Adobe testing a new price point for the Creative Cloud Photography Plan

[GMCPhotographics]

It just goes to show what a greedy corporation Adobe is. We all knew this would happen once the company got enough people off their purchase plan and onto a corporate greedy subscription model. Their Subscription service is hosted on the cheapest cloud available too...it's IP address isn't even a static IP. It bounces around every month. If you are behind a corporate firewall it's a real headache.
If Adobe gains market share like Autodesk did in their market...expect phone number priced subscription plans...like Autodesk...who are another greedy corporate virus like entity. People moan about Microsoft...but they pale next to Adobe and Autodesk.

 

[londonxt]

This software subscription model is dangerous and this is adding to the growing evidence of unease. I havent been impressed with what I have recieved for over a year (or is it two) with Lightroom Classic compared to the feature jumps between new version releases of the standalone product in the previous decade. A subscription model say to access content rather than just using the platform makes sense as it provides pressure to maintain a consistent flow of new or exclusive content to keep the subscriber happy. With Lightroom classic you are basically paying a subscription just to use the tool when previously with a one off puchase you could be sure that you would always be able to access that tool minus future updates. In the game industry there is often a subscription service to access online only games or to access the online feature of the game which again makes sense as there you are paying to experience infinite emergent gameplay that is only possible with the participation of an online community.

As a hobbyist that may open Lightroom a few times a month I have not had value for money with the new subsciption service, even though I was willing to give it a go with the benefit of doubt. I would be happy with paying for the base package then extra for new features as an when they come, even if it was like an a-la-carte menu, this would inspire Adobe to invest in new features (e.g. HDR and Panorama have been pretty much under-cooked and stagnant since they released). I would even go further and be more flexible on my demands and suggest that a cloud computing model would be a win/win where as a casual hobbyist I would pay as and when I used the software rather than having to pay even if I don't use it! What a bizarre world. I am sure there is a case here for an investigation by the Monopoly commision!

I mean think about it if multiple vendors went for the monthly subscription model even when you are not even using the stuff not many people would be happy to do that for more than a handful of the lucky vendors and as proven in other market areas such as electricity and internet providers, subscription models that auto-renew and maintain a priceplan even when new users get better offers for the same service, this sounds more like a dangerous captive market situation than a truely competitive market. Don't see why Adobe should be allowed to get away with corrupting software!

 

[dtaylor]

maybe they are dead because they cannot compete with what Adobe offer - in other words, Adobe do a lot to satisfy a majority of people and Aperture/C1 cannot keep up ?

You cannot concur that the image editing market has resulted in something of a natural near-monopoly without also agreeing that complaints about pricing and service within that market are valid, as price and service distortions are inevitable consequences of such a market.

In what way has it 'got worse'?

Don't play dumb. I've already listed the ways that have annoyed me. If you take 5 minutes on Google you can find a long list of complaints about CC's performance. So many in fact that I cannot identify the performance issue which annoys me the most amongst all the other performance issues.

What would constitute having 'somthing to show for it'?

Improvements in features, performance, stability, and/or security.

 

[jolyonralph]

I never really understand why people willingly go into the "rental" model when ownership is available. And using their cloud? Just how secure is it really?

Because you never really own software. Both in terms of the licence agreement that comes with your purchase, but more realistically in that once you buy it, it's going to only remain current for a certain amount of time.

New cameras come out and you need updates/upgrades. Just because you buy a software licence doesn't give you unlimited upgrades for life. So from time to time you'll have to buy an upgrade or, in extreme cases, new software entirely.

And even if you don't buy a new camera, your software will become out of date if you don't install security fixes, or if you upgrade your computer/operating system and the old software doesn't work.

On average you'll get 3-5 years max out of a piece of purchased software before you can't use it any more and you need to buy a replacement. How does the price of buying Lightroom & Photoshop outright every 3 years compare to subscription - when you can have the latest version all the time.

I get people don't like to subscribe and they feel 'renting' is inferior to 'owning'. But if you're using the software seriously then you really shouldn't be complaining.

ps. Cloud is very secure nowdays. Probably safer than having stuff on your own hard drives. BUT. It's still slow, and 1TB is a tiny fraction of what most serious photographers have in terms of raw files

 

[jeanluc]

Googled “Adobe Photography plan”. Same price. $9.99.

 

[lexptr]

For years I pay subscription fee, despite using LR/PS accessionaly. That is because 1) I don't want to think about pausing/restarting the subscription; 2) I want to support the developer. Current price is about right. I would say: on the high side of "right" (just compare with what you get with Office 365 family subscription for less money). 20$/month would be too much. So looks like I will search for better alternatives.

