Software as a subscription

[Vault101]

I've got elements 10 and that seems to work ok \

but yeah even if I WAS making money off work done if photoshop it probably wouldn't be enough to cover a subscription,

I don't know if I'll need/want to upgrade anytime soon, and if I do (hopefully) as other people have pointed out there might be other options

 

[DoPo]

And I'm not talking about fuckin' GIMP.

Let's say image editing was represented by the task of painting a wall. And in this analogy, MS Paint would be a really small brush, which would probably work, for, say, around corner and windows, but probably not terribly good at painting the entire wall. In this analogy, I believe that GIMP will be represented by a nice big and comfy brush...attached to an angry squirrel. I think that actually represents my experience with it fairly well, too - having to wrestle with an angry squirrel in order to do what you want to do. OK, I admit, I absolutely suck at image editing, for some reason[footnote]I've tried Photoshop, I tried to do something not complicated, namely, create a userbar. I even followed a detailed tutorial and I failed. I did try it for a few days and in the end, I became so frustrated, I just quit and never did come back to either my task, nor Photoshop. That's how much I suck at it, for context[footnote] but I'm still fairly sure GIMP didn't help with making things easier.

My usage scenarios for image manipulation aren't that many, either:
- crop image, or otherwise delete parts of it
- resize image
- add transparency
- possibly recolour something (though it's usually changing one colour into another, so no actual creative work needed)
- add text
- very occasionally, I need something that handles layers
- draw very basic shapes - lines, rectangles, elipse

That's it, that's all I want from image manipulation. Rotation can be done through image viewers nowadays, so that's out. But GIMP does these in various degrees of hard. I pretty much just know the equivalent of arcane incantations to get what I need because I've been googling them every time I needed to do something, until I learned it: select your target, open the the Image menu, add few drops of chicken blood, murmur the seven names of an ancient Summerian god, and select "Crop to selection". That, however, only works for everything aside from the last point. See, the first six are actually easy despite me needing to google them, I could have worked them out by myself (well, I did try to but I decided to save time). Basic shapes, however, oh no - that's like a whole another level of complexity. I can't just select a tool and do something with it, as with the others - I still require reading a friggin' tutorial any time I just need to add a red rectangle around something in a screenshot.

A guy I worked with claimed GIMP is not only not so bad, but it actually works. But I'm fairly sure it was either a lie or he was some sort of warlock. He did also claim he was using Python scripts for some of his work and that it was, and I quote, "really convenient", so I'm heavily leaning towards warlock.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

Super against it, and it will be a cold day in hell before I engage with any company, other than Blizzard, who do it.

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

It's horseshit. Companies saw it as a way to control their customers and make even more money, so they took it. It's cancer and a half. Might work for other businesses, but for the average joe it's a scam.

 

[VanQ]

Can you not use CS2? Pretty sure those are all free.

I believe you can get Photoshop and Illustrator CS2 for free from the Adobe website, yes. Unfortunately, I also require Premiere Pro and After Effects, which I don't think are available for free. At least, not that I've been able to find.

Also, I've been trying out the Creative Cloud 30 day trials for the past weekend and they're a gigantic leap up from CS2 as far as ease to use and they're very powerful applications. Some jobs that would have taken me up to 30mins in CS3 are taking me about 5 mins to do in CC. So I'm not disputing the quality of the products, just the payment model.

A part of me does want to pay for these products, but the other part of me can't decide if that ridiculous per year price point is worth it in the long run.

Can you link where you can find Adobe Illustrator CS2 then? I've been using Sai Flexi Pro and would like to try the program instead for templating pages. Which works, but is a pain in the ass sometimes.

Hmm, I know for certain that it was available at one point on the Adobe website but I can't seem to find it there anymore. It may no longer be available for free, unfortunately.

 

[kurupt87]

It's not too bad for MS Office, iirc it's £15.99 per month for the E3 license.

Which is the full shebang with ability to download and install to your computer; login over the web and use Office via your browser from any computer; and, it automatically gives you the next version of MS Office when it is released.

 

[DoPo]

It's not too bad for MS Office, iirc it's £15.99 per month for the E3 license.

