Adobe moves to Creative Cloud, Cancels Creative Suite

[keylight]

Adobe is being disingenuous about piracy. In a very real way they benefit from it. As you said, people who acquire pirated software wouldn't pay for the perpetual license, so Adobe can't really counted those copies as lost sales. Many of them -- like students and the "'new guys' getting into business" who "start with a DSLR and a pirated copy of CS6" -- are looking for best-of-breed, industry-standard apps. When they become established, they continue using them, but use legitimate copies in a professional setting. In each of those cases Adobe doesn't really lose a sale but it does gain a trained and possibly lifelong user.

This is a good story but I find it hard to believe. The idea that thieves educate themselves into cherished paying customers just doesn't sound reasonable to me. If it were fiction I would change the channel. I know guys who pirate software. They also steal music, have a bloated sense of entitlement and make ironic arguments about how the "software companies are giving us the shaft." It's true that they will never buy the software but that somehow, sometime, they will would take some sort of ethical epiphany your supposition leaves for the reader.

I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. I've known people who were just like what each of you described.

Here's my own personal story: A long time ago when I was working for a small company splitting my time between video production and keeping all the computers/servers running (something of a systems administrator) a few people were running illegal copies of Photoshop. This is back in the days when you would spend thousands of dollars for a slide/negative scanner. In fact, I got my first taste of Photoshop on one of these computers, and ended up getting the company to buy one copy and put it on a shared computer for everyone to use, and removed all the illegal copies. A couple years later I went back to school for a Masters and bought an education license (yes, friends were running pirated software). And then when Adobe came out with the "Adobe Video Collection" I scraped together the money (begging, borrowing, and pulling from savings) and bought it. It's been all upgrades since then.

But apparently CS6 is my last upgrade.

The notion that I should just "get over it" or that it's no BFD is dismissive and missing the point which is that Adobe has acted in bad faith. Had I transcended this egregious behavior on their part I would still not subscribe to software indefinitely as it creates an unacceptable dependency that I think people who do subscribe will begin to feel in time.

So true.

 

[hscully]

Some vendors obviously feel it's plausible and have even released free or very inexpensive "personal learning editions," which are functional yet hobbled in some way (e.g., digital watermark). Sadly, these seem to have languished in recent years.


I'm not trying to justify it, and I agree it's theft, but that doesn't invalidate the argument that piracy in some ways benefits software companies. And I'm not the only person who has suggested it. Martin Vilcans, a software and Web developer and filmmaker, had a blog post about it, as did Tim Harford at Slate.

Thanks for sharing those links. I learned something. There is some support for your assertion for sure. I apologize if I came off as flip about it, I had just never heard of this and could not imagine it. It's an interesting notion that piracy actually fosters monopolies since competing on price alone is no good. Pirates will just steal the good one so according to that guy, it's Photoshop or nothing! The competitors need to outperform Adobe, not just provide a "good enough" product at a better price. Insidious!

 

[Gillvane]

Adobe is being disingenuous about piracy. In a very real way they benefit from it. As you said, people who acquire pirated software wouldn't pay for the perpetual license, so Adobe can't really counted those copies as lost sales. Many of them -- like students and the "'new guys' getting into business" who "start with a DSLR and a pirated copy of CS6" -- are looking for best-of-breed, industry-standard apps. When they become established, they continue using them, but use legitimate copies in a professional setting. In each of those cases Adobe doesn't really lose a sale but it does gain a trained and possibly lifelong user.

Piracy is not about "lost sales". Piracy is about ownership. If you go on vacation would it be ok for someone to go into your home and use it while you're gone with out permission? After all, you're not there, and you would have paid the rent anyway, so you haven't "lost" anything.

People have a hard time understanding Intellectual property, is property. Scarcity creates value, so you have "lost" value when something is not scarce because it is pirated. Sand is less valuable than gold because there is more of it, not because someone did or didn't "lose a sale" of sand. Piracy turns gold into sand.

