[Locked] No perpetual licenses are you serious?

[Mattrman]

I just head that Adobe was planning to abandon its perpetual license in favor of an on line only rental program. At first I thought that this must be a joke. I have been using adobe products for 18 years. Primarily Photoshop, Illustrator and Indesign. I am currently an owner of CS 6 Master collection and obviously do upgrade my products and have consistently done so over the years. I am not connected to the internet full time and in fact my work computer is never directly connected to the internet. So how does this work? Is adobe now forcing me to connect to the internet - it seems that this is the case.

In regards to upgrade cycles, I dont want to rent my software and be tied to a rental agreement. I want to upgrade when I choose, not rent my software like some kind of loaner program!

I want to purchase the software then not worry about it. For instance when I travel, I dont want to be bogged down with downloads and upgrades chewing up my bandwidth. I have traveled to many places where internet access is very limited. Downloading from a wireless card in China is painful, I dont want to be bogged down with no software or large megabyte downloads costing me a fortune on the other side of the planet.

Adobe I know that I am just one person and you will probably not listen to me but did someone ask? No one asked me about this. How simple could this be - I want to buy the software then use it when I want where I want, is this too much to ask?

Please let me continue to use this software in the way that I have used it for so long. If others wish to have the creative cloud then great! More power to them, don't alienate your other users. Please provide both alternatives.

Best regards - Matt

[DSchroader2]

I bought Lightroom 5 about 4 years ago and love it! That is, I loved it when I could run it on the machine I had. I had a machine failure and my cloud backup copy of install program will not run on my new Windows 10 machine!

I am a serious amateur photographer. The only Adobe cc product I envision ever using is Lightroom. Had I been forced to use this subscription service from the beginning, I probably never would have. I paid about $150 for the program in 2013. By now, even at the lowest price point, I would have paid about $480, and counting. The only ones that make out on this deal are Adobe - like a bandit!

I am actively looking for an alternative to Lightroom that uses the payment model I want.

[John T Smith]

1st, you MIGHT be able to install L5 on Win10

Two ideas that MAY work to install and/or run old programs in Windows 10

-RIGHT click the program icon or EXE and select a compatibility mode in the pop up option window

-or Run as Administrator http://forums.adobe.com/thread/969395 to assign FULL Windows permissions may help... says Encore, but sometimes required for ALL Adobe programs (this is NOT the same as using an Administrator account)

-or more on permissions https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2293598

2nd, you MAY buy a serial number Lightroom 6

Download and install Lightroom 6 (Single App license)

[ciaranr47588605]

Hello

Thanks for your reply but I use macs not windows

should have mentioned it.

Ciaran Rose

MAKING BEING ACTIVE MORE SOCIAL

(Personal/Business information not allowed in the forums--Moderator)

[DanDanThePhotoMan]

The bottom line is that Adobe has 2 big problems on their hands. First, the price for Photoshop is doubling for loyal users who upgrade each time, and increasing even more for casual users. A permanent $10 per month would be fair. And that is not just a number I like. Previous upgrades average out to $11 per month ($200 upgrade / 18 month product cycle) for consistent upgraders. So, Adobe would be giving loyal users a deal to join the cloud version. And when factoring in people who upgrade infrequently, Adobe would be making MORE money than their previous upgrade model!

The second major issue: no matter how much money you have invested in Photoshop, no payments mean no using the software. How about every $200 in payments would lock you into that current version and the software would not need to phone Adobe. If you want the continued new features, then you can pay more. This would give Adobe more incentive to innovate to keep people subscribing for updates. If you stop payments after $200 and want to come back later to upgrade, you would need to pay for what you missed.

So, $10 per month for upgraders and after every $200 you lock in the current version. Problem solved (at least from my perspective!).

[rosequill]

The very point of the subscription model is to screw the consumer. Adobe doesn't give a rat's ass about locking you into anything, or allowing you to have anything that you aren't paying for monthly.

They are already screwing boxed photoshop users out of upgrades that they are giving to CC users. Really they are slapping loyal customers in the face and I hope it comes back to bite them.