Which is the full shebang with ability to download and install to your computer; login over the web and use Office via your browser from any computer; and, it automatically gives you the next version of MS Office when it is released.

I guess if you get 16 quid worth of value from it a month, then yeah - it wouldn't be. However, I don't think there are that many individuals who would, honestly.

 

[LauriJ]

I am not sure what to say here. Generally anything with a Subscription is an instant Deal-breaker to me...

 

[Smooth Operator]

It's not too bad for MS Office, iirc it's £15.99 per month for the E3 license.

Yes a mere £16 per month, which is actually $25, which adds up to $300 per year. That is one brand new console for every year you want to have writing tools.

Works great in a high profit firm, but the average home user might create 3 documents per year, at that price it would make more sense to hire a professional to just make all documents for you.

 

[Fappy]

This system has been in the corporate world for decades, and it works very well in a profit generating system. Their tools generate profit for you and you can in turn give a small part for the tools.

In a private use system however that is just an infinite money hole, if I'm not making profit from your tools then they are simply more and more expensive with every passing month. That is why I avoid this shit at all costs.
Obviously it's a great system for the companies because they get all the control and money.

I came into this thread to say exactly this. The company I work for deals exclusively in license subscriptions and its been that way for a long, long time.

Some of Adobe's stuff I can almost stomach, but the way Microsoft handles Office these days is beyond stupid. I'm sorry, but Microsoft Word really should be a basic Windows program at this point.

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

Nope I don't like it. I don't make enough money to justify paying their ridiculous prices, I'm more or less in the same boat as you VanQ.

It also feels like these models come from the same anti piracy paranoia the game industry suffers from. If you're going to force your customers into subscription models and milk them dry, you're only increasing the chances of people pirating your software because you've given them no other option. Not to mention some people may pirate just out of sheer spite.

 

[NLS]

I'll be honest. Up until 2 years ago, I had been using Photoshop (and some other Adobe products) for 10 years and never paid a single cent. I was a filthy pirate.

With Adobe Creative Cloud, I've for the first time been able to afford paying for Photoshop and many of the other tools in Adobe's suite. Some days I feel like doing a bit of video editing, no problem, it's included in the package, and I don't have to pay several thousands for software I would end up using perhaps once.

 

[MoltenSilver]

Absolute bullshit, will never buy into it. Once I have the software I'll do whatever I damn well please, forever, so long as it isn't generating profit off their IP, and a publisher telling me how they do and don't want me to use it can go right to hell. For example, in the Photoshop example, if I was a professional and making money off it I probably would pay for it once, but absolutely not as a subscription even if I was a professional. I'd rather learn how to use GIMP than support that (And I totally agree with the angry squirrel analogy used above for gimp).

I literally cannot put into words how much I respect companies like Stardock that not only allow but actively support modifying their products.

As a lateral note, that's a big problem I have with the digital images market, it seems like there's 0 hobbyist-level options (gonna pretend as if piracy doesn't exist for the sake of argument). Photoshop is convenient but expensive as hell, GIMP is free but seems aimed entirely at the hardest of hardcore, and everything else seems woefully inadequate.

 

[kurupt87]

It's not too bad for MS Office, iirc it's £15.99 per month for the E3 license.

Yes a mere £16 per month, which is actually $25, which adds up to $300 per year. That is one brand new console for every year you want to have writing tools.

Works great in a high profit firm, but the average home user might create 3 documents per year, at that price it would make more sense to hire a professional to just make all documents for you.

I guess if you get 16 quid worth of value from it a month, then yeah - it wouldn't be. However, I don't think there are that many individuals who would, honestly.

Well yeah, I came at this from a semi professional point of view. You'd probably be using at least two Office programs throughout every single day.

To flat out buy; Home and Business works out to £18 and change per month, Professional at £32 and change per month. Student is like £9 per month but if price is truly an issue, just use Open Office. Honestly, since Open Office became relatively widespread, MS Office is only really used by professionals/business'.

