AlanF said:
There are crucial differences that render your argument by analogy dubious - in some of those examples cloud access is an essential feature without which the product could not work, in others you have the option of downloading to local-based software, but with Adobe the cloud it is an unnecessary imposition to force you to use it. DropBox, OneDrive and iCloud have to provide continuous cloud service so you can upload and access your files anywhere and they have to maintain their huge servers. With most Office 365 plans, you're able to download and install full versions of Microsoft Office programs like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on your PC, Mac, or mobile device. I don't know every e-mail package, but all the cloud ones I use download to my laptop and desktops. Adobe could provide a downloadable version, as in the past, that you can use without being connected to the internet and not require any storage on the cloud.
With Office365, you can download an application to your PC, but when your subscription expires, you can't run it anymore, except in limited functionality mode (like read-only), which is exactly the same as lightroom.
Am I wrong? I believe that you can run Photoshop/Lightroom without an Internet connection for at least a few days before it comes up with an error. I'm positive I've used both in situations when I didn't have Internet, since I've gone cloud. But if I am in error, please correct me. Since I went fiber at home, I never lose Internet, and work has a backup Internet connection, so it's entirely possible that I' mistaken. I just recall a couple of years ago, during an 3-day extended power outage, doing post on PS/LR on generator power (with no Internet).
Office 365, just like Adobe, no longer provide an EXE or MSI. It's just a little stub program that does all the download. O365 is actually even worse; you MUST install every single Office application. So if it's Enterprise, you fill up a laptop with stuff you'll never use on the laptop, like Publisher, even if the only things you want are Word/Excel/Outlook.
Of course, with Office, you have the choice of buying a copy that never expires. But it's a bazillion dollars in comparison to a personal 365 license, which also lets you (legally) install on multiple PCs.
Other software like Autodesk stuff works the same way (if you get the subscription model).
I do get that I put some software on the list that is literally cloud-dependent (like iCloud). But please keep in mind that I was responding to a post that asserted that Adobe is the only company ever that has software that stops working when you stop paying them == extortion.
Incidentally, I think Fonts.com is a GOOD comparison. When you subscribe to Fonts.com, you pay $10 a month, and you have access to a bazillion fonts, all at the same time. You get to install them locally with SkyFonts as TTF/OTF/whatever. But when you stop paying, all those fonts magically disappear, and all your documents will still open -- but they won't have those fonts anymore.
Fonts.com is also MUCH MUCH cheaper than buying those fonts separately. If you're a graphics pro, or your company has a graphics department, that font bill can rack up something scary. The different varieties of just one font can pay for a 4 year subscription! If you want a premium extended family, like all the variants of Neue Helvetica, you could probably subscribe to fonts.com for decades. But of course, that won't expire
daphins said:
Adobe CC has absolutely no benefits to my work. I don't use the online storage, I don't want them to push automatic updates to me (they've bricked my files and cratered my performance with their "fixes" in the past), and I find their tablet tools to be utterly useless for my work. A fun gimmick if I ever wanted to use them, but i don't. They don't make any meaningful updates to the software, and I find it incredibly annoying when I get logged out and have to log back in (my work has CC and I go to remote areas).
They built in obsolescence and gave me absolutely no benefits. They just rake in money. As previously posted, there are OTHER companies that have successfully worked around this by allowing you to keep the last "version" that you paid for in perpetuity. Adobe is too damn greedy to do this and so we have these circular discussions on the inter-web.
Which is why I personally will never subscribe. I'll use CS6 until I don't have a PC that can run it, or use other software to do my work. At this point I have alternatives to almost every Adobe product that I use, and if it weren't for my office holding onto Adobe, I'd use other things full time.
All this is pretty fair. Adobe CC also has zero benefit to me.
But do keep in mind that Photoshop CS6 was horrifically unaffordable to hobbyists, unless they were getting educational pricing, and even then, it was far and away the best selling graphics software. The market share for graphics professionals is as close to 100% Photoshop as you can get, and Illustrator/InDesign is nearly at the same ubiquity.
Also remember that Photoshop was never meant as a hobbyist's tool, and that it's
always been expensive.
You can't really expect Adobe to take a $700-$1000 product, give it to you for $120 a year, and then let you keep that version for perpetuity, right?
I really wish there were alternatives to Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign too. Over the decades, I have tried as much as possible to support alternatives like CorelDraw, Quark Xpress and to a lesser extent various bitmap editors like GiMP and PaintShop Pro. I actually prefer Corel; I vastly prefer its Beziers. But it's a hopeless battle; I always end up buying the Adobe products because all it takes is one person that matters to ask, "Can I send you an AI/EPS/PSD?". They almost never open with 100% fidelity from another program, and never save and reopen properly.