[jnuotio]

Adobe with its mandatory CC-plan seems to consider itself a pusher to addicts.

[Califdan]

You beat me to it. I was going to do a cost comparison similar to yours.

But, I like the idea of being granted perpetual use at a certain level

after paying the equivalent of what had been the upgrade price. However, to

do that they would need to devise a way to stop new updates from coming down

the wire for those folks, yet still allow the product to be used. I suspect

this is doable and is a darn fine idea. Each individual product should have

a pricing model such as this based on the previous upgrade costs on an 18

month cycle.

But, what you didn't talk about was new customers. Right now, to get your

first version of Photoshop sets you back $800 (round figures). So, how is

Adobe going to make up that revenue stream. Well some folks in this forum

have been talking about a buy-out model where after paying into the cloud

for some time (say 2 years) you can pay a lump sum to get perpetual use of

the current state of the product. Your proposed model covers that but

leaves adobe short the initial $800 cost for a first version. Here's my

proposal to lay on top of yours. If you already own a product, say

Photoshop, you just switch to the cloud and use your model, However, if you

do not already own the Adobe product you must "buy in" for a set amount -

probably the current list price for the perpetual license version. This way

Adobe's revenue stream stays about the same as it is now - assuming most

people are on an 18 month upgrade cycle.

Of course there should be discounts for multiple products and a large

discount for a "Get 'em all" package. If Adobe adopted such a model then

all the griping from folks like me who can't afford 3x my current cost would

go away (in fact I might even get some products I don't use now if the

discount was good), Adobe would have the same revenues, AND (assuming the

press releases from Adobe are correct) would be saving scads of money by not

having to build, release, and support both the single release version of

products as well as the cloud version. A win-win for everybody.

I'm not holding my breath.

Dan

[mashnyc]

I will use my CS6 Suite for as long as it remains useful and relevant, and then look for other options. It’s unconscionable that Adobe would extort $50/month from loyal users for a product the users will never own, always beholden to the Great God Adobe for their software.

Steve Jobs, in talking about music, said that people want to own, not rent, their music. They don’t want all the music to vanish if they decide they no longer want to rent, all that money they paid gone along with their music. I realize that the files will not be gone (though they will be useless) if a person decides to end his or her subscription, but, for many of the same reasons that Jobs cited regarding music, people want to own their software. For Adobe not to offer the option to own their software is, ummm, capitalism at it’s “finest”…

Greed, nothing more, nothing less. Just greed.

Matthew

[vjspin3]

I wrote to Scott Kelby and Terry White when CS6 was rumored to be a Creative Cloud only app that I would stop using Adobe products if I couldn't purchase them. Adobe backed off because many others felt the same. I used to update individual apps 10 years + ago (I still have my Adobe PS 3 floppies) with each new version. Since moving to the Production Suite with CS2 and CS3, I then started upgrading every other version. I have CS5 now, skipped CS6 while planning on purchasing CS7. Unless Adobe backs off, I'll be purchasing CS6 for about $400 as an upgrade and that will be that. About 50 various versions of Adobe products purchased over the years will come to an end. I'll upgrade Lightroom until that too ends up on the CC. I can't afford their $50-a-month charge. The money cow that I've been will end, and I don't imagine I'm the only one. So long Adobe! And Photoshop User! And to all the other tutorial people I've purchased lessons on: Kelby Enterprises, Lynda.com, Deke McClelland, Colin Smith, etc. You guys will lose out too. This will also mean not upgrading my operating system if it means losing the ability to use CS6. Or a new computer. What hath Adobe wrought?

[Danny_Michael]

>What hath Adobe wrought?

I think Adobe made it pretty clear they simply don't care what we or anyone else thinks. They're going all in and hoping their 4 Aces is enough. Only time will tell.

[Paul_Taylor]

Beholding to Adobe to access files for the rest of my days is a scenario I do not wish to be involved in. Happy to upgrade when we need to. Faithfully updated as per Adobe's instruction to prepare for CS7. What a rip off. Only signed up for the cloud edition last year to look at apps that were not available any other way (another terrible ploy from Adobe), feel completely let down as a long term supporter (product suggestions) and customer (many, many years). 