 

[Jingle Fett]

So I've been thinking about this new business model that a lot of Software companies like Microsoft and Adobe have been adopting recently and it's been weighing on me. We've seen a shift from purchased licences to subscription software for applications like Microsoft Word and Adobe Photoshop.

I have personally been having a hard time justifying purchasing software from these companies not so much because of the model itself, but more of how little flexibility these companies are offering with these new subscription models. For example, I recently built a new PC and was having a hard time finding my install files for my old Photoshop CS3, which was purchased a few years ago when it was still relevant. And since I was having a hard time, I was considering updating to the newest version which is apparently included within the Adobe Creative Cloud. Now, the only options were to either sub to the CC service for $60AUD per month, or sub to each individual app in the CC family for $20AUD per month.

So you might say to me, "But VanQ, if you only want Photoshop you can sub to that and be good." But actually, I make regular use of Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro and After Effects. So if I wanted to sub to just the apps I actually use, I'd be up for $80AUD per month, basically forcing me to sub to the $60AUD per month plan or bust. That puts me up for a $720AUD per year sub. Which is absolutely ridiculous.

It's not that I can't see the pros and cons of services like these. I can,

Pros:
-Always have the latest version of the software for as long as I remain subbed
-I get access to all of the apps in the service
-The products are in my opinion the best in the business
-I can download and run the programs anywhere and on any PC as long as I have internet and email access

Cons:
-Instantly lose access to all apps if I ever unsub
-Very little flexibility as far as plans go
-Extremely expensive and forcing you to pay what you would have paid to own the product and then some to merely rent it

This worries me especially because I know that a lot of game developers would love to get in on a piece of this pie and are already sort of using this system through DLC to lock content behind pay walls, forcing you to pay more for content after the initial purchase.

What do you guys think of this trend that's been hitting the software industry lately? Are you fully behind it? Totally against it? Do you not give a shit? I'm not really looking to be convinced one way or the other, I'm mostly just curious what others think of it.

I'm against it too, but I became a lot more ok with it when I stopped looking at it from a monthly perspective. If I remember correctly, the old CS6 Master Collection cost about $1800 to purchase and a discount if upgrading (wasn't it like $600 to upgrade? Can't remember).

CC allows you to prepay a year in advance however and it costs $600/year for the full suite with everything included. So if you were paying the same price at $1800, you're looking at a 3 year subscription prepaid for the same price as the old Master Collection. During those 3 years however, you'd also get all the major version releases (the equivalent of upgrading to CS7 and CS8 for free). So price-wise it's a pretty good deal and less expensive than the old system. If you're willing to pay that much for software, chances are you'll be able to make $1800 in 3 years before you have to worry about it again.

Personally, I do like having access to the old software so I can still be productive when times are hard, but if nothing else, hopefully this subscription will lead to other newer software companies stepping up and giving users an alternative they can switch to since the demand is there. Break Adobe's stranglehold on the whole thing so there isn't so much dependency on one company like that, similar to how Linux has been becoming more popular in direct proportion to Microsoft screwing up with Windows 8.

 

[DEAD34345]

Repeating what others have said here, but I'm pretty sure those prices are designed for corporations and professionals who are going to gain more money than they lose using the software. I don't know why they don't offer more reasonable choices for personal use, though. I doubt it's just because they're stupid, but I honestly can't think of another reason off the top of my head.

Regardless, I'm wary of subscriptions for anything, ever. Telling me your software is £1 per month is pretty much the same as telling me it's £1200 to buy[footnote]Assuming I'll live 100 more years may be overly optimistic of me, but I'm still hoping for immortality within my lifetime, so I could equally price it up as £infinity.[/footnote], and no software in the world is worth that much to me.

 

[Dragonbums]

I absolutely loathe this marketing model.

I'm in an art major. So naturally these programs are highly relevant to me. Even more so if your a graphic designer in any form. I'm lucky in the fact that being digital illustrator based- most clients couldn't give a rat's ass if I'm using CS2 as long as the final product looks good. The same luxury cannot be granted for many others.

