Adobe has announced a new business model for Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere and their other products. No more sales. Adobe’s creative products will now be leased! Your financial obligation will continue each and every month as long as you use the product.
There’s more and more of this happening all the time. It’s not a good trend for consumers.
Here’s Adobe’s problem. These are mature programs. There are some, but not many, improvements with each update. Businesses balk at spending big bucks for little return.
Microsoft faces the same scenario with Office. They’re adding a cloud based licensing product while maintaining the purchase option.
This doesn’t happen solely in software. I remember speaking with the father of a child with diabetes at a JDRF function. His worry: the majority of research was going toward treatment, not cure!
A cure leads to one sale. Treatment produces a continuing revenue stream. That’s great for the producer. It sucks for those who are diabetic.
Producing mature products that work well and last forever is not always in the best interest of business. I’m not sure how to fix it or if it can even be fixed!
Piracy is a major problem for most software vendors. A subscription service is one way that they can limit piracy problems. If priced well, this won’t hurt most consumers. There is also the potential for subscription/lease prices to be lower (since more users are paying for the product).
Times change and business models need to adapt. The way I see it, Adobe and all other software companies should be coming up with solutions that lead to long-term viability. The best models will appeal to paying customers, limit piracy, and ensure a steady revenue stream. The worst new models will push customers away. Frankly – I would rather pay a little more, but ensure Adobe survives, then to have the company go out of business and support for the product disappear.
It is interesting that Adobe’s software is commonly pirated, yet they haven’t changed their piracy protection schema. Many people think they purposely allow it to keep it as the go-to standard.
I agree with Scott. Their creative cloud program does provide a good value for the money. I’m actually more upset that they decided to kill off Fireworks. I’ve been a die hard user of that program since 1999.
Years ago I used to pirate their software – that is until I started doing freelance. As soon as I could afford it I’ve purchased it ever since. Those programmers have families to feed too.
Will this drive more people from Photoshop to Gimp?
All this does is make it more of a problem for those of us who are legal and a slight inconvenience for the pirates who will probably crack any countermeasure in minutes. I know I’m done buying Photoshop. I’ll be looking for replacements for that as well as audio editing software. I’m not a business person so I can’t write off some of the ridiculous pricing they have for some of their products.
Bye-Bye Adobe, nice knowing you!