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Adobe shows NO RESPONISBILITY as the marked leader. They are driven by greed and use a lot of colored people in their videos to tell the world how politically correct they are - when in fact greed, greed and nothing but good, old, American arrogance and greed is what drives this shitty company.
It is sickening to watch the video posted here by Dean Utian. Simply because the future this hoy paloy idoit in his fancy suite is talking about here, is already here, and Creative Cloud is just as overpriced as standalone packages for any other than American customers...
Da-Designer posted another argument here, that you make money by buying (well, you will have to be very big to do that in the Nordic countries). And since i.e. British customers are used to paying "astronoimically" much more for petrol (a commodity very simmilar to graphichs software...) and a lot of consumer goods are far more expensive here, therefore Adobe's poducts must be higher priced as well. Now that is as stupid an argument as you will ever find them!
Has it ever occured to you that the criminally high prices on necessities actually will contribute to "the new generation" of users simply not being able to afford buying Adobe...
To round this up in reference to Da-Design. My design-work is 90% voluntary work for a global humanitarian service organisation where we have to pay for expenses ourselves. The reason is quite simple, all the money we earn is to be used 100% for aid to our local community, our national projects and international projects.
We help the poor, the ill, the handicapped. We are the highest protector of blind people. We build schools and vaccinate children in the 3rd World. We are even the only organisation in the world with permanent seats in the United Nations General Assembly. And we don't get paid a dime doing it.
So buying insanely overpriced software to compete with all the other organisations - that willingly take your money, and spend as much as 60-70% of what they collect to buy expensive commercials and ADOBE CREATIVE CLOUD instead of providing AID TO THOSE WHO NEED IT - simply is out of our reach.
FAIR!? NO!
The other 10 % I would have used Adobe for, is the professional photos I supply free of charge to communities like Wikipedia. They could have been so much better with the postprosessing utilities from Adobe, and I would have made them that much better, if it weren't for the fact that ADOBE TREAT ME LIKE A SECOND CLASS CITIZEN...
The way Adobe treat their non-American customers is a disgrace. I hope the company gets some fair people into the board room soon, that understand, what soon every other company has understood; make so cheap that everybody can afford it. Everybody is a pretty big number, that would bring a pretty much higher revenue FAIRLY to the Adobe...
Until they do, they could go back to hell, as far as I am concerned.
So it's been 9 months since bothering to read e-mails this time. Some good arguments and some bad ones, it's been an interesting read overall.
I'd like to report that after my 12 month subscription was finished the price remained the same for anyone who's interested, exchange rates withstanding of course. (I've seen 1 comment on here saying that they would raise it on you after a certain amount of time)
I cannot justify some of the pricing strategies made by Adobe with regards to the software in other countries. Based on what I've read, Australia's prices seem shocking. However, it also seems that this was the case before CC with CS, so the problem would not seem to be associated with CC itself but rather Adobe's pricing strategies.
Which brings me back to my original point;
Many of the people here who are not buying CC (for various reasons) claim to own a copy of CS, or an individual application. Now, as I've said before, prior to CC the only option to obtain Adobe's software (legally) was to buy it. The last time I checked the prices for CS6 before purchasing a CC subscription, Photoshop Extended was £600. The whole creative Suite was £2500
So let's start with an individual application. Let's take my £46.88/month subscription fee and do some maths:
600/46.87 = 12.8
So that's over 12 months for the cost of a CC subscription to exceed that of buying Photoshop Extended outright. Doesn't sound good but CC gives all CS programs and Adobe Web Services, so let's take the CS price and do it again:
2500/46.87 = 53.3
That's nearly 4 and a half years. But we have upgrades and web services to add on as well, so the true number would be higher than this.
It's this calculation that is confusing me with people who are from the UK claiming that Creative Cloud is too expensive. They're saying they have the money to buy the software, but not to rent it at a far more affordable price? Everyone who's complaining seems to be ignoring this.
Yes upgrading would be cheaper even if you owned CS3, but that was still a few hundred pounds every year right? About £200-£250 a year? (I can't recall the number myself) Half the price, but you didn't get the web services thrown in with that upgrade price which is something else to take into account. However, Creative Suite is a product that is now all but discontinued so this is no longer an option. Do you react the same when any other product gets discontinued by any other company?
Now, in response to D-Signer, it's a noble job you are doing, I commend you on that. I too have worked for a charity, my first job out of university. However, being a charity they couldn't afford to purchase any Adobe applications, so I resorted to using GIMP and InkScape as they are free:
D-Signer wrote:
We help the poor, the ill, the handicapped. We are the highest protector of blind people. We build schools and vaccinate children in the 3rd World. We are even the only organisation in the world with permanent seats in the United Nations General Assembly. And we don't get paid a dime doing it.
