Adobe, your products suck

I cannot emphasis how much I agree with this post. Here's my Adobe experience over the past year.

1. $650 should buy me software for life. You are charging an annual fee to have users debug your software for you. Unacceptable.
2. Adobe Premiere broken. Constant crashes. Titles bugged. Cannot handle foreign texts. They literally have a button for SE Asia Languages, but when you click it SE Asian Languages bug out... I am literally creating PNGs of text and importing them through a legacy titler. Also, cannot handle GH5 codec. Audio tracks go dead for no reason, forcing me to create new audio tracks and painstakingly move all audio tracks up to the new ones.
3. Your tech support is unreachable unless you happen to live in California. How come my printer manufacturer has better customer support than you? I can even open a support ticket right from their website. AMAZING! Your chat featured doesn't even let us register an issue. Being based in Asia I literally have to wait until 10pm to contact you. Unacceptable. What? You can't afford a tech support team in INDIA to handle this HALF OF THE WORLD!?!
4. Your community forms are filled with people like me exhausted by spending 90% of our working time trying to get your software to work rather than actually using them.
5. InDesign & Illustrator menu items randomly become inaccessible on secondary 4K monitor, with menus scrolling to the right when you try to select menu item from the dropdown list.
6. I could go on, and on, and on. Adobe is the EA of the creative world and I am seriously considering moving to final cut JUST to get around this BS, and I can't stand macs.

ADOBE - GIVE US A REFUND OR FIX YOUR BROKEN SH*!

Worst product - it is so sad to see the destruction of adobe from within. NEVER EVER -give them your credit card number - based on principle alone - and the pathetic programming of now ALL THEIR USELESS SNAKE OIL IT PRODUCTS , I have taken my business elsewhere for about a decade now. I had to get a product today - and found they have not changed a bit.

When you have to work harder to purchase, download and use a stupid application,,than to quickly access a functional product - RUN

Have you tried Corel draw Graphics Suite. Better UI. Snappier Software. Corel put the best of InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop all in 1 single program.  Adobe just can't compete.

Maybe I should take it to Acrobat forum, but here's another one.

I have a 16 page pdf that was built in god knows what and am tricking it into printing greyscale. I got it where I want, then "convert to greyscale" my pdf in Acrobat and all of my 100% black areas are scaled back to 91% no matter what gamma I use.

This has been this way for 10 years now. It's astonishing.

in fairness, "upgrading" to the latest version of Illustrator DID fix my document setup issue where I can now use mathematical formulas to set up large docs. I work in signs and large format so now an 8 foot wide sign I can type "8 * 12" and get the result I need, so kudos to ADOBE for breaking something that worked fine for 20 years and then fixing it.

On the other hand, the "upgrade" did overwrite all of my preferences now that I finally have them set like I want them. Anxiously awaiting the remapped keyboard shortcuts and rearranged menus because that always speeds up my workflow.

If you simply uncheck the 'libraries' from the dropdown 'window' menu...while it is uncheck it WILL NOT append new art to your libraries.. this behavior has worked for me in both illustrator and photoshop.

Some how this works, when I 'closed' the panel it still though it was enabled and would reappear with some new asset in the panel... but as long as the check is disabled it won't add (if you recheck it you will notice no new stuff has been added since)

I get there's always something to complain about -- but work is work.  And sadly they aren't making this app for just one personality-type.
You have to problem solve to make it do what you need it to do.  I used to get mad at adobe trying to open their apps up for the 'everyday joe'... vs worrying about active working PROFESSIONALS that would like professional workflows.... but alas adobe needs to pay those bills.  And their apps still function--I am able to do my work day in, day out.  So I just keep learning where stuff gets moved around, what names of things change in their apps... (it will help us with dementia in later life I hope) Some of the new stuff ends up being cool... just have to put in time and constantly get familiar.

I know you mention having a brand new mac.. but I would do some bench marks and other system tests to optimize YOUR specific setup... I have had some speed issues/crashes in the past 2 years with CC ... but nothing much, I personally don't have a problem with it--seems to not be unreasonable it its errors at least.

Yep.

The whole CC is just brutal to work with. Adobe just changes stuff to change it, add more stuff no one asked for and move menu items around. It legitimately hampers my job performance. The changes to InDesign start with the "New Document" setup interface and only get worse from there. Even selecting objects and things like dragging and scaling are noticeably clunky. Often the select frame feature automatically switches to the content tool, for instance.

But the main offender here is the abomination that is Acrobat XI. AS far as I can tell, there is not one added feature that helps anyone and the only real change is the god awful interface that moved everything for no reason and removed any sort of intuitive way to find it. Even customizing the workspace is a hassle. And there is no way to revert to Acrobat X either.

I can see why Adobe doesn't have an email option for customer support or feedback since it's obvious they do not listen to the people who earn a living working with their products.