 

[Tzedekh]

Thanks for sharing those links. I learned something. There is some support for your assertion for sure. I apologize if I came off as flip about it, I had just never heard of this and could not imagine it. It's an interesting notion that piracy actually fosters monopolies since competing on price alone is no good. Pirates will just steal the good one so according to that guy, it's Photoshop or nothing! The competitors need to outperform Adobe, not just provide a "good enough" product at a better price. Insidious!

The problem is, the underdogs will have to achieve feature parity with Adobe and then allow -- or even surreptitiously encourage -- pirating of their software to build a user base and industry demand for their software. Then they'll need to undercut Adobe's prices. Alas, I can't see anyone unseating Adobe.

 

[keylight]

Piracy is not about "lost sales". Piracy is about ownership. If you go on vacation would it be ok for someone to go into your home and use it while you're gone with out permission? After all, you're not there, and you would have paid the rent anyway, so you haven't "lost" anything.

People have a hard time understanding Intellectual property, is property. Scarcity creates value, so you have "lost" value when something is not scarce because it is pirated. Sand is less valuable than gold because there is more of it, not because someone did or didn't "lose a sale" of sand. Piracy turns gold into sand.

I agree that people have a hard time understanding IP. I suspect some people may also have a misunderstanding of "scarcity". :evil:

Think of scarcity as the possession of a tangible thing so that others can't (possess it). There are only 26 1961 Ferrari 250GT Spyders in the world, so the price is high because there will never be more. There may be 10 million copies of Photoshop CS6 in the world, but it isn't scarce because there can be an infinite number for essentially no cost.

What gives IP it's value is not how available or scarce it is, but the agreement we make with each other to protect the idea (through patents, copyrights, and trademarks) for the benefit of the person who created the idea. This is an artificial value created for a simple and good reason - to provide an incentive to create and innovate.

Software piracy does not cause harm because it makes an item less scarce (it doesn't). It causes harm because it takes away the incentive to advance. You know what else takes away the incentive to advance? When you control a market for a product that people need to survive and can charge any price for it without having to worry that people won't pay. Sound like any company you know?

 

[hscully]

The problem is, the underdogs will have to achieve feature parity with Adobe and then allow -- or even surreptitiously encourage -- pirating of their software to build a user base and industry demand for their software. Then they'll need to undercut Adobe's prices. Alas, I can't see anyone unseating Adobe.

I don't know about the second part. I understand the first part that they will have to reach feature parity but encouraging pirating at that point to build demand isn't apparent. Adobe doesn't encourage piracy, they are pirated because they are the leader. Also rans are unacceptable so people choose to pirate their stuff. I think it's still a choice.

I think what will unseat Adobe, if that's a valuable thing, is the weight of the suite. A lot of users like having the whole Master Collection. If I had it I would never sleep learning it!

I think a more modular approach is attractive. I think the ability to choose an editor of one provider and a color corrector of another, and a compositor of another, and an audio package from another based on workflow and protocols such as those being developed by the ASC may change things. That's what I'm interested in anyway

 

[adkimery]

I agree that people have a hard time understanding IP. I suspect some people may also have a misunderstanding of "scarcity". :evil:

Think of scarcity as the possession of a tangible thing so that others can't (possess it). There are only 26 1961 Ferrari 250GT Spyders in the world, so the price is high because there will never be more. There may be 10 million copies of Photoshop CS6 in the world, but it isn't scarce because there can be an infinite number for essentially no cost.
[/B]

IP isn't inherently 'unscarce' though but in this age it is relatively easy and inexpensive to copy and distribute (w/o quality loss) which is the crux of the problem over digital media. As an aside, isn't the value of most things beyond food, shelter and water artificial too? What's the value of a 1961 Ferrari 250GT Spyder to an indigenous Brazilian tribes person living in the heart of the Amazon? Probably a lot different than it is to a car collector. The IP questions will have today will soon become the tangible asset questions of tomorrow as 3D printers increase in quality and decrease in price.

You know what else takes away the incentive to advance? When you control a market for a product that people need to survive and can charge any price for it without having to worry that people won't pay. Sound like any company you know?

