Adobe doing very well with their business model

[Steven L. Gotz]

Once again, Adobe is making money. That means that they will keep improving the software, so it is something to cheer about even if you are not a stockholder.

Adobe Shares Jump Following Another Record Quarter | Investopedia

[Sockratease]

I have mixed feelings on this.

I'm glad that adobe is doing well!  They make great stuff and it's good that they will continue to do so.

But...

I dislike the subscription model immensely!

My income is wildly inconsistent and I could never use a subscription based program, or suite of programs, under my current circumstances.  If I do that, I foresee being broke and getting a job, but not having the money for that month's bill.  Being unable to get to my software would be a deal breaker for any job!

That's why I use the CS6 suite.  I wont be able to upgrade for the foreseeable future.

I would love to use CC, but my wife has cancer and I do web work to supplement income.  Medical bills can leave me overdrawn every other month.  I need a software suite with a lifetime license or I wont even consider it.

They need to offer a lifetime subscription!  It would be expensive, but if I get ahead enough one month to buy it, I would consider it.

Some of my online work involves hunting pirates for adult sites.  I can get a "bounty" for each of their clips or films I find on pirate sites and get taken down via a DMCA notice.  If adobe offered credit toward subscriptions for such services, I am experienced and could possibly cover my monthly fees that way.

But until they cure cancer, no subscriptions for me.

So great for adobe that the model is working, but I must admit I hoped it would fail and they'd go back to selling lifetime licenses because my life situation prohibits using such a service.

[beatricec92024606]

I dislike this business model. Really unfair. I bought CS6. As an independent artist I cannot afford the subscription and I am completely opposed to it.

All my adobe products suddenly didn't work. No support as the product is too old. Finally after 2 days found a way to reinstall but illustrator installation failed. The plugin are not installing and I'm left with a non functioning program.

By changing everything all the time and making older product unusable is an highjack of customers that have constantly to upgrade and buy new products. It might work with people with salaries and working in large companies but profiting from struggling and independent artists is really a shame.

[Szalam]

beatricec92024606 wrote:

By changing everything all the time and making older product unusable is an highjack of customers that have constantly to upgrade and buy new products

Are you suggesting that Adobe is making older products not work? That's a pretty bold claim! Although, they're not updating the older software, so I don't see how they could be making it worse since it's the same it's always been.

It seems to me that it's more like older products don't work with newer operating systems - which isn't the fault of the CC model or even anything to do with Adobe. That's how things are with computers. When new hardware and new operating systems come out, software that was written before they existed can't possibly be expected to work with them. That's just the nature of things. If you want to use old software, use old hardware and an old OS.

It's actually cheaper to stay current with CC now than it was to stay current buying the upgrade every year back in the day. Work pays for the Adobe suite at the office for me now, but at home, when I had to buy it myself, I was really grateful for only $50 a month instead of having to shell out a couple thousand bucks for the whole suite.

[Nancy OShea]

My monthly cell phone costs more than my Creative Cloud plan.  In the grand scheme of things, CC is actually very reasonable considering all the products & services it includes.

All my adobe products suddenly didn't work

CS6 still works fine on most windows systems.  Sounds like you have updated your Mac OS and that's causing your problems.  If so, you can thank Apple for your dilemma; not Adobe.

FYI:  If you're a qualifying student or teacher, you can get CC at the academic discount rate which is about 60% off the regular price . 

Adobe Creative Cloud for students and teachers | Adobe Creative Cloud

Nancy O.

[Sockratease]

Actually, it's a bit unfair to expect a company to keep updating old versions of software.

I use CS6 and I do so knowing full well not to expect it to work on windows 10, or to ever be updated again.  It still works fine on my Win 8 system, and will continue to work fine on the hardware for which it was made.

I lament my situation (and yours!) of being unable to sustain a subscription based software suite, but can't blame adobe for my shortcomings.  I don't see them as taking advantage of either of us simply because we can't afford their products.  I wish it were otherwise, and I hate to admit it - but I wish the subscription based model failed!  However, since it didn't (and as Szalam said), I just have to keep my computer and operating system compatible with the CS6 Suite and I'll be fine.  It still works wonderfully, and produces stuff that gets me paid.  I can learn the few new things that I need to know to make up for the improvements since it was new.

