Trouble ahead for Adobe

Neil, I really meant to say is that users are moving away. Especially younger people. It might not be a problem now, but it will be a problem in ten years if nothing changes.
The fact that one could have Adobe at home on a hobby computer to learn it and experiment with it, is in my opinion the reason why Adobe got as far as they did. The fact this all is now under a stricter regime may backfire.
I am so not used to Resolve that I won't use it if I don't have to. The way it works drives me nuts. But I'm definitely a minority.
I'm most of all a motion designer. Not a real editor. If you see a "real" editor at work with Avid, you can hardly believe how fast they can work just from the keyboard editing video only. I doubt if that speed can be achieved in Premiere. I've seen people work faster with Resolve too than in Premiere.
I really miss some essential tools like adding or substracting just a few frames around edit points: it never works like I want to or not at all. Every year I get a moment that I try find what I'm missing but I never succeed. Maybe I fail to find what I need, maybe my approach is wrong.
Then again, nothing beats Premiere when throwing stuff on the timeline and mash it up some. No conversions needed of footage, etc.etc. Perfect for quick and dirty cuts and some fast yet very effective effects.
 

First, we users are always outsiders when it comes to the actual user base data. We're guessing, and so our speculations can be interesting but none of us has a really "insider data" crystal ball.

Second ... that said, I love these types of discussions! And prior disclosure and all ... I work for/with/teach pro colorists based mostly in Resolve, use both Pr and Resolve daily, have for a decade now. And I know many of the Pr, Ae, and Au staffers in person from meeting at NAB, MAX, or SMPTE events. I've been rather well "tied into" the Adobe pro video ecosystem for years also.

Adobe's pro video apps have several million daily users, more apparently than anyone else. Probably by a large margin. The Resolve user base could probably double, and the bean counters for Adobe Corporate would hardly notice any change.

Years ago, Adobe bought out the grading app Iridas and renamed it SpeedGrade, eventually putting a co-creator of that app (Patrick Palmer) in charge of all Adobe pro video for the last four years. Patrick has just left Adobe employ, btw.

But a few years after launching SpeedGrade, the then-management decided to kill it. Because the then-Adobe pro video boss spoke and wrote about all pro media should be going to Resolve so essentially why bother. (This was prior to Patrick taking over.)

This was right when BlackMagic was clearly expanding their editing, audio, and Fx capabilities. I posted rather publicly, on this forum, and in-person, and other places, strong (but always polite) criticism of that decision, and was essentially blacklisted for it by that Program manager.

I still think that was an incredibly stupid decision.

And all these years later, noted colorist/teacher/writer and Resolve expert Alexis Van Hurkman was moved to head of color for Premiere Pro/Pro Video just before NAB 2024. This could lead to some interesting changes ... or not, who knows? Alexis makes it clear he is not a fan of Lumetri.

PrPro has added the edit by transcript options, at this time still better than anyone else's though not nearly perfect. That has been a huge improvement for many of us.

They've expanded the capabilities of the in-built mogrt system via Essential Graphics some also, and there's always a quick trip to Ae to make things more bullet-proof or Awesome.

The subscription model still is an irritant for many users, no question. But that is a widely used model across all software types. From QuickBooks to you name it. And is a valid profit model.

BlackMagic's profits are based TOTALLY on hardware sales. Resolve is clearly, and totally, a loss-leader to get people into their ecosystem to buy hardware. I doubt that the very few people a year who actually pay the one-time $300 fee for "Studio" even cover the cost of providing that service.

So all of the cost of developing and maintaining Resolve comes from the leftovers of hardware sales. That of course has it's own implications. And their model is also a totally valid profit model.

Naturally, I have enough BM hardware to have several Studio licenses of Resolve sitting around. Including my new Ursa 4.6k G2, which ... wow. Awesome beast of a camera.

The design paradigms of Adobe and Blackmagic are strikingly different.

Adobe builds user-controlled flexibility into the UI and options as much as possible. This can lead perhaps to buggy or odd behavior out on the myriad of hardware/media/workflows we humans come up with, but it's awful handy when it works well. As it does normally for me.

BM intentionally limits user-controlled UI options among other things, expressly to keep operational stability up and consistency between users at maximum. But as they are trying to mimic the one-system-for-all-users thing of Adobe, they are getting a lot more stability issues across their user base.

Personally, as the person with nine numbered custom workspaces in Premiere Pro, and with a full Tangent Elements panel sitting on my desk, I love the flexibility of PrPro. I have good friends who don't like the Pr UI, and love the look and 'feel' of Resolve. I ... don't share that opinion, to be polite.

Adobe and BlackMagic are also strikingly different in their usage of hardware tools.

Adobe provides a pretty complete API for any 'tool' maker to use to integrate their products with any part of the app they want to. In Premiere, my Elements panel is a do-everything Swiss Army knife tool.

I have that mapped for not only color, but also audio and other stuff. The twelve knobs make a GREAT audio mixer interface, plus they can be used to move/size/rotate any screen element. The buttons ... well, they can be mapped to tons of stuff also.

BlackMagic intentionally limits all non-BM panels to very few and specific functions. They do not allow either the tool maker nor the user to modify those few, limited uses. Because of course, they want you to buy BM kit. 

But their panels only work in Resolve, they are not at all usable in any other application.

That alone is very irritating to me.

And I'm working up an "Insight" for MixingLight.com on mapping the Elements panel in Resolve for more functions, using Tangent-UK's new "Warp Engine" system for getting around Resolve's built in limitations.

As to codecs, well ... people complain about some codecs not being in Premiere, but then ... the BM staffers on the BM forum have made it very clear it will be a cold day in Hades before they add ProRes RAW to Resolve.

So ... different strokes for different folks, right? Pick your poisons, everyone's mileage always varies ...

But the work must get out to the nice customers that pays our bills! So use whatever works and ... get the work done, go see your family.

They're a lot more important than the apps.