You mean Avid before FCP picked up steam? MS before Apple turned itself around and become a viable platform again? RIM before the iPhone bonanza? If Adobe gets lax enough and upsets their user base enough another company will step up and people will switch. It won't happen over night but it will happen.


-Andrew

 

[keylight]

You know what else takes away the incentive to advance? When you control a market for a product that people need to survive and can charge any price for it without having to worry that people won't pay. Sound like any company you know?

You mean Avid before FCP picked up steam? MS before Apple turned itself around and become a viable platform again? RIM before the iPhone bonanza? If Adobe gets lax enough and upsets their user base enough another company will step up and people will switch. It won't happen over night but it will happen.

Yes, Avid is a fantastic example. And I certainly hope that multiple other companies or products are able to take advantage of Adobe's shift and really shake things up.

I've used Nik's software plugins for Photoshop for some time. Very innovate stuff and pretty expensive. Google bought them late last year and then offered the whole suite of tools for... 70% off of the original price. Am I pissed, after paying full price? Absolutely not. It's an incredible deal, and I'm glad so many more people can afford to get these tools now.

And then guess what they did today.... Google basically took the NIK software and integrated it into their own photo software:

Photos have always been at the center of the Google+ experience and at I/O today, Google announce a major update to Google+ Photos that now makes use of the many of the tools the company acquired when it bought Nik Software last September. The focus of this update is squarely on automating a lot of the photo editing and sharing process. Google+ can now, for example, automatically enhance the tonal distribution in an image, soften skin, sharpen certain parts of an image and remove noise – and all of those computations happen in the cloud.

The best thing in the world as far as content creation goes might be for Google to come along and buy Adobe and set the software free. Forget free even. Just imagine if they did what they did to NIK's plugins. Of course, with a market cap of $22.4 billion, that's probably not going to happen anytime soon. But imagine if it did......

On second thought........

 

[Postmaster]

The reason Adobe will get a lot more cash this way is because this cuts out a lot of that piracy. That's why they did it so fast.

Let's get real. I bet it takes about a week or two after the official release, till a "patch", that prevents "phone home" is available for the pirates. Adobe made it clear in their statement - it's all about to squeeze more revenue out of the PAYING user. They are not stupid - they know very well what a broad user (pirate) base does for them.

 

[Ted Ramasola]

Let's get real. I bet it takes about a week or two after the official release, till a "patch", that prevents "phone home" is available for the pirates. Adobe made it clear in their statement - it's all about to squeeze more revenue out of the PAYING user. They are not stupid - they know very well what a broad user (pirate) base does for them.

+1

It reminds me of Microsoft requiring you to have an internet connection when you buy Windows, to register online to activate. Geez, in Asia, people were already running it before it was even officially launched!

 

[TheReverend]

Very interesting..... I'm an old Avid editor who moved to PP the last couple of years. I'm going to wean myself off of as much of Adobe as I can. So I'm looking at moving back to Avid or something else. I only use PCs these days, but I'm thinking I need to give FCPX a try. Any ideas/suggestions about Hackintosh compatibility?

I can't recommend Hackintosh unless you truly build your Hackintosh from the ground up using tested & recommended hardware. Being that stability is the most valuable trait of a computer, Hackintosh is not a good choice unless you have EVERY component mac compatible. I've Hackintoshed with gear that was mostly compatible, but did not purchase the ideal components and it never got stable or worthwhile. If you like OSX but not Mac prices, just keep your eye on http://www.macofalltrades.com and Apple's Refurb Store. I've purchased many Macs for work and we need top notch reliability, and both of these sources give good hardware for a good price. Super happy with both.

If you know AVID well (I don't at all), that might be the better choice for you since you could probably slip right into their workflow. I'll be downright real; I think FCPX is great! But the reality is you do HAVE to adjust to it, and it's not a small adjustment. But I swear that it is worth the effort. It IS a more efficient way to edit.

