—sign the petition!


The Creative Cloud is the Future My Arse

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Shantanu Narayen, the CEO of that most contemptuous of monopolies, Adobe Software, had a press conference in Australia yesterday where he totally ignored repeated questions about Adobe price gouging in Australia. In one instance, it will cost you $1,400 more to buy Adobe software than in the United States, so in fact it would actually be cheaper to fly there to buy it (and, as one commentator cheekily pointed out, you’d get Frequent Flyer points as well).

Watch either of the two videos below and see this idiot—who is being paid millions of dollars a year remember—squirm like an uncomfortable schoolchild up on stage during Assembly, as he ignores legitimate questions about pricing and instead repeatedly parrots the schtick his minders have told him to say: “the Creative Cloud is the future of creative.” Until his local lackey has to rescue him of course.

Well bugger off Mr Narayen. It’s not the future of my creative, nor is forcing people into a subscription model for your outdated, clunky, bloated, badly designed software the future of anyone’s creative. As far as I can see, everyone who uses Adobe software is just itching for a viable alternative to come along, and when that leaner, meaner, faster, smarter company does appear, we’ll all be jumping ship faster than you can stammer out “the Creative Cloud is the future of creative” for the hundredth time at the retreating backs of your once-loyal customers.

What a nobhead.

YouTube link | SMH.com.au article


Sick of the rip-off

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A friend sent me this information about the upgrade prices for Adobe’s Creative Suite. In the US the upgrade prices from CS4 are (as listed on macworld.com):

Design Standard : $499
Design, Web and Production Premium: $599
Master Collection: $899

Here the upgrade prices are (in AU$, ex GST):
Design Standard: $762
Design, Web and Production Premium: $912
Master Collection: $1366

Our dollar is trading at US93c today. This should mean prices of:
Design Standard: $537 (a difference of $225, or 42%)
Design, Web and Production Premium: $644 (a difference of $278 or 43%)
Master Collection: $967 (a difference of $399 or 41%)

There is zero excuse for this kind of naked profiteering these days; especially when you get absolutely nothing extra in the ‘box’—no manual, nothing. Make the damn upgrade available via download, and stop the bastards skimming money off the deal at our expense. I won’t be spending an extra $400 for absolutely nothing.

Anyway, what do you get in an Adobe upgrade these days? A few more useless filters you didn’t know you needed, and another unfulfilled promise of speed and reliability we should have got five upgrades ago.

I’ve been using Adobe apps since 1989, and I wholeheartedly agree with Steve Jobs: Adobe is lazy.