Adobe, the developer of overpriced software for creative types, is just about to get a whole lot more expensive in the UK with steep rises set to be introduced from next month. The flash monkey is the latest firm to blame a slump in the value of the Great British Pound for hikes on product, with the ranges understood to be …

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1. Friday 3rd February 2017 16:20 GMT Morphius
  
  Re: By The Short and Curlies
  
  I like to think that most people knew the negative aspects but if you want to use the programs you have little choice.
  
  A more honest approach would be to say "if you subscribe for x years then when you cancel you get to retain the version you are on". Make x years total up to more than the outright purchase price and they are still quids in. Most people who subscribed once would subscribe again for the latest version anyway.