 

[Gary Huff]

Hackintoshing is currently the only way to get dual Thunderbolt ports and a GTX680 4GB NVIDIA card in a tower setup. I know people using Hackintoshes in production environments and having zero issues.

 

[Chad N]

Pretty annoyed about this. In mid-2012 i bought CS6 production premium. It was a steep purchase for me, but i figured we could upgrade with each new version and keep up to date.

But now all that money i spent amounts to a dead end? We have no option to upgrade, it's no longer supported?

If that's true, what a middle finger to me!

There should be an option for people who OWN CS6 to get in to the Cloud subscription for a major discount or something. (EDIT: I see you get a discount if you own CS3 or higher)
We bought the darn thing. Sure it still works, but are we cut off completely from new features like the new Refine Edge?

 

[TheReverend]

Hackintoshing is currently the only way to get dual Thunderbolt ports and a GTX680 4GB NVIDIA card in a tower setup. I know people using Hackintoshes in production environments and having zero issues.

That makes sense. I want to be clear too, I wasn't saying you can't do it, or that it's "bad". I was stating that you MUST build from scratch to be a Hackintosh. No "I got a decent power supply that'll work". EVERY piece needs to be the right hardware. Build it right, and then it's great!

 

[hscully]

Yep. That's the raw deal for buyers. No more upgrades. Either you sign on for the subscription or your no longer welcome at Adobe. They are still supporting CS6, even selling it, but will not upgrade it's features.

 

[firehawk]

Well it's not a good thing for people like me. I'm the type they are trying to force into more frequent revenue since I don't upgrade each time like they want.
I bought Premiere V5 back in the 90s, and later bought Premiere Pro 1.5 with the production bundle, then the original Creative Suite Production Premium (CS/CS2), After Effects CS4 and then Production Premium CS5 for windows. In the midst of all that I also bought the CS4 master collection for MAC and Final Cut Studio(3).
So I certainly skipped a lot in between since I am using two different operating systems and two computers but I STILL spent A LOT of hard earned money on Adobe software. I worked hard to legitimately pay for my software even though it would be MUCH easier to use pirated software since it's far more complicated and troublesome to do it legally with all the activations and recurring hassle involved.

I literally work every day and every night and much of my video post work is done at my house which does not have internet or TV, etc since I have no such time to goof off. The creative cloud will not work for me and will cost me much more which I don't have.
Plus add to the mix all the 3rd party plugins I have. Each new version of Adobe requires a headache plus expense of also upgrading plugins which is yet another reason I like to go several years between software versions. Besides expense, I have too much invested in Adobe from experience, books, projects, templates, etc for me to jump ship at the moment.
I was going to wait another 2-3 years before getting the newest version but since they have done this and I can't do that, I'm buying CS6 in hopes that it will make due longer than CS5 would and in future years hopefully I can move to someone else.

I can see how a student or individual could see this as a great deal. "Hey for only $$ a month I get the whole master collection instead of having to fork out $2400 retail (or $900 for student discount)."
That sure seems like a good deal in a short sighted sense. But over several years time it's not, if you aren't the type that would have upgraded each time.
How about when you cancel your subscription 3 years later and are left with NOTHING and no way to even access your work projects?

For companies with deep pockets it's not a big deal.
However, for some of us it is a big deal, and a bad one at that. The take it or leave it, pay us how we want when we want however much we decide it's going to be or take a hike philosophy is not appreciated.
So they are getting one more rush purchase from me (CS6) which wasn't planned. Hopefully there is enough outcry that the "voice of the customer" will be heard and they will reconsider. But I fear that people like me are in the minority. I hope Vegas, Final Cut, Edius, Avid or someone takes this opportunity to step up and offer real competition.

 

[hscully]

Oh yeah.... the plugins. I forgot about that. Jeez

 

[Zephyrnoid]

 

[Matt Gottshalk]

Im enjoying the hell out of the CC apps. PP is speedy as hell, Speed grade automatically recognized my Tangent Element panels, and im enjoying learning some of the new apps.

 

[firehawk]

View attachment 73360

That's a funny way to put it! . Thank you