What's worse is that that you have professors in my major really pushing the subscription model as the best thing since sliced fucking bread and it's really not. I'm sorry but for many students spending $20-60 bucks a month on one or multiple software applications when before you could pay a set price and be set for a good few years before you have to upgrade (or get it for free through friend's copy or hand-me-downs) is a shit deal.

And we all know that this has absolutely NOTHING to do with "stopping" pirating. Adobe CC was cracked in a matter of 4 fucking hours after launch apparently using the same file that was used to crack CS6.

No no, if there is one type of consumer Adobe can't stand it's average people like ma and pa who bought CS3 Photoshop and refuse to upgrade to anything newer for years because that's all they really need to run their local business. By coming out with CC and making all other versions (even their not so old CS5) essentially obsolete they are finally forcing a certain demographic of "tortoise" consumers into their subscription model so they can continue to have money to churn out shitty features every year that does fuck all for anyone but the most diehard Adobe fanatics and bloat software and call it "new".
And it's not even guaranteed that the price is going to stay at what it is right now. With Adobe's stranglehold as essentially a monopoly in the design industry most consumers are simply left to bend over and take it.

My opinion of CC will greatly improve if they are planning on doing something like having a boxed version of the CC programs with a set amount of updates preinstalled to the disks. They could do that like once every 2 years or something.

I love having the box and serial key. It's proof that it's "mine" in a sense, and that I bought it, and I can use it to my leisure. But if your hitting a rough patch and you can't afford CC? Tough shit for you, you immediately lose access to your program. So you then got a useless piece of software stuck on your computer taking up space.

Fuck that shit. Fuck Adobe for pulling this trite, fuck the Adobe diehards who lapped that shit up and spewed it as the "da best thing evar", fuck everything about this. I don't see this going anywhere good- Especially with a bunch of money hungry dogs like Adobe.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

They can charge what they want in my opinion.
I personally won't buy it, and if enough people do the same then they won't charge a subscription anymore as it will only cost them.

So I think its stupid, and wish they wouldn't do it. But I support their right to do it.

 

[Vault101]

Repeating what others have said here, but I'm pretty sure those prices are designed for corporations and professionals who are going to gain more money than they lose using the software. I don't know why they don't offer more reasonable choices for personal use, though. I doubt it's just because they're stupid, but I honestly can't think of another reason off the top of my head.
.

There IS Photoshop elements isn't there? I'm not sure

I have elements 10 which I got with my tablet ageis ago and it seems to have most things I need

 

[ResonanceCascade]

While the focus appears to be mainly on the Adobe CS subscription model I think it is important to have a look a the Microsoft products from the perspective of Small/Medium Business. The prime example is Office 365. There a number of different levels of subscription available and each are relevant to different situations.

Sample Business of 5 people:
Cost of workstations is going to be similar for either a subscription model or purchase outright so we can ignore.

Outright software:
Office 2013 Home and Business ~ $300 AUS per user ($1500) (please note Australian values because and very rough for ease and because I couldn't be bothered looking up exact values)
Server 2012 Standard ~ $1000
Server 2012 Standard user Cals ~ $100 per user ($500)
Exchange 2013 ~ $1200
Exchange 2013 user Cals ~ $50 per user ($250)
Total: ~ $4450

Subscription
Office 365 Small Business ~ $15 per user per month ($900 per year)
Server 2012 Standard ~ $1000
Server 2012 Standard user Cals ~ $100 per user ($500)
Total: $1500 upfront + $900 per year

In this case it would be about 3.2 years before the ongoing cost of the software subscription is more than the total cost of purchasing outright. Given that generally 3 to 5 years is the life of office computers and is the same as the life cycle of Microsoft Office products this case works out as about the same. The main difference is the initial outlay of cost. At the end you pay about the same but you don't have to have the total ready to go.

Interestingly this model appears to have break points where the cost over time is either reasonable or not and Microsoft has limits on the number of users per price point.

Even more interesting is that this is no longer limited to software. Hardware is very commonly sold as a service now with products such as Azure and Amazon Cloud hosting.

At the end of the day the important thing to note is that there are options available for different situations and it is best to use the right tool for the job. It now just takes a little longer to work out what the right tool is.