Also noted that the anti Cloud Only petition has shot through 27,000

http://www.change.org/petitions/adobe-systems-incorporated-eliminate-the-mandatory-creative-cloud-su...

It is VERY clear that Adobe is no longer a company to trust in, support or see as a long term service provider in business. Its methods appear underhand (CS7) and explotative (lock into lifetime payment).

Have cancelled CC membership.

[Kwan Parker]

Competitors really haven't caught on . . . yet.  For instance, Corel offers only a small time window offer to Adobe perpetual license holders to upgrade to thier software.

Don't know . . . but maybe the upsurge in Cash Cow subscribers was due to curosity and opportunity.  Competitors need to target us when the discount and curosity expires . . . about a year from now.

My perpetual licensed CS 6 Master Collection is still viable for awhle.  Why would I switch until it was less productive than software offered by others?

Kinda like an Adobe vulture saftety nest . . .. dontcha think?

[Kwan Parker]

Know anybody who hosts a "I hate Adobe!" website?  I'll join.

[Pauls Sloss]

Kwan Parker wrote:

Don't know . . . but maybe the upsurge in Cash Cow subscribers was due to curosity and opportunity.  Competitors need to target us when the discount and curosity expires . . . about a year from now.

Adobe really don't make the terms clear (particularly that you don't get to keep the software) on their main sales pages and email advertising. Simply put, the advertising reads -- get all these apps for a monthly fee. You really have to drill into the FAQ to get the nitty gritty ... and the terms linked from the FAQ are the general Adobe terms, not the CC terms. I've only seen the actual CC terms when my CS6 application manager updated.

So I expect that even though rental suits some, other subscribers won't be fully aware of what they have signed up for. I know some of my colleagues didn't expect that the CC subscription plan meant they don't get to keep the software, they were expecting that it was some kind of hire-purchase plan.

[toxic_waltz]

Suck it Adobe. The end is near.

http://www.techhive.com/article/2042541/adobe-creative-cloud-cracked-and-pirated-mere-days-after-lau...

[DAVIDE PEPE]

I badly hope Adobe will change this terrible strategy. I hope they'll plan to release the perpetual licence option for CC2015.

Actually I think if one owns CS6 and paid for CC and CC2014 I think it would be honest to allow him to perpetually use CC and CC2014.

I want to add my voice to the choir and I really feel disappointed by this terrible adobe move!!!

Very sad!!!

[DamnDesert]

Agreed, I keep getting "there is an update" pop-up notification to LR 5.7, I click on the update now button but the only option is to join the cloud. It's been roughly two years since Adobe pushed their lack of choice on its customer base; perhaps the only thing left to do is warn people what the risks of the cloud are. The Internet is littered with hyper-positive reads on all that is good and holy with the cloud, what you don't see written about much are the risks. When there are breaches, the media is all too forgiving and willing to gloss past it as a glitch in progress.

To provide context, by day I'm a security professional GIAC GSEC and ISC2 CISSP certified. I protect tens of millions of peoples Personally Identifiable Information (PII), I've worked in IT for 25 years the last 10 in IT Security.

For any interested here are some things you should understand:

• 70% of all security threats to a company network originate from within the company’s staff
• Outside threats, hackers, for the last several years have been targeting people with privileged access to company data
• Social network sites such as LinkedIn give hackers an upper hand to map who is who within a company, this increases the risk for highly targeted spear phishing attacks to occur
• A total novice can be a hacker today; available simplified tools have become more plentiful. We have seen attack sophistication go up while required intruder technical knowledge has gone down.
• Just because a company is secure today is no guarantee it will be 5 years from now
• JPM Chase and other large companies which got hacked have proven large well-funded does NOT equal more secure
• Security assessments, IT audits, 3^rd party penetration tests and vulnerability scans can be thrown off by narrowing the scope of what they look for. Things can be hidden. You would be shocked at what most in my experience are hiding until they can get management approval on funding to put better protections in place.
• Encryption! Don’t be fooled by the talk of whole disk encryption equating to end to end encryption, it’s not! Until you shut the system down, it is not encrypted. Encrypting SAN drives does not encrypt the data until you pull the hard drive out of the thing. There are app level solutions such as Vormetric, but even that has ways to get to your data.
• IT Security is complicated, even if you patch a system, that patch may reveal a new flaw. The OpenSSL vulnerability left 80% of the Internet exposed to basically having almost no security. In that instance which lasted for months SLL protection could be bypassed due to a driver flaw exposing everything that passed through it in plain-text.