My advice to Adobe is to dial it down a bit. Simplify, polish what you what already have, collect your money every month  and fix the stuff that's broken instead of adding so many features that not only openly conflict with each other but often result in unworkable finished products. Add an option in ID that allows my pdf exports to automatically retain my file name for instance.

Your company is making my job harder, which flies int he face of what your software is designed to do.

RANT

About me:

I am a heavy Lightroom user due to my job. I spend about 60+ hours a week processing thousands of high resolution raw images. This rant is primarily about Lightroom and the Creative Cloud.

Lightroom:

Adobe Lightroom 6 is significantly slower than Lightroom 5 in all aspects. However, Adobe stopped releasing updates for Lightroom 5 so I am and will be forced to use Lightroom 6, hands down an inferior product. I don't care for or need new features to Lightroom, just updates for new camera support. Unfortunately, the masses just want what's new and exciting and Adobe has no reason not to cater to them because the masses is where the money is.

Subscription model:

I can grudgingly accept the subscription model if Adobe made a product that worked well. But Adobe does not make a product that works well. Adobe can get away with the subscription model because many people use their product. What else are we going to use? Adobe can gut its user base to make more money because they can and we can't do anything about it, yet.

Snoopware:

Upon installing Creative Cloud to my PC, my computer has been take over by snoopware from Adobe. Update services and user telemetry are two that I recognized but there are many more mystery processes running in the background. I don't know what they do, just that they are sending information to Adobe.

User profiles:

Like other major companies, Adobe data mines its users by building a profile about them. This has become acceptable behavior for major companies that provide free services, but they are also under the microscope when it comes to privacy. I don't see a reason why Adobe does such extensive data mining on users so I fear the worst. Whenever I try to do something on the Adobe website, the sign in page inevitable appears and I can't do anything until I enter my credentials. It says to sign in, "for your protection." This is a lie. Sign in is not for the user's protection, but for Adobe's profit.

Customer service:

Adobe customer service is the worst I've ever seen. I've spend dozens of hours chatting with Adobe representatives that led to rage inducing frustration.

First, the solutions they offered were canned, scripted, insulting, and of no help. I can find and read the articles myself, I didn't wait to speak with a representative because I forgot my password or some other trivial problem.. The issues I was having with Lightroom were not basic user problems.

Second, when escalated, the Adobe representative wanted to remotely control my computer which is an insane protocol for a consumer product in the year 2017. I can understand if it was an IT professional for a company owned computer. But Adobe is a third party company wanting access to everything on my personal work computer.

Third, it takes a long time to jump through all the hoops to just get in touch with a representative. Adobe wants me to sign in every single time, probably to continue to build a profile on me.

Fourth, one time, I told the representative three times that I was already a monthly subscriber and owned (rented?) Lightroom 6. Nevertheless, they kept trying to sell it to me.

Fifth, sometimes I can get through to talking/chatting someone, but other times, I'm just left with a blank chat page and an email 20 minutes later stating that the issue had been resolved even though I never got to talk to anyone about it.

Advertising:

Adobe's advertising is as close as a company can get to lying without crossing the line. Maybe they do lie. Absolutely unbelievable.

Conclusion:

I've been using Adobe Lightroom for over 10 years and have been both happy and impressed with everything that it could do. Lightroom 6 has changed all of that. For fear of pirated software, Adobe has decided to gut its loyal user base. They probably made a lot of money since the Creative Cloud made its debut. People like me will probably not be heard and will just have to live with it. Shame on you Adobe. Shame on your inferior products. Shame on your customer service. And shame on your business practices.

TO ADOBE: A RANT FOLLOWS:
I feel the pain of the above comments too! Somehow, now using Adobe design programs/tools AS A WORKING DESIGNER (Adobe: if you remember this was your target consumer base btw who gave your products legs in the marketplace) is now like making a lifestyle choice. The platform is invasive and does not miss an opportunity to brand-wash. It is highly disruptive to a workflow.

The very minute I can jump ship I will be, and talk is that it won't be long. Thanks for the memories!

I have to chip on this discussion Adobe has become so bad with there updates since the introduction of the CC subscription. Since the introduction of monthly subscriptions there is little need for making software run better or the need to add killer features to make you want to upgrade, slowly adobe software has become buggy and poor. Illustrator has been awful and photoshops rushed attempt at artboards (because sketch was becoming a player) was terrible. I regular have the spinning beach ball on all the software earlier version had a few issues but were solid and the beachball appeared a lot less. As a user since 1991 I've seen the software decline in user satisfaction over the last 2 years, old machines really struggle with the new software that seems to be updated regular to iron out major bugs that weren't tested before the release, we are forced to upgrade as well as if you receive new files they cant be opened unless your on the current versions. Adobe doesn't seem to care much as they are now the main software company for designers. lets face it adobe now cares little for its customers now it has them locked in. I'm hoping for the quark to indesign revolution which gave CS its power sketch has already got a few people talking lets hope adobe dosen't buy it and burn it.  Adobe needs to change its ways!! as the title says adobe you suck!