Another sad part here is that they probably will still get more from those who stay. And they ain't gonna give a heck about once loyal users like me. Greedy maniacs!

 

[Mikehit]

You cannot concur that the image editing market has resulted in something of a natural near-monopoly without also agreeing that complaints about pricing and service within that market are valid, as price and service distortions are inevitable consequences of such a market.

Do you have the numbers to base your conclusion of 'near monopoly'? Or are you talking about what may happen if they wield their power because I don't see much evidence of Adobe abusing the market nor distorting the market - can you tell me in what way you see this happening?
What I do see is them having a highly successful model and you cannot hold that against them and what they have got going for them is a suite of products that integrate at whatever level you want to go which is whey they are especially successful with multimedia people. There are plenty of alternatives out there - free or paid for so people will move once the cost-benefit starts to fail. But not seeing enough benefit in their products, or them raising their prices (shock! horror!) is not the same as them abusing their market position.

Remember the main driver for them going subscription was seemingly maintaining revenue stream in the face of the amount of software piracy going on so maybe we should be aiming our criticism at those who pirated the software rather than buying it - and many of those are probably the same people complaining about the subscription model: but they weren't buying the software anyway so why precisely are they complaining?
And if you want a lower-level software on a paid-for package why not buy Elements? All I know is that my LR Classic/PS package is barely more expensive than buying OnOne (who offer the stunning reduction of $10 by renewing each year).

 

[bergstrom]

can they not offer a plan without cloud storage. I just want plain photoshop and lightroom classic

 

[bergstrom]

Several years ago when Adobe announced it was moving to a subscription service, the cries on here and elsewhere were shrill. But the fact is in the last 5 years, the stock price of Adobe has QUADRUPLED. It's gone from about $70/share to today at $281.

With my regular work running a financial planning firm, I actually bought Adobe stock for some of my clients when they made the announcement years back. It worked out pretty damn well.

Here's the reality of this move. Adobe is going to $20 per month. What they are determining now is what they realistically expect the subscriber loss ratio to be. In other words, they can afford to lose HALF their customers and still net the same fiscal position they are in now. But they won't lose half. They might lose 15 - 20%, which means their gross revenues will STILL go WAY up and my Adobe stock positions will go even higher.

Anytime companies make these decisions, they always calculate loss ratios. If Adobe is going to $20, they have already factored in a few folks leaving their platform.

For example, I have been a full subscriber at $50 for a year or two now. I recently bought Final Cut Pro to migrate there and cut my Adobe subscription back to LR and PS only. Again, all factored in.

If you want to move to Capture One or whatever else, go on ahead. Adobe understands and has accounted for your departure in their pricing model.

so, screw the consumer.

 

[unfocused]

can they not offer a plan without cloud storage. I just want plain photoshop and lightroom classic

Sure but it wouldn't be any cheaper. Cloud storage is like video in cameras, it costs almost nothing to include but it boosts sales.

 

[unfocused]

I thought Canon offered free photo processing software with most of their cameras. If so, then no one has to buy Lightroom or Photoshop. Let's face it, most of us use Photoshop and/or Lightroom because we prefer it to other products. It's an add-on like a second lens, speedlight, tripod, etc. There are plenty of alternatives. Many of which are free or nearly so. The complaint about Adobe seems to be that people don't want to pay the company the price they charge for a superior product.

 

[StoicalEtcher]

I think the position for Adobe is simply that PS/LR (and to some extent other parts of the packages) are now so well developed that there is little major upgrade possible for developers to offer, beyond tweaks and minor improvements and new file format compatibility. As a result, there would be real risk that purchasers of the package would decide each new version did not offer enough to bother buying it, and so Adobe's revenues would not keep renewing at the same rates as they used to. The old system whereby each 3 year upgrade was a major improvement have gone.

Against that backdrop, not only does the monthly subscription option give Adobe a more stable income flow, but it also removes the risk of the next new version not being tempting enough for users to upgrade to.

Therefore, it is unfortunately good business for them to have moved to this model, and I'm not sure it's fair to blame them for that. Once you have that model, everyone knows that you surely can not be performing well if your revenues aren't growing x% every year - so what can you do other than increase the price regularly?

Don't get me wrong, I strongly dislike the subscription model myself, but it is inevitable. The only real solution is for enough people to get behind another product to strengthen the alternate - but then where are all the guides to that, and the colleges teaching it as part of the post-processing modules, etc... And, once that alternate became really popular, the owners would want to raise equity to go further, and the equity owners would then require annual revenue (& profit) growth, and then, guess what...?

