Subscription cost increasing AGAIN

[ActivelyX]

I'm going to cancel my subscription too. I'm tired of paying exorbitant fees month after month. $72.99 a month? From $52.99? I don't see inflation at that level.

[Abambo]

It's not that it is really cheap, but compared to the upgrade prices we paid, the new pricing structure is competitive. It even allowed us to "upgrade" 3 licenses of different design suites to the all apps increasing effectively the possibilities to our people. And we added easily 2 licenses, because the monthly payments did not shock the same managers that at the time refused the acquisition of the perpetual licenses.

If you are a hobbyist and you where used to upgrade each 20 years only, then it is expensive indeed. But you can take the subscription on the month. Doing work for your club? Take the subscription for a month or two and the brochure is done and printed.

[michiet]

Just because people feel that price gauging is being imposed by Adobe, doesn't automatically mean the user is a kid or a hobbyist. There are professionals who believe the subscription method is out of greed and not for benefit of the user.

[Daniel E Lane]

And as I said, those professionals are pretty new to the world of being a professional since it was not that long ago that the subscription based method started.

[Abambo]

Fact is that a pro needed to keep up with new versions. And fact is too, that the subscription model is simply more economical to those...

I’ve made the calculations. Our model of upgrading each second release was costing us more than the subscription model. And we are not an agency but we are providing the service inside of our company as part of our marketing department.

We had 3 different CS versions for 4 people. Now we have one CC version for 6 people. Simply because it is more affordable to use the subscription model. And as a bonous there is the 200Gb cloud space, that we do not use, but that could be an added value for someone needing to colaborate with customers around the world.

Expensive or not is a question of definition. A hobbyist can indeed still work with an older version of Photoshop, Illustrator or Indesign. But Adobe products are only marginally serving hobbyists.

For students the situation is different. But also there, you can find advantages. You may use the software for the year you need it, cancel the second year and start again the third year... saving a whole year of subscription cost.

But there is one fact: Adobe is highly succesfull with the current model and pricing. They won’t change that anytime soon again.

[benjamintaylor]

Just got an email this morning that my subscription is increasing again too. AGAIN. This will be the third time.

And I continually see discounted subscriptions for new users, when people who have been loyal customers for YEARS just get price increases.

I swear DaVinci Resolve is good enough to move to now that Fusion is also built in, so I'm just going to move to that. It's a one-time payment thats equal to 2 months payment of Adobe now.

Screw this Adobe, you're biting the hand that feeds you.

[Ozweb]

Yeah this last raise is the final straw for us. Have used Photoshop since the 90s and always been loyal but now we only use Photoshop, id and Dw and it's $80 AUD per month? Too many great alternatives now to justify these costs.

[philipj3356796]

Same here -  I'm cancelling my subscription with these latest price increases.

I can get done what I need to with Gimp and Inkscape.

The workflow won't be as nice, but it'll be cheaper.

[michiet]

I am in the process of finding new software replacements. I have purchased Affinity Photo and have been very happy with the function. I hate having to learn a new program because I was using photoshop since the late 90's, but really the cost was prohibitive since I no longer work for a large company. Affinity also has a beta publisher (replaces InDesign) which I haven't tried yet but will and I am still considering going back to QuarkXPress, it's be ages since I used that program. Good luck with your search in finding replacement software. I am one for supporting individual graphic designer over the big software company.

[Daniel E Lane]

See ya!

[michiet]

Daniel, I will still be around these forum helping out other graphic designers that may have the same issue that I do and others as well. So yeah you will see me.

[Daniel E Lane]

doubtful you will continue spending time here in the long run if you are changing software. But my guess is if you are a professional level designer, you will be back to Adobe at some point.

[rayek.elfin]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Daniel+E+Lane  wrote

But my guess is if you are a professional level designer, you will be back to Adobe at some point.

Unfortunately Adobe offers no professional level design software. Professional game designers and developers look elsewhere.

[ProDesignTools]

Guessing that the increase has to do with continued weakness of the Australian dollar, unfortunately... From looking at a chart, the value relative to the US Dollar is near a 10-year low.

When Creative Cloud was first introduced in 2011 and went on sale in 2012, the AUD was worth over US$1.00. Currently the AUD/USD exchange rate is the lowest since that time. If Adobe doesn't periodically adjust the AUD pricing, then their net sales (always denominated in USD) would decline substantially.

