Digital BW, The Print

Like it or not, software by subscription is becoming the norm. 

 

If you're a professional software developer you will have found that over
the last couple of years, most of your tools have moved to a subscription
model. It started with vendors demanding that you purchase a "support
package" at about 20% or the original purchase price per year if you wanted
to use the product beyond the first year. In the last year or so I've had
more and more quotes come back as a yearly price for as long as we want to
use the product

 

From my company's standpoint this is a terrible model - we have a
development cycle that usually runs about two years, a six to eight year
product life and a requirement to support the product for ten years after
the last production delivery. The upshot of a subscription pricing model is
that we will have to pay for a subscription for about 20 years. Our
suppliers grin hungrily and suggest we don't have to buy their product, but
in fact we do - our customers require it.

 

I fully expect that long before the end of the decade we will see the
software world divided into two groups. At one end you will have the
Linux/Gnu people giving away software that amateurs love but few
professionals will accept. At the other end you will have subscription
software that professionals love and everyone else abhors. And . very little
in between.

 

Like it or not, Adobe Creative Suite including Photoshop and Lightroom is
professional software. While Adobe is more than willing to take money from
us amateurs, they perceive their main customer base as commercial art
studios that will love the subscription model since they will never again
need to pay for a upgrade. Note that one of the things that is NOT included
in the CS subscription is Elements - the one program that they actively
market to amateurs.

 

Chuck Peacock

 

From: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of David
Kachel
Sent: Thursday, September 05, 2013 8:14 PM
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Digital BW] Photoshop Create Cloud program for photographers

 

  

C'mon guys. If you buy into Adobe's Cloud scam, you deserve what you get.

Software by subscription? This scam is definitely NOT new! Ask people who've
been getting raped for years on subscription database solutions that hold
your data hostage if you don't keep paying. That's the entire idea behind
these subscription software scams, to get you sucked in, then bleed you
forever. Not one of them has ever been honest. Not one!

And if you believe the "price will never go up" lie, you probably bought the
"2% forever income tax" and the social security "lock box".

If Adobe doesn't suffer a "new coke" like disaster over this, god help us
all.

 

 

It looks like a Creative Cloud suite for $10/mo forever. I have heard some
things about the cloud version of PS that do sound good, but I have not
spent much time actually analyzing it or the economics of getting roped into
another monthly "utility" bill.

 

 

David Kachel

 

___________________

 

Artist-Photographer

Fine B&W Photographs

 

www.davidkachel.com

david@...

 

Gallery:

www.reddoorfinephotographs.com

director@...

 

PO Box  1893

Alpine, TX 79831

(432) 386-5787