 

[jedy]

Because you never really own software. Both in terms of the licence agreement that comes with your purchase, but more realistically in that once you buy it, it's going to only remain current for a certain amount of time.

But no one is forced to upgrade if they can live without the newer features. They keep their copy of the software for no additional money. Subscribers will be continually paying or will lose the software completely.

New cameras come out and you need updates/upgrades. Just because you buy a software licence doesn't give you unlimited upgrades for life. So from time to time you'll have to buy an upgrade or, in extreme cases, new software entirely.

But you get to pay for upgrades as and when it suits you. Professionals don’t necessarily buy into new equipment as soon as it’s released anyway. I, for example have a separate bank account which I top up at my own choosing and amount to cover for things like software upgrades.

And even if you don't buy a new camera, your software will become out of date if you don't install security fixes, or if you upgrade your computer/operating system and the old software doesn't work.

See answer above re: bank account.

On average you'll get 3-5 years max out of a piece of purchased software before you can't use it any more and you need to buy a replacement. How does the price of buying Lightroom & Photoshop outright every 3 years compare to subscription - when you can have the latest version all the time.

Outright? You buy an upgrade and only when you choose to, not every 3 years.

ps. Cloud is very secure nowdays. Probably safer than having stuff on your own hard drives. BUT. It's still slow, and 1TB is a tiny fraction of what most serious photographers have in terms of raw files

Firstly, where’s your proof that cloud is safer than local storage? Servers could go down, hackers could steal/erase your content. That doesn’t apply to local storage. As for your last point, you’ve just confirmed Adobe’s subscription is worse. Slow cloud storage and the vastly increased rental cost of needing a lot of cloud storage if you have a huge amount of files to store

 

[Kit.]

Servers could go down, hackers could steal/erase your content. That doesn’t apply to local storage.

Oh, really?

 

[jedy]

Oh, really?

Well, I like to disconnect from the internet when editing and don’t need to be online. I have backup disks that go nowhere near the internet. The likelihood of a local disk being hacked is much less likely than a permanent cloud service. If a server goes down you lose access to your files, if a hard disk fails, you use your backup disk.

 

[jolyonralph]

Well, I like to disconnect from the internet when editing and don’t need to be online. I have backup disks that go nowhere near the internet. The likelihood of a local disk being hacked is much less likely than a permanent cloud service. If a server goes down you lose access to your files, if a hard disk fails, you use your backup disk.

Cloud data (for serious clouds, and I have no doubt Adobe's is in this category) use multiple distributed servers with multiple levels of redundancy. The only way the data will be compromised is if you use a weak password or you are careless with your password security, which I'm sure you wouldn't be.

For most people the likelihood of your local disk being hacked is much more likely than a permanent cloud service. If a cloud service goes down you use your backup cloud service!

 

[jedy]

For most people the likelihood of your local disk being hacked is much more likely than a permanent cloud service. If a cloud service goes down you use your backup cloud service!

I’ll make this clearer. I use my computers internal hard disk for programs only. All important files are kept on external disks and away from the internet as much as possible. No one is hacking my external disks.

 

[LDS]

then get off your backsides and help.

Wrong call, sorry. Just a small part of photographers are also software developers or the like, or have the technical skills for such kind of jobs (or even the time). Unluckily "open source" software was born among IT people to solve IT problems. It works far worse outside that environment. Moreover, most people don't want "free" software - they are OK to pay for it, just they would like to see different options to pay for it. For some subscriptions are fine, for others they are not. It's a matter of how your life and your job are organized, and how you manage your finances and expenses.

 

[LDS]

No, but thanks to living in a free and competitive marketplace, the customer can choose whether to pay the new price or take his/her business elsewhere.

In a truly free and competitive marketplace, antitrust agencies would have barred many acquisition, and broken many companies. The IT marketplace is one of the less free and competitive, with a bunch of companies with a strong control over their market. There is more competition among camera and lens makers than graphics software.

 

[unfocused]

I’ll make this clearer. I use my computers internal hard disk for programs only. All important files are kept on external disks and away from the internet as much as possible. No one is hacking my external disks.

Once you connect an external disk to your computer, it is no more or less secure than an internal hard drive. If you are saying that you never connect your external drives when your computer is connected to the internet, I suppose that might offer some security, but then in the context of this discussion, I'm not sure it is relevant. Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom Classic do not need to be connected to the internet to work, as they reside on your hard drive like all other programs. You need to connect every few months so Adobe can verify the subscription and number of computers you have the programs active on, but for day-to-day usage, you don't have to be connected to the internet. (You do for the cloud-based Lightroom CC, but not Lightroom Classic).