What are your thoughts on Adobe's subscription-only model? Personally, I'm disappointed. I think offering a subscription model is fine, but I think only offering a subscription model is... dumb.

My family has had Photoshop CS3 Extended for about 6 years now. The newer versions of Photoshop have offered fewer and fewer new features that justified upgrading, and as a result of not upgrading for ~6 years we've been able to stretch our "dollar per year" out to a decent amount. $20/mo seems fine, and I'm okay with it for Photoshop, actually, but my dad wants to buy Lightroom and Acrobat (which, no matter how you look at it, are not worth $20/mo each), which means to get what we want requires $50/mo. Not worth it at all. Sure, we get access to more software at $50/mo, but much of it is software I don't need or want.

So, how do you feel about Adobe's new subscription-only model? Will you be subscribing, or holding onto your current versions (or buying a copy of CS6)? Do you think this will help any Adobe alternatives to become more popular, and if so, which ones do you think will increase? I'm always looking for new, good alternatives. I've been using Gimp and Inkscape on one computer, and they're okay, but certainly not a drop-in replacement for Photoshop or Illustrator.

I for one will be upgrading things to CS6 and not subscribing. I also hope this move by Adobe encourages competition in their monopoly.

This is the kind of anti-consumer behavior that really pisses me off. Every company wants to do it, too--it's class warfare 101: don't let the peasants own anything, only rent it from you. The rich get richer while the poor--including their employees--get poorer (it's a statistical fact that average middle class income is dropping despite executive income increasing to record levels). They deserve whatever backlash they get, regardless of its legality.

I'll stick with open source. A little inconvenience isn't an issue when the alternative is giving money to corporate monsters dead-set on eroding individual property rights simply to expand their own ill-gotten fortunes.

At my office, I made a decision about six months ago to sign up for Creative Cloud across the board, instead of buying copies of CS6. So in that sense it affects us not at all, because we like the offering and the pricing. It does not bother me in the least.

That said, it's going to alienate a very large number of their customers. They might get away with it anyway because of their status as the only stop for professionals in a wide range of fields. Their biggest competition might be Corel's Paintshop Pro/VideoStudio, and that's a pretty good package but it's not on the same level. GIMP is not and has never been and will never be a contender. From both business and technical standpoints, the cloud thing gives Adobe an enormous range of benefits. We all use Steam, don't we? It usurps several of the rights that we previously took for granted, like first sale. So if you're okay with that, then what you're really just complaining about is that Creative Suite is getting a price hike. And most of the people who would buy Creative Suite rather than Photoshop Elements are the kind who rely on it heavily for pro work, so they'll suck it up because they have to and a few hundred dollars a year isn't worth jumping to a garbage alternative like GIMP.

That said, totally a dick move.

I had already abandoned all Adobe products and gone with other packages. For my own needs GIMP is more than adequate as I am not a full time designer or artist and the features that are missing I probably never would have realized they existed in the first place. The same goes for illustrator, I have found that inkscape does just as good a job for my needs.

Adobe has known for many years that most of its users are pirate and so it is just trying to combat that. The heavy users who insist on buying Creative Sweet also upgrade it every year so the cost is actually cheaper for them when using the creative cloud.

Also at the same time as releasing creative cloud it gave away the entire CS3 collection for free so if you didn't want to subscribe you could continue using an old version for free.

Being involved with digital imaging since its early days (late 1980s), as a company we have been heavy Photoshop users since Photoshop 3! Obviously we've gone the whole hog with CS Suite over the years. As customers go we have been pretty loyal (always upgrading when necessary) and happy with Adobe. Until now....

This whole thing I think is absolutely appalling...and it's not just about subscription fees, but loss of total control over how you as a user will be able to access your files in future. Yes the perpetual version of CS6 will have some compatibility and you might not complain about it now, but you must remember two things. Unlike CC, all current and past versions of CS will no longer be updated. So if there's a particular latest camera profile or filter module you want to download to your CS5 tough luck - it'll only work in CC. And secondly in future versions of Photoshop if you want to edit files that you've made on them - if you've not got a subscription fee - you won't be able to access them once it runs out.

