Adobe losing it's way . . .

Adobe told me.

The website provides no easy contact to a human representative of Adobe, leaving only a ‘Virtual Assistant.’

The Adobe Customer Care Virtual Assistant, neither understands, nor answers anything outside its narrowly defined response database.  An endless loop.  

No matter how I rephrased the inquiry – it ended up saying I didn’t have any registered products – even though I was staring at them in my Adobe Dashboard.   

The Virtual assistant wouldn’t give me a phone number or chat connection to a human . . . it kept saying I needed to sign in (I was), didn’t have any registered products (I do).

It told me on several occasions – I would be unable to receive further assistance without an active or trial subscription.   

After trying multiple times from 9:30 AM EST . . . at 2:00 PM,  After I'd made the original post, I was finally able to get past the riddles of the Virtual Assistant and able to ‘chat’ with a human representative.  The chat rep. was primarily fear mongering about Acrobat Pro XI – suggesting it might damage a Windows 11 computer, or was disparaging perpetual licenses for Acrobat altogether.  It felt like the answers to my questions were nothing more than minor accessories to the hard sell for converting to a subscription.  

I understand.  The subscription model is an immensely profitable model – primarily because the average consumer pays significantly more over time - not because they get ‘significantly’ more.  

Adobe, like many, is selling the equivalent of 1970’s ‘rust proofing’ . . . outsized profitability for the dealer, questionable value for the consumer.     

The attendant promises that accompany a product sold, such as warranty, technical support or even basic customer access  . . .  are every bit a contractual obligation as the product itself.
A company cannot erect barriers to promised service, not to mention basic ‘meaningful’ access once they’ve accepted a consumer’s money for the offer they willingly advertised.

Much ado about nothing?  I’m not so sure.  It may be worthy of legislative initiative - for all of the big tech firms bolstering  earnings, while quietly errecting barriers to promised support, which as part of the 'offer' is a compensated obligation.  If you purchased a new car and the dealer offered extended service as an inscentive, but would never take your call to discuss a potential issue . . . what would you do?