My only plan for upgrading involves winning the lottery, so I doubt I'll be on the cloud plan for a while yet...

[wridav]

Steven

I think I can tell you one reason Adobe is "Doing well!"  I just signed onto Adobe Export PDF and after getting registered and submitting my credit card information.  I am shocked to see on my bank account and additional charge by Adobe for $1.36 Canadian dollars on my Visa account!  When I contact customer service, Santosh informs me Adobe sends out an "Administration charge" of a $1.00 US "to verify the card"  As he says this only inconveniences me while they "Return it to my account" and "I won't see it on my credit card statement"!  Well $1.00 times ,how many customers they get in a day,  equals a lot of money "Kited" for a short period but credited to Adobe?  Very un-nerving to think I just gave my credit card to a company that would take an "Unauthorized amount" from my card, however small and for however short a period!  Little wonder they are "Doing Well"!

Signed:  Not Happy In Canada!

[Sockratease]

wridav wrote:

... When I contact customer service, Santosh informs me Adobe sends out an "Administration charge" of a $1.00 US "to verify the card" As he says this only inconveniences me while they "Return it to my account" and "I won't see it on my credit card statement"!  are "Doing Well"!...

Highly unethical there on Adobe's part!

If they need to run a $1 charge to verify a card, that makes perfect sense and I can't argue with it.

However, the ethical course of action is simply to deduct that $1 from the charge for the product - which they run after verifying the card!!

It's less work for them too (fewer transactions and less employee time spent) if they simply follow the more polite and ethical course, so I am at a loss to understand why they would choose the rude and more annoying method.

At the very least, this charge should be explained before it is made. State it clearly and prominently, don't hide it in paragraphs of "fine print"  which they likely did  (if it is nowhere to be found - not even in the fine print - it may even cross over from unethical and rude to criminal).

[Jon Fritz]

It's hardly unethical, it's actually much more regular than you think.

http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/03/why-you-can-ignore-those-odd-1-credit-card-charges/?_r=0

It's standard practice with cards across many industries.  The $1 test test fee is to verify the account is active before allowing the larger (or later) transaction to go through. Gas stations, subscription services, hotels, pretty much any pay-as-you-go business models use the same method.

It allows them to turn off the pump, cut off the subscription, boot you out the door, etc before losing potentially large sums to fraud.

[Sockratease]

Jon Fritz II wrote:

It's hardly unethical, it's actually much more regular than you think.

http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/03/why-you-can-ignore-those-odd-1-credit-card-charg es/?_r=0

It's standard practice with cards across many industries. The $1 test test fee is to verify the account is active before allowing the larger (or later) transaction to go through. Gas stations, subscription services, hotels, pretty much any pay-as-you-go business models use the same method.

It allows them to turn off the pump, cut off the subscription, boot you out the door, etc before losing potentially large sums to fraud.

As I said when I called it unethical, I do not have any problem with the $1 charge to confirm the card!

That makes perfect sense and I fully agree with the reasoning behind it.

The unethical part comes in when they keep it for a few days to a week before refunding it.  The correct way to handle such things is to use the $1 charge for it's intended purpose, then charge the balance to the card after they are assured it is real.  It's more efficient from an employee workload standpoint too - just deduct that dollar rather than wait and refund it later.

Keeping it for a while, then refunding it, gives the appearance of creating a "slush fund" to use for short term investing and profiting from it.  Just like banks do when they demand 3 to 5 business days to clear a tax refund check from the Treasury Department!

You may have missed that in my post, but it's there.

It's not the $1 charge that is unethical - it is the way they then proceed to treat it as a separate transaction when the only proper thing to do is apply it to the purchase  (when you have bad credit, any chargeback or refund to your card can put a "ding" on your rating - an intolerable thing if trying to restore your good name!).

[Peter Kahrel]

> That means that they will keep improving the software

That depends on who you ask. In general, script writers will whole-heartedly disagree with you. ScriptUI and the ExtendScript Toolkit have been neglected for years. Feature requests for the additions to the scripting API are mostly ignored.

On the InDesign side, take books and long-document features. Books, footnotes, indexes -- all these were introduced many years ago and despite many requests have never been updated. Footnotes got some attention recently and some long-overdue features were added in the 2017 release. Cross-references are still a problem. Long-standing bugs aren't resolved, much to everybody's chagrin.

Peter