The way the subscription has been forced upon us is appalling. Unlike magazine subscriptions where, once you stop paying a monthly fee you still have your older magazines at hand - if you don't pay the CC fee it will be the equivalent of Adobe coming into your house and taking all your magazines or newspapers away! That has never happened before...but with this system we don't know what its implications would be in the wider context. This is because a LOT of software companies like EA have been having ideas of 'renting' out software especially games to customers. If Adobe's plan succeeds it could change the way users use and pay for software....and we can't let it happen.
In addition, if we analyse the cost of the new scheme under the CC cost plan, it actually costs MORE in the long run.... I read that someone on the Adobe Photoshop FB page said they had a friend who did a simple maths of their own upgrade path. For 11 users in their company, using CS6 it cost them $4000 last year. Upgrading to CC 'introductory pricing' would cost them $5000 this year. And then when it resumes normal pricing will cost them $9000 PER YEAR. How can this be cost effective for users and businesses? That's why it has to go...

>http://www.change.org/petitions/adobe-systems-incorporated-eliminate-the-mandatory-creative-cloud-subscription-model

As a hobbyist I'm probably going to hold onto CS4 I got in college until it literally stops working (Windows 10?), and then I would be more tempted to try GIMP before giving a subscription a chance. $20/mo wouldn't be that bad (for just Photoshop) if I were actually making a reasonable amount of money using it per month, but that's pretty unlikely.

Adobe has known for many years that most of its users are pirate and so it is just trying to combat that.

Counterproductive. Piracy can't be stopped--all DRM can and will be broken. Any attempt at prevention inevitably alienates users and creates more pirates. As does price gouging, which was the root of their piracy problem in the first place. If they really wanted to minimize piracy, they'd have to lower their prices and be more ethical, i.e., by respecting their users' property rights (preferably by throwing the entire EULA concept out the window).

I doubt it's about piracy at all, though. Much like certain game companies, they want to be able to, at any time and for any reason, flip a switch and kill the product, forcing everyone to "upgrade" whether they want to or not. It's taking the old concept of planned obsolescence to an extreme--rather than simply building cheap products that will quickly break, they're going to break them themselves, and on a schedule. They want to ensure their continued profitability without having to worry about their new product ever actually being a worthwhile improvement over the previous one. Every corporate suit out there is drooling at the prospect. If the idiotic masses can't be educated as to why they should be furious about this, it's going to spread to every possible industry, and it won't be long until we'll all look around our rented apartments and realize we don't own anything in them.

I am not sure why so many of you have an issue. Ill be honest, for many years I had to pirate the software simply because I did not have $4000 for the full suite to learn on. ( this is true for many people today ) It was not until I had a real job ( doing IT work ) that I was able to actually pay for the product and feel like I was not cheating some form of the system. Shortly after my purchase Adobe released CS5.5 and expected another $700 for me to upgrade. For big business this is no problem but when you are talking small time just getting started this is a massive concern. Instead of working with whatever adobe is throwing out that is new I had to work with older stuff because I could not afford to upgrade. When CS6 came out they wanted another $2000 for me to upgrade to the new suite...

Shortly after the cloud process came up I jumped at the first chance to pay monthly for automatic upgrades and full access to their entire collection. Imagine, I want to try out some new software that they produce but do not want to spend 5k per seat lisc. to test it out... now I can get full access based purely off of the money I put down monthly. Do i own the product? No but why should I need to since it is software and can be installed on the machines I want when I want.

I have 2 seat lisc and have it installed on 5 of my machines. When I want to use the products on a new machine I simply deactivate one of the other machines and go at it. I pay the monthly charge and at the end of the day I think its reasonable. That said, if they go higher than their current price I would object to it... but with the current model you can do 1 project at UNDER industry standard and afford several months of the product(s) you would use. I just dont see why people are so upset...

I just dont see why people are so upset...

Because a) not everyone buys the full suite1, b) not everyone upgrades to the latest and greatest every time a new version comes out2, and c) choice is nice3.

1: Sure, this might be nice if you're the kind of person who bought the Master collection, but if you didn't buy the Master collection but instead bought a couple of products or bought the Design or Web collections, this deal isn't nearly as worthwhile.

2: You do realize that if you bought CS3 when it came out 6 years ago, then upgraded to CS6 today for the $2000 you don't want to pay, that's still about half the price you'd be paying for the $50/mo CC subscription, right? Some of us would prefer to do that because we don't always need the latest features, and it's cheaper to wait and upgrade every few versions than pay $50/mo. Or, if you're an even cheaper person, you wouldn't ever upgrade and would instead run CS3 (because it might fulfill all your needs) for several more years, making the $50/mo subscription look even less attractive.

3: I have nothing against Creative Cloud in and of itself. If it works for someone, great. But I do have something against it being the only way to get Adobe products now. Just because it works well for you does not mean it works well for me. And in fact, it doesn't work well for me. I've done the numbers. For the Adobe products I use, and for how much I use them, and for how much money I make using them (read: $0), CC is way more expensive. I can't justify the subscription.