Anyway, that's likely what explains it. If you have any questions or comments, here is how to get in touch with Adobe Support directly:

Contact Customer Care

[Ozweb]

Nonsense. No other digital subscription service we use has increased by over 40% in the last 2 years.

In fact office pricing has remained as is for 3 years now.

One could argue the office suite provides way more value to our business than Adobe CC, at 1/6th the cost.

[Abambo]

Auswebedge  wrote

One could argue the office suite provides way more value to our business than Adobe CC, at 1/6th the cost.

Office is a completely different target. You can't compare one against the other.

[Ozweb]

Webedge will be closed over the holiday period from Dec 18th through to Jan 13th 2019 (inclusive).

For all urgent and critical hosting or website issues please contact Andrew on his mobile and leave a message. We will attend to the issue ASAP.

Andrew & Rohan wish everyone a very safe and merry Xmas and New Years and a special thanks to those who worked with us in 2018!

[Abambo]

you should disable your out of office for these mals... . That's an Outlook issue!

[Ozweb]

Was just one example. Also the cost and what's being provided is irrelevant. Are you saying Adobe is the only company affected by a weak AUD?

We have subscriptions for many other services and none have increased in the last 12 months due to the weak Aussie dollar.

MadisonLeupp​ or other mod please delete my out of office autoreply above - can't believe there are no options to edit posts.

[Abambo]

Ozweb  wrote

Was just one example. Also the cost and what's being provided is irrelevant. Are you saying Adobe is the only company affected by a weak AUD?

Probably not.

[ProDesignTools]

It's not nonsense. It's math.

[Daniel E Lane]

Well you are quite the contrary one aren't you! Adobe offers some of the best professional level design software on the market, for graphic design. Game design is a whole other market, very niche, not their bag.

[rayek.elfin]

professional "level design" software - 't was a words pun. I had hoped the three emoticons would have conveyed the joke better.

Aside from the pun, I am glad to see that you put a qualifier in your statement. Adobe is indeed king of the graphic design software market, though not nearly so much in other creative markets. Web, Game, Video, Film, 3D, 2D animation, digital painting,... As you said, Adobe's products play a role in these markets, but are hardly "the best". In some of these Adobe's products have a marginal presence (Web, 3D, Games), in others more capable industry level products prevent Adobe from dominating.

I would have to disagree that the game design market is niche: compare the US game market revenue of ~17 billion dollars to the ~9 billion dollars US graphic design services revenue (2015-2016). Games is by far a larger world-wide market.

Anyway, it is quite possible (and even preferable in a number of cases) to remove Adobe software from your pipeline, and be regarded as a creative professional. Depends on the job and market which you happen to work in. Some of the software out there puts Adobe's efforts to shame.

[B_Taylor]

I will cancel my Photography Plan subscription if it doubles. I use Photoshop about twice a year anyway. If I can find something close to Lightroom in power and cataloging, I will change, otherwise, I'll buy the standalone version of LR.

[Abambo]

B_Taylor  wrote

I will cancel my Photography Plan subscription if it doubles. I use Photoshop about twice a year anyway. If I can find something close to Lightroom in power and cataloging, I will change, otherwise, I'll buy the standalone version of LR.

Currently the Photography plan is still at about 10$/10€. There are no plans that I have knowledge of that this will change. However there is a discussion currently going on here: Where is the 20Gb Photography Plan?

My personal feeling: There is, however, a tendency to move to the cloud model (so having the pictures loaded up to the cloud). I have around 3Tb of picture data in constant expansion. I use Photoshop and I would love to keep the possibility to edit with Photoshop. That is currently not possible with Lr -- the cloud based Lightroom.

[CoastGuy09]

I have been retired 15 years and only use Photoshop chiefly as a container for several plug-in.  (Skylum Software, Topaz Labs, Lumenzia)  To be clear, I do not use Lightroom or cloud storage.  I do all my RAW processing in Capture One and use their catalog system.  Photoshop makes it easy for me to integrate work from a number of other applications and there are a few situation where Photoshop's tools are better than most other programs.

I have almost 4TB of images and live in an area where high speed Internet is prohibit-ably expensive.  Cloud options simply do not work.

I would hope that if there is going to be a price change, Adobe would consider a Photoshop option that does not include Lightroom or cloud storage.  In other words, a bare bones Photoshop and Adobe Camera RAW editor.

I do not make any money from my photography and I live on a fixed income.  This is just a hobby that I enjoy.