Adobe says good bye to software purchase, goes subscription only

[garbon]

There's at least one reason Adobe software has traditionally been heavily pirated - their pricing has been outrageous.

Why is it outrageous? Their software is rich with features for professionals who then use their products to in turn generate lots of revenue for themselves. Sounds to me like exactly the sort of software that should cost a lot of money.

It presents a serious bar to entry for entrepreneurs who have talent but limited resources.

If you work at a large company, you're not buying the software yourself anyway - your company is.

I would expect that a $50/month subscription is easier to pay for a newly established entrepreneur than paying a huge $1000+ license in one go. That would allow him to immediately start work and re-earn the $50... 

Of course, he's also stuck paying for whatever the length of his career is.

[fhdz]

There's at least one reason Adobe software has traditionally been heavily pirated - their pricing has been outrageous.

Why is it outrageous? Their software is rich with features for professionals who then use their products to in turn generate lots of revenue for themselves. Sounds to me like exactly the sort of software that should cost a lot of money.

It presents a serious bar to entry for entrepreneurs who have talent but limited resources.

If you work at a large company, you're not buying the software yourself anyway - your company is.

I would expect that a $50/month subscription is easier to pay for a newly established entrepreneur than paying a huge $1000+ license in one go. That would allow him to immediately start work and re-earn the $50...

That was my point - the subscription service will likely help tiny companies/individuals because the expense is effectively amortized.

[garbon]

There's at least one reason Adobe software has traditionally been heavily pirated - their pricing has been outrageous.

Why is it outrageous? Their software is rich with features for professionals who then use their products to in turn generate lots of revenue for themselves. Sounds to me like exactly the sort of software that should cost a lot of money.

It presents a serious bar to entry for entrepreneurs who have talent but limited resources.

If you work at a large company, you're not buying the software yourself anyway - your company is.

I would expect that a $50/month subscription is easier to pay for a newly established entrepreneur than paying a huge $1000+ license in one go. That would allow him to immediately start work and re-earn the $50...

That was my point - the subscription service will likely help tiny companies/individuals because the expense is effectively amortized.

I think individuals were just pirating it or were students and able to get a good deal through their institution.

[Jacob]

It presents a serious bar to entry for entrepreneurs who have talent but limited resources.

I agree for a the perpetual licenses adobe used to have, but $50/month should not be an obstacle for any entrepreneurs.

Now, it may make it harder for people to learn the software, because you don't want to pay $50/month for noodling around; and that could impact the bottom line over time. I'd suggest them to offer some good student rates, and maybe a cheap rate for a stripped down version for home users.

If it was $5/month for a photoshop that had the basic versions, I'd get it right now. If it was $10/month, I'd get it once I had a substantial personal project to work on. More than that, and I'm just going to use gimp.

[Jacob]

That was my point - the subscription service will likely help tiny companies/individuals because the expense is effectively amortized.

Well then, that's a good point

[Warspite]

There's at least one reason Adobe software has traditionally been heavily pirated - their pricing has been outrageous.

Why is it outrageous? Their software is rich with features for professionals who then use their products to in turn generate lots of revenue for themselves. Sounds to me like exactly the sort of software that should cost a lot of money.

It presents a serious bar to entry for entrepreneurs who have talent but limited resources.

If you work at a large company, you're not buying the software yourself anyway - your company is.

So what?

There have always been alternatives, much cheaper ones, to Adobe products.

Adobe has no obligation whatsoever to price its professional tools at any point other than that which maximises its revenue.

[Warspite]

Thinking of one reason why Adobe moving to subscription-only might be a bad idea: a lot of smaller and even some medium-sized businesses in the creative sector often have liquidity problems.

For these companies, the costs are continuous but income is often dependent on invoices being paid on time, which is usually not the case. This means that occasionally there are times when, in turn, the company's bills don't get paid on time, which can sometimes be the case for months.

With a one-off purchase model, you pay for the product in the good times (ie, when your money comes in) but can use it thereafter whatever happens.

With a subscription model, I can see businesses going through a dry patch of non-payments suddenly finding it very hard to consistently pay a continuous subscription charge. Firms with more Adobe licences will obviously be more at risk.

I know in the present economic climate there's a lot of forebearance from suppliers when it comes to delayed payments, are Adobe likely to do the same?

The other potential issue I have is that non-profit users of Adobe software (again, like my firm, and I suspect other educational establishments) will not be thrilled in being forced to pay a much higher through-life cost for the software than we do now. The subscription deal is competitive over one year, but given that the software can still pull its weight over three, four or five years before needing an upgrade, the one-year saving turns into a significantly higher subscription cost over this term when compared with a fixed purchase.

[syk]

That sucks. I just figured out yesterday how I could buy CS6 Extended without having to sign over my firstborn. Today this. Scheiße. I am not prepared to pay 50$/month for my hobby/mini Business, I was prepared to shell out a few hundred once though.

[fhdz]

There's at least one reason Adobe software has traditionally been heavily pirated - their pricing has been outrageous.

Why is it outrageous? Their software is rich with features for professionals who then use their products to in turn generate lots of revenue for themselves. Sounds to me like exactly the sort of software that should cost a lot of money.

It presents a serious bar to entry for entrepreneurs who have talent but limited resources.

If you work at a large company, you're not buying the software yourself anyway - your company is.

So what?

There have always been alternatives, much cheaper ones, to Adobe products.

Adobe has no obligation whatsoever to price its professional tools at any point other than that which maximises its revenue.

I wasn't talking about obligation. I was talking about piracy.

[DontSayBanana]

Yeah, this has nothing to do with customer response and everything to do with piracy.  Subscription products can, by nature, be always-on DRM.

[sbr]

I'll throw out a hypothetical.

What if the choice was between this subscription model, and them developing a new CS 2.0, stopping all development/patching on the current version making it obsolete, and then charging everyone another ~$1600 for the new version.

Which one would be preferable?

[garbon]

I'll throw out a hypothetical.

What if the choice was between this subscription model, and them developing a new CS 2.0, stopping all development/patching on the current version making it obsolete, and then charging everyone another ~$1600 for the new version.

Which one would be preferable?

Well Adobe in 2011 had said that it was transitioning to an annual release cycle.

[DontSayBanana]

Well Adobe in 2011 had said that it was transitioning to an annual release cycle.

I'm willing to bet they rethought that after the clusterfuck that was CS5.5.  There were a lot of people pissed that Adobe stripped backwards compatibility from a minor-number release.