As a side bonus: I can get CS6 Master collection for $600 with a perpetual license. I can buy it now and use it for several years. That's waaay better than the educational pricing of $30/mo (because a) I can use CS6 Master collection after I graduate (while I can't for CC), and b) $600/$30 = 20 months, meaning that after 20 months of CC I'd have been better off buying it for $600 and using that for a few years and then upgrading when I feel compelled to).

1: Sure, this might be nice if you're the kind of person who bought the Master collection, but if you didn't buy the Master collection but instead bought a couple of products or bought the Design or Web collections, this deal isn't nearly as worthwhile.

Exactly my point. What reason would you have NOT to try out the master suite now? I dont know what kind of art pipeline you are into but I certainly use 5 - 7 of their programs depending on the medium in which I am working for as well as if I just want to dabble with something and see what I can make for another project.

2: You do realize that if you bought CS3 when it came out 6 years ago, then upgraded to CS6 today for the $2000 you don't want to pay, that's still about half the price you'd be paying for the $50/mo CC subscription, right? Some of us would prefer to do that because we don't always need the latest features, and it's cheaper to wait and upgrade every few versions than pay $50/mo. Or, if you're an even cheaper person, you wouldn't ever upgrade and would instead run CS3 (because it might fulfill all your needs) for several more years, making the $50/mo subscription look even less attractive.

No... If i paid the full year right now thats $600 which gets me the full suite. ( which I do in advance ) I was even luckier because I got it for $32 when it first released as they were encouraging people to try it out. The issue is that with these products coming out yearly ( which they were ) it become stupid crazy to upgrade each time they came out with a new version and keep paying out. With the current model they can update as much as they like with as many major or minor features and it will still cost me the same $50 ( or $32 ) to obtain these new features. If they did not update the product on a constant basis or make continual changes than sure you would have some ground to stand on with your point... but they often do and these changes come at 0 cost to for that month or duration of your subscription.

Furthmore, if you are running on CS3 i simply feel sorry for you. I have went back and used the old tools ( at work because they do not allow private lisc on the government machines ) and there is a vast disparity in the workflow. CS6 has many features that are just not there with CS3 and I would certainly hate to go back and redo those old methods because I am too cheap....

I will give you an example. The art I have been doing up until recently was done with a mouse and keyboard. For the longest time I have wanted to obtain a Cintiq 24HD so that I could increase my workflow and reduce the time needed to work. Can I do the same art with a mouse and keyboard that I could with a penpad? Yep... will it takes me 50 times longer? Yep, as I have empirical proof of that now. Art that would take me 4 hours can now be done in a matter of moments. How much did this new tool cost me? 3k!! Was the price worth it? Yep! If i was cheap I would have stayed with the mouse and the keyboard but I would have been holding back my potential and wasting time because I wanted to save some extra bucks! Problem is that in our industry time = money. The sooner you realize that the better off you will be. There are hundreds of other examples I could be giving you at this point but the main thing is if I am going to try and work in this industry why should I hamper myself because I want to save a few extra bucks? Makes no sense... if I have the money than I should be spending it to further my career and development process.

3: I have nothing against Creative Cloud in and of itself. If it works for someone, great. But I do have something against it being the only way to get Adobe products now. Just because it works well for you does not mean it works well for me. And in fact, it doesn't work well for me. I've done the numbers. For the Adobe products I use, and for how much I use them, and for how much money I make using them (read: $0), CC is way more expensive. I can't justify the subscription.

This is something I agree with. You are 100% correct that it should NOT be the only method. I feel that this is the correct method for me but I do not see a reason to force the rest of the world into this model! So for that I can agree and have sorrow for those that are forced into it. The good news is, there will always be cracks and hacks!

As a side bonus: I can get CS6 Master collection for $600 with a perpetual license. I can buy it now and use it for several years. That's waaay better than the educational pricing of $30/mo (because a) I can use CS6 Master collection after I graduate (while I can't for CC), and b) $600/$30 = 20 months, meaning that after 20 months of CC I'd have been better off buying it for $600 and using that for a few years and then upgrading when I feel compelled to).

Not sure I follow the logic. Sure you could use the outdated product and it might just work for you for what you are doing. The issue is not whether or not it is usable bur rather if it is economical. What does it mean to own something other than you owning it? Do i care what software I do own? Nope... so long as the people who I am leasing it from does not attempt to withhold it from me or take it from me without justifiable means or cause. I suppose this argument is more or less the discussion of the age old ideal of ownership vs the concept of "fast new now".