So buying insanely overpriced software to compete with all the other organisations - that willingly take your money, and spend as much as 60-70% of what they collect to buy expensive commercials and ADOBE CREATIVE CLOUD instead of providing AID TO THOSE WHO NEED IT - simply is out of our reach.
No. Nobody 'NEEDS' Adobe software. It is a luxury. Most of modern digital design is a luxury commodity for businesses. With the global recession many aspects of the creative industry were hit badly. After all, if you're a business cutting down costs are you going to order that new logo you were thinking of? Granted that's a very specific example but if you're in the industry I'm sure you've noticed the downturn in work and employment opportunities.
I also assume you have a copy of Creative Suite 6 or 5? Can I ask what it is in Creative Cloud that you NEED so badly? Because, there's not a huge amount of difference from CS6 in CC, sure some extra options and functions. But nothing that's revolutionised the software (The commercial fonts from Typekit are sweet though). I don't know what your work is in so I'm unable to point at any aspecific application.
D-Signer wrote:
To round this up in reference to Da-Design. My design-work is 90% voluntary work for a global humanitarian service organisation where we have to pay for expenses ourselves. The reason is quite simple, all the money we earn is to be used 100% for aid to our local community, our national projects and international projects.
"We have to pay expenses ourselves" - So you also were happy to pay the higher price tag of Creative Suite? I don't know the prices involved for the Nordic countries so this is an assumption but I think you are being hypocritical. You're saying you're upset because it's going to cost you more now, even though that higher cost doesn't come into effect for 5 years? (Longer still if you include the upgrades) Even though you already own a copy of Creative Suite? Which would provide with 99% of the tools required to do digital design at a competitive level?
You don't need the absolute latest software to compete. You need to be good. Do you think that because I own CC that my designs are going to better than yours and that I'm going to steal your competition away? That's not correct in the slightest and you know it.
There are also many free alternatives out there to Adobe's products, and there are many commercial applications too that can acheive similar results for a fraction of the price (Have you heard of BlackInk? It's in Alpha atm, but looks neat). If you're working for a charitable organisation why are you buying the most expensive products on the market? It seems irresponsible.
D-Signer wrote:
Da-Designer posted another argument here, that you make money by buying (well, you will have to be very big to do that in the Nordic countries). And since i.e. British customers are used to paying "astronoimically" much more for petrol (a commodity very simmilar to graphichs software...) and a lot of consumer goods are far more expensive here, therefore Adobe's poducts must be higher priced as well. Now that is as stupid an argument as you will ever find them!
Again, you missed the point I was actually making. No I don't think Graphics Software is a similar commodity to petrol, it was an easy example to use because everyone in the UK knows how high the prices are here for petrol. The point I was actually trying to make is that the cost of living in the UK is higher than that of the US. An american friend of mine who came over some years back said that on average things cost about 40% more in the UK than in the US. This includes things like essentials too (Milk, Bread, etc). There are some things that are cheaper here than in the US, but I only know of Marmite (Hater btw). The difference between US and UK for CC is much less than that by that judgment.
With regards to the "new generation" I think you'll find I fall into that category. I only graduated from university in 2009. Do you know what I couldn't afford after leaving university? Any Adobe application. We had been trained on them using the universities copies, so once I left I had no software.
Do you know what I could have afforded straight after leaving university? Creative Cloud. My career would have been at least a year further ahead if CC was released back in 2009.
Instead you would all prefer that the professionals have to pay the astronomical price tag of £2500. A price that gives smaller businesses and individuals little chance to compete with larger design companies? Which forces creative individuals to seek employment rather than fulfilling their own creative desires?
CC is arguably the best design software on the market. With its far more affordable price it's liberating individuals like myself to persue personal projects, not just commercial ones. Even now after 4 years I doubt I'd have been able to save the money to buy a copy of CS for myself.
CC to me personally has been a blessing, I was ecstatic when I found out about it. No more clunky open source user-interfaces to shout at. Viable experience for employment in the correct software. And not requiring employment or large investment to gain that experience essential to mine, and many other's, careers.
Buy it or don't buy it, everybody's free to do what they want 
Until next year everyone!
Dean Utian wrote:
Apple charge higher prices in Aus for music, movies, TV shows.
Quite vague comparison you're making.
Music, movies and TV shows are NOT produced by Apple, but by the media industry and rated differently due to that. If you have even read the article, this also being stated by Apple "blaming the content owners for charging a higher 'wholesale price'".
As far as I know it's Adobe who produces Adobe software, or?
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