Reduced Price for Those Unable to Upgrade

[George Langley]

There needs to be a reduced subscription price, OR a one-time purchase option, for those of us unable to upgrade our Adobe products. "Always having the latest version" is one of the selling features of subscription-based software. But when Adobe keeps increasing the minimum Mac OS (or computer specs) required to run the latest versions, they start leaving their customers in the dust, and are not fulfilling their promise.
I cannot afford to buy a brand-new computer every two years just to "keep up with the Joneses (Adobe)." And my current machine can only be upgraded to Monterey (12.7), meaning the latest version of Photoshop will not run on it (min. 13.0 required.)
The previous "buy once with reduced upgrade purchase options" is sorely missed. But charging the full subscription fee for a subscription that fails to deliver on its promise, is worse.
The Creative Cloud app can tell that you aren't running a new-enough machine or OS to run its products. It can easily identify those of us who deserve a reduced price, and can revert it back to full price if and when we do upgrade to be able to run the latest.
Given that Adobe is not putting any more effort into developing old versions, I'd say that 50% off would be reasonable. Or, a reasonable one-time fee for a perpetual licence, until such time as we can resubscribe again.
I feel like I am rebuying an old beater of a car, for the same price as a new one that I can't drive because I don't have a new-enough house to park it in front of.
Please and thanks.

[jane-e]

@George Langley 

Adobe offers you two choices:

• continue to use your older hardware and older operating system and older version of Photoshop. In the Creative Cloud app, turn off automatic updates for applications and don't update to the more current versions of Photoshop. When you eventually upgrade your computer and OS, your subscription includes the current version of Photoshop.
• another option is to subscribe to Photoshop Elements, which is usually $99 for a three year subscription and is more affordable

There are also free alternatives, but we are asked not to mention those on the Adobe Forums. You'll find them on the web search.

Jane

[George Langley]

Yes, I just don't upgrade. But why should we be paying full price for these out-dated versions? I still use them, so yes, pay something. But like a cable subscription - I don't pay more to get every new channel that they add, I pay less for just the channels I watch. So less for this old version and what it can do, versus more for all the new features that I can't access.

[Trevor.Dennis]

There are cheaper alternatives, and I am sure they will have continued to evolve the same as Photoshop.  Krita 5.2 is two years old. Gimp 4.7 is just a uyear old. The latest Affinity version is barely a month old.  There will never be a cut price Photoshop for older systems.  Adobe were apparently higly reluctant to make the Photography version available (thanks to Scott Kelby) so no point in worrying about it.

[ExUSA]

The newest Macs unable to update past Monterey are about 7-8 years old now. You can get a new M4 Mac mini for US$600 which is current and fully supported, that might be the best answer for you.

[George Langley]

Not exactly portable! And still looking at additional $$$ for the peripherals.

[ExUSA]

Ok, so get a MacBook Air. Still supported and MUCH faster than an old machine. Sell the old one to recoup part of the cost.

[D Fosse]

Actually, such a pricing model isn't unthinkable. Sony do it; as new camera models are released they keep selling the older models at reduced price. You can still pick up an a7r III from the shelf at about two thirds of the original retail price, or a IV at slightly more - while the V has been the current model in the series for over a year.

Of course, that's hardware, not software, and at some point the stock runs out.

[ExUSA]

Support costs are a significant part of software development expense. Plus third-party licenses might expire and backend features might change (look at the licensing and activation problems posted on here.) Older hardware is easier to support because the ecosystem remains compatible. I'm betting Adobe would lose money with a reduced-price offering.

[D Fosse]

Yeah, I know it's different, for the reasons you state - the environment the software runs in evolves.

(but I do like the Sony policy).

[Park Street Printers]

I'm sorry to play devil's advocate here, but it seems unrealistic to expect a reduced price for older versions of subscription-based software. Should I ask Adobe for a super-cheap price so I can keep running my ancient CC apps on my antediluvian Windows 7 machine? I built a computer in 2018 that is still fully capable of running the latest versions of all the Adobe programs and my OS, and I suspect it will still be current in those regards for at least another 3 years. Eventually, things will change enough that I will have to build something new. That's expected. Everything becomes obsolete. The only way to avoid that is to have hardware as a service, included in the software subscription.

Aside from pricing, should Adobe commit resources to continuing technical support for very old versions of their software? Again, it seems unrealistic.

[Trevor.Dennis]

What makes it even more unreasonable, is that people who want insist that Adobe keep their apps compatible with older hardware and operating systems, mean ignoring the advantages in performance that some of the unique features in the newer systems.  Thus holding back performance for the people prepared to stay up to date with their hardware.

I replaced a six year old system with i9 7900X CPU and 64GB RAM just coming up to a year ago, because it wouldn't run Neural and Parametric filters. Strangely enough, I didn't get on this forum screaming at Adobe.  I recognised that my system had become out of date, so I replaced it.  I actually love finding that the time has come to update, because it gives me the excuse I need to dip into my savings.  I usually try a clean reinstall of the operating system and apps before giving up.  That always makes things run better and faster.  Harm Milaard And Bill Gehrke of the Premier Pro Hardware forum, and PPBM   website (Harm died several years ago, and the site is no longer maintained) would insist that systems used for Non-Linear Video Editing should be kept clean of all nonessential content to save them getting clogged.  Indeed, my one year old i9 13900K system is not as crisp as when I bought it, because I use it for everything, and it has a ton of background processes that run at start-up.  

A clean OS reinstall is actually quick and easy if you have multiple drives, but does take some planing.

[Park Street Printers]

I have to wholeheartedly agree that the compatibility vs. current tech/performance issue is real. InDesign is still basically single-core, and no Adobe apps can take full advatange of even my 2020 Threadripper Pro system's capabilities.

I've never had to reinstall an OS for performance reasons, though. I have extensive experience with editing the Windows registry, and keep tabs on all processes. I also benchmark my home systems with Passmark pretty regularly, to be sure that nothing is changing.

That's not to say that it won't someday be necessary, of course!

The Windows 11 installation on my 2020 system was plucked out of my (at the time) dead 2018 system. I got the motherboard on that one repaired and bought a separate Windows 11 license, and resumed use a year and a half later, with nary a hiccup. I have 3 NVME drives on the older system and 11 on the 2020, although 8 of them are in a RAID10. The only real bedrock feature missing from both systems is AVX512. The older one is sometimes better for certain non-Adobe video editing, because of its identical dual GPUs, despite them being a previous generation and only PCI-E 3.