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Participant
September 22, 2025
Open for Voting

Adobe Creative Cloud Business Model - Total Disregard for Loyal Users and Destructive Impact on the

  • September 22, 2025
  • 3 replies
  • 311 views

As a professional graphic designer since 1998 — over 25 years using your tools — I am writing to you with profound indignation and disappointment at the direction the company has taken with the Adobe Creative Cloud business model.

For more than two decades, I have been a faithful user of your products. I have invested not only money, but time, knowledge, and constant feedback that contributed to the evolution and improvement of the tools that made Adobe the technological giant it is today. I actively participated in the creative community that tested, suggested improvements, promoted, and defended your products among colleagues and students.

This historical loyalty is now being completely disrespected.

The current mandatory subscription model — which forces me to pay for an expensive complete package to access only 2 or 3 applications I actually use — is an affront to all professionals who built the solid foundation of your company. It is unacceptable that, after decades of investment and loyalty, I am forced to pay for dozens of programs I will never use, just to remain competitive in the market.

Adobe is actively contributing to the exclusion of senior designers and freelancers from the job market.

As a freelancer, I am forced to individually bear costs that reach €1000 annually, just to access the basic tools of my work. This is unsustainable and discriminatory. You are creating a financial barrier that prevents experienced designers — who don't have company backing to pay for these subscriptions — from staying active and competitive.

I demand that Adobe:

  • Create customizable packages that allow choosing only the necessary applications, with proportional pricing
  • Implement significant discounts for long-time users and freelancers
  • Reintroduce perpetual license options or lower-cost packages for independent professionals
  • Recognize and compensate the historical contribution of loyal users who helped build the Adobe empire

Your current strategy is purely capitalist and predatory. You are transforming essential design tools into luxury items, forcing qualified professionals to abandon the market or seek alternatives.

As a member of the creative community who has always defended and promoted your products, I feel betrayed and discarded. If you continue on this path, you have not only lost a loyal customer of 27 years, but also an advocate who will now actively recommend the available alternatives.

Adobe has the opportunity to correct this injustice. I hope you demonstrate the same respect for the creative community that it has always shown for you.

3 replies

Participating Frequently
March 6, 2026

I started with Adobe software on their beta versions. I assisted at MacWorld demos as well as our local Mac meetings. Adobe gave me Illustrator beta. There was not much software available then for my SE ...let alone design and drawing software. My Mac is today filled with Adobe files (InDesign, Photoshop and a bit of Illustrator.) If I want to continue using JUST InDesign the cost is obviously prohibitive at  my age of 84 and no income to support it. So now I have the arduous task of converting allllll those files to something I can afford….preferably free shareware. John Warnock would be appalled were he here today. I met this gentle soul at his first MacWorld. We passed one another with a few brief words in the following years at all the other MacWorld expos. In 2000 I was invited to join the Adobe team. (long story why I sadly could not).  John would flip in his grave hearing what his company is becoming. 😢  — Fran Conn

Participant
September 22, 2025

Thanks

André Viana Machado | Graphic Designer
kglad
Community Expert
Community Expert
September 22, 2025

adobe assumes most all app subscribers will use 3 or 4 apps.

 

anyway, would you like your post moved to the cc desktop ideas forum?

Participant
September 22, 2025

Yes. That would be great. How can I do it?

André Viana Machado | Graphic Designer
kglad
Community Expert
Community Expert
September 22, 2025

done.