Creative Cloud will make me poorer

CS6 will become to Adobe what XP became to Windows. I'm a CS6 Master Collection owner. No matter what discount they offer on the cloud avoid it at all cost. It is a trap. They even said it in their stock report. They plan to get more revenue per user through the cloud software rental scheme they have created.

Well, I don't know about you guys, but over here in the UK we are under the trade jursidiction of the EU, and the EU quite likes trying to squeeze money out of levy fines against big mega-corps that it thinks are acting in an anti-competitive way, or who are profiteering. So me, I've just written to my MEP. Will be writing to my MP soon too. I don't do Twitter and facebook, but those that do need to get organised - Adobe can be backed-down on this if they realise just how massively unpopular it is.

People talking about upgrading to 6 now and sitting there are making a mistake - why give Adobe a massive bump in sales? I'm on 5.5 and I think this is where I'll stick - TBH, in my experience, there always tends to be more new bugs in CS releases than new features, and I don't think I'll miss the happy fun and excitement that comes from uncovering these bugs. Just stick with your current version and don't give Adobe a sales boost.

To all Mac users: Ring Corel's sales line and tell them they need to start supporting OSX!

And to Adobe... where do I start? I may only be a freelancer, but the big businesses who use your software (and whose acceptance of CC you are clearly banking on) rely on us wee minnows. If you think our "big" clients will discard their creative genius freelancers in order to be in your cloud, I think you'll find you are sorely mistaken. And if you think our business is not important then I guess only time will tell. You've had thousands out of me over the years Adobe - you get not another penny until I can once again buy a perpetual license and choose my own expenditure strategy.

I have yet to hear a single voice raised in support for this move - let's start kicking hard guys!

Not to worry about Adobe's CC.  Corel has made its position clear.  See this blog:

<http://corelblogs.wordpress.com/2013/05/08/corel-is-all-about-giving-users-choice/>

Go out and switch to Corel and you don't have to deal with MVPs on their forums.

Good luck.

Adobe is a company and as a company it is in business to make money. It is not in business to make any of us happy. It is abundantly clear this move is designed to generate revenue and they can't  be faulted for trying to be profitable.

For argument's sake, let's say Adobe has doubled the cost of using their software. For their revenue stream to remain EVEN they could lose up to half of their users. Does anyone think this move will cause Adobe to lose half of their clients? No. In that regard, this move will end up making Adobe money.

It is my belief this move is still wrong. It seems better to broaden your customer base rather than reduce it. Sure, a lot of us are hobbyists, not-for-profits and small businesses that just represent chump change to Adobe, but it still seems to make better sense to me to make a product more desirable rather than more expensive. Yes, price increases are expected, but only in small increments and generally in line with inflation.

This move makes me wonder what the life span of such products as Photoshop might have. How different is it today from what it was even five or ten years ago? 64 bit? Yes, great. A handful of new filters? Yes, also great, but how else? When they started adding video editing it makde me think Adobe developers may be scratching their heads about what else they can do to make it useful. Surely, that's a difficult task, but I believe there are a great of deal of new frontiers to be explored yet that can keep Photoshop viable for years to come.

For example, I'd love to see real 3D texture painting. Sure, it does that now, but it's clunky and not very effective. Offer support to load popular object formats and generate UV maps as we paint. Other products specialize in this. Why can't Photoshop?

Also, what about offering additional tools as plugins? How about developing a better matte picker? That's not something we all need, so offer it as a plugin.

Lastly, I know developing software is expensive and it should be. It's hard work! So why not drop some of the smaller applications and focus on the bigger ones? Does anyone really use SpeedGrade? Prelude?

Just saying.

It seems like Adobe is alienating a good portion of their clients and leaving a lot of casual users out in the cold.

At home I use adobe software for personal projects. I do some design work for my church, some photography etc. I rarely do work that I get paid for. And not more than one or two projects a month.  Therefore it doesn't make since for me to pay a monthly subscription fee for a software bundle that I use a couple times a month for projects that I don't get paid for.

So going to a subscription fee only means that Adobe will be losing my business. In a since they are driving a lot of potenial clients away to other services. This cannot be good for the long run.

I can see that a subscription fee might make since for larger companies that do a lot of work and need to keep up with the newest version of the software. But that being said, everything that I currently do at my design job can still be done on practically any old version of CS.

But Adobe is going forward irrespective of what users say.  Look at this blog:

<http://blogs.adobe.com/fireworks/2013/05/the-future-of-adobe-fireworks.html>

Fireworks is dead.  PERIOD.

This move by Adobe was clearly motivated by greed. In no way is their cloud pricing structure less expensive. $50 for a month? Sure, that's possibly less than one good meal, but think about the upgrade cost of a CS suite. I paid about $600 for my last upgrade and I can use that for years. Over those same years of use with my own version, I will need to pay thousands of more dollars for the same thing.

To be truly cost effective, I now not only have to have to calculate the cost of the software into a budget, but I also need to determine how much time is spent using the software to know if it's worth the monthly expenditure.

If I determine the cost of the subscription is worth it to my business, what happens if, at the end of the year, my subscription expires and I don't renew. Then a client returns asking for changes or updates. I now have to absorb the cost of a new subscription for the changes. I don't make that much money from this software to justify the costs here. Not by a long shot.

Methinks it's time for a change.

I foresee staying with CS6 for a looooooooooooooooooooong time. And as long as our printers do too, why not? I have a feeling a lot of people with do this as long as they can. Hopefully Adobe will come to their senses by then.

Thank you for making my decision Adobe, from today I will buy Apple Products Aperture to replace Photoshop and Motion for After Effect. Not everyone has high speed internet. Well, you lost a customer. Customers should have a choice of download or subscription. I'm just pissed!

Let's just call it the CON Policy (Cloud Or Nothing). That name fits well, don't you think? The new CON Policy punishes those of us who prefer to OWN instead of LEASE. Because that's what it is. It's a lease. You won't own jack.

I purchased (legally, mind you) CS2 waaaay back when CS2 was the latest version. And guess what? I'm still using it. However, I have upgraded Lightroom at every occasion because I use it much more. But I guess LR5 will be the last of that. I assume LR6 will be a CON release.

Now, we can complain all day and it won't make much difference, however... if we all decide to buy LR5, CS6, etc. and never join the CON... ever... well, they'll eventually get the point. Embargos usually get noticed.