Who does the cloud benefit? The answer is simple, corporations and their quest to reduce costs, all of the features and benefits being sold about how awesome the cloud is boils down to one thing, money. You and your data are along for the ride in the name of what is being called progre$$. Companies get away with this by inundating you with lengthy legal eye bleed EULA’s. Corporate execs (we have all probably witnessed this to some degree) make decisions to fulfill a vision without knowledge and sometimes regard for the implications of that initiative. All too often they don’t perform due diligence or care what the complexity is in doing it. More concerning they view your data as their data.

My recommendation to anyone is be mindful of what you knowingly put on the Internet, if you wouldn't leave it unguarded laying out on your front lawn, you shouldn't leave it on the Internet either regardless of the assurances of its safety by others.

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

KURT SMITH wrote:

Agreed, I keep getting "there is an update" pop-up notification to LR 5.7, I click on the update now button but the only option is to join the cloud. It's been roughly two years since Adobe pushed their lack of choice on its customer base;

There is still a perpetual license upgrade for Lightroom - but it's well hidden in the website.

[DAVIDE PEPE]

but not for all the other adobe applications!

[slavne]

I see the general opinion is next to 100% that Adobe is using the clear force to put his customers into the lost position. I understand that everybody follows his own interest; I understand that Adobe would like all the money in the world that it can grab. It seems to me what Adobe did with abandoning perpetual license is just the big monopoly game played everywhere these days.

Well the usual ordinary people like us cannot strike back immediately. We as customers are clearly humiliated. Mr Chamber.... in his post from year 2013 said Adobe will continue selling CS6 product on indefinitely? What a joke! I downloaded these days CS6 and when pressed Buy button, do you know what I got? Do you guess what I got:

"Sorry, this page is not available.....Error 404"

Yes, we are the lowest pawns in the classical monopoly game with customers, as somebody said - like Microsoft Windows and a lot of other big players. I think the guys from Adobe and similar companies over-played a bit. The time will show if I am right or wrong.

==========================================================================

Now let's be active! I suggest everybody on this thread search Yandex or Google for "photoshop alternative", or "adobe alternative", and post here his suggestions! Let Adobe see what we shall do with his product: just through it away, even after decades of supporting it. We are the ones to put Adobe to the throne - we can and surely will put it down. Adobe deserves that.

[slavne]

And allow me one more important information.

In the meantime I made a good investigation and found a beautiful software with close functionality to Adobe Photoshop. After about several decades of constant joining and perfecting Adobe Photoshop, having several books read and copy books full of notes on Photoshop, I have a wonderful revealing experience with my new software. Tonight I payed $79,99 for the ultimate version after checking the trial version. I am still downloading 4 additional packages that I get for free with my Ultimate edition which seems to be more than even Photoshop have. Still I do not expect all the filters and possibilities in my new software as it was in Photoshop, but I am ready to change. I don't care if Photoshop is the best, for me descent people and 'next-to-the-best' software is perfectly good for me. I didn't believe it would be so easy to transform myself in such a short time of just a few days, and that is the reason I write this note to everybody.

