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Subscription licenses scare me

I am still on CS6 too! (I never needed much of the features after CS3)

Adobe recently acquired allegorithmic 3D.
(Substance Designer, Substance Painter)

That... shocked, disgusted and annoyed a lot of people.

I paid about 130€ to own both.
Then they changed to a yearly feature upgrade fee of ~80€ per program.
Which was fine-ish, they have to earn money, I get that.
I was still pissed because they heavily suggested it as a lifetime thing.

Now Adobe bough them.
I fear for one of my favorite software bundles.
Will it still exist in a year?
It became practically industry standard for gamedesign.

I can already smell the substance suite as a 35€ Monthly subscription looming in my future. And it will not be pay-to-own. Unfortunately other then Photoshop and Audition, 3D Software has to be pretty much up to date to do anything. 420€ is more then the 160€ I would be paying without a subscription model.

I love my ZBrush lifetime update license so much!

Yeah that was a serious letdown and really pissed me off too. I just hope Adobe doesn't do this to all of their actual competition like Affinity. Money-wise they could just buy everyone who gets even close to offering an alternative, they're that big. It would take people that can't be bought and have the ideological persuasion that they're doing the right thing by competing directly with Adobe. And even then Adobe could probably bankrupt them by tying them up in unfounded lawsuits for years if they wanted to. The situation just sucks...

Its not Adobe threatening that - its them saying that it uses parts of software from other companies and they no longer have the licenses for that anymore. Thus people using the older software may be liable to be sued by the other companies. Its just Adobe telling people their liabilities, not threatening to sue them.

But no, everone reads it as "horrible Adobe threatening to sue people for using older versions of their software".

No, I actually read it as Adobe fucked over Dolby and sold software that uses their tech without paying the agreed upon license fees to Dolby, or at least they were bending the interpretation of their license agreement overly in their favour. I belief it is one of those cases where they knew it could happen and calculated that it's cheaper to get caught and sued, than to err on the side of caution and pay more for the licensed IP.
 
That... shocked, disgusted and annoyed a lot of people.
Another **very** disturbing example of that occurred when Adobe announced axing Muse last year.

Some reactions:
- "I don't know if what they are doing is illegal, but it sure is immoral."
- "This is an outrage!!! My whole business and I have over 20 client websites built on the Adobe Muse platform."
- "Adobe: you STINK!"
- "You can't just pull the rug from underneath my company like this and I am sure hundreds and thousands of others around the world???"
- "Enough already. What are the threshold requirements before a class action can be commenced?"

- "My business is now at real risk, my whole infrastructure has Muse at the epicentre."
- "I have no words.... Actually, I do but they are all expletives, so I leave it up for imagination. I can only echo other people's comments here, because I am still aghast and shocked about Adobe's complete lack of customer loyalty and concern."

- "I am outraged, I have set up many web sites and spent a great deal of time with Muse and now all my investment will go down the drain. What am I going to tell all my clients?"

_
 
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The main reason is that I've been through some tough times when I couldn't have afforded to pay the subscription fee. Not being able to use software tools I rely on would be *bad toilet* (to quote the late Koko the gorilla).

If you're a commercial facility then it's totally different - you want all the updates "deployed." Or if you need to use something once it makes sense.

But this is not good at all:

https://gizmodo.com/adobe-warns-usi...1yZeYoD-OQ-a6yBjqDwEAG97mMT7NBqVXKPXuSqc3vrEc

Yep they scare me too.

For the reason you mention, and also because I don't want my main computer connected to the internet.
 
Monthly payments=kiss of death for most freelance musicians. Monthly payments were designed for people with 9-5 jobs.

For us, either we have the money to pay for our stuff or we don't. Painfully stretching it out indefinitely on a monthly basis is risky. On the other hand rent to own might work out okay. But, for me personally I would never risk growing dependent on a subscription in perpetuity till death do they charge.

That a lot of companies have resorted to a monthly payment plan means to me that most of their income doesn't come from pro level users but the part time hobbyist with a stable day job. That and the App market I think are the biggest threat to pro-level music tools.

Luckily for us many of the major music software developers and VI developers are still promoting their flagship products for pros but in the end if they can't stay solvent then they will start to look for other markets to peddle their wares as has happened with so many major companies in the past.

Companies that use to bang out 2-4 major products a year to compete are now relying on subscription markets of their old wares and apps. Not really innovating new stuff. Luckily for us though other companies and boutique companies that still care are starting to replace them.
 
That a lot of companies have resorted to a monthly payment plan means to me that most of their income doesn't come from pro level users but the part time hobbyist with a stable day job

...assuming anyone is making a lot of money from subscriptions, which I'm skeptical about.

But sure, full-time professional musicians are a very small market.
 
...assuming anyone is making a lot of money from subscriptions, which I'm skeptical about.

But sure, full-time professional musicians are a very small market.
I think some companies are killin' it in that market. I was told by an insider of a particular company that this particular company is fully focused on that as their main revenue stream now. Sad.
 
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