I should like so much to tell you the name of the replacement program almost equal to Photoshop, but I guess some "democrat" could accuse me of spamming or advertising... The software has dark look and natural quick learning curve and am still discovering the possibilities. For now, I did editing of pictures for my CMS site articles with no problem. One well known company makes it (5 letters :-)))

[Herbert2001]

@slavne: By now everyone is aware of Photoshop alternatives such as Photoline, Affinity Design and Photo, Gimp, Xara, Sketch, Krita, InkScape, Corel Draw/Photo Paint, Pixelmator, Acorn, PaintShop Pro, Serif PhotoPlus, or even a full license of Photoshop Elements with the ElementsXXL extension.

Yours would be? Probably Serif PhotoPlus? The issue with PhotoPlus (and many other would-be competitors) is that it only supports up to 16 bit per channel. Photoline and Krita do support full 32bit per channel editing. Affinity Photo is about to support it.

Often CMYK is not properly supported either.

Anyway, many alternatives out there, both open source and commercial. Your message will not be censored just because you happen to mention a competing product.

[slavne]

You are quite right.

Paintshop Pro 64 (not censored, you say, aha, freedom!) supports only 16 bit per channel. But that is not at all needed for many. If you have a web designer he has extremely low demands in comparison with designers for print industry of some sort, probably. The needed types of filters - the same story: some filters seems useful for everybody, some for the few. The automation is the life saver for a lot of people, but a lot of people can perfectly well live with just rudimentary one. What is paramount feature for you, say 32bit color channel, it is not for somebody else.

However you cannot stick to the highest possible standard (Photoshop, right?) and use non-Photoshop software to save money.
For me and probably a large group of people giving $80 for perpetual license instead of giving $120 or so EVERY year is perfectly worth sacrificing some feature that we can live without.

=======================

Bottom line - my personal choice at this moment is

Paintshop Pro Ultimate instead of Adobe Photoshop (16bit color channels, quick learning). worth every penny you give.

PDF Xchange Editor instead of Adobe Acrobat DC:

editing remarkably faster then Acrobat and quite acceptable for me, commenting seems better then Acrobat, astonishing low price of $43,50.
OCR is included and it is little slower then in Acrobat. For my purposes it has not acceptable accuracy. It supports multiple languages. But if ocr-ed for non-English languages, notice that you have to include in the OCR setup not only the target language, but also at least one additional language (e.g. Serbian and Bulgarian) to achieve good recognition. Still, I am using the world no. 1 program for OCR (Abby FineReader, Russian product that clearly outperforms any American product) so I do not depend on pdf xchange ocr.
Further, pdf xchange has very good bookmarking capability to generate bookmarks from text or from table of contents, with useful options, almost up to the level of some stand-alone bookmark software; it supports ECMA-style regular expression for bookmarks creation; it only lacks the possibility of distinguish bookmarks by indentation.

One of the most precious features for me is multiple times shorter start up time and multiple times faster operation then Acrobat. For people who open pdf files frequently this will be revelation.
You will be nervous when using pdf xhcange for the first time because it is not yet completely finished project, has some bugs and unpolished documentation. But after less then a week of using I will feel very comfortable with it. The help desk people is available on forum and they responded to every email I sent them in 24 hours or so.

[Bobaudio]

I used to upgrade to each new version of Audition that came out. I haven't upgraded since Audition CS6, which I think was released in 2012, because of the requirement for a subscription for everything that followed. Adobe has lost out on 4+ years of revenue from me. They must have some level of success though, to be continuing with this strategy.

In the meantime I've found that Izotope RX5 is a nice alternative that has taken over much of what I did with Audition. My money will go in their direction, as well as to others that continue to innovate their products without requiring them to be rented.

I find it funny they offer the purchase of Adobe stock on the website. I would only purchase that if I could afford a sufficient quantity to attain a voting majority. Then I would proceed to oust their upper management and board of directors.. In the meantime, I wish them the best of luck. I like Adobe's products, but won't sign up for this payment policy.

[Szalam]

Bobaudio wrote:

I find it funny they offer the purchase of Adobe stock on the website. I would only purchase that if I could afford a sufficient quantity to attain a voting majority. Then I would proceed to oust their upper management and board of directors.

They're offering stock images, video, and 3d models. Not the kind of stock one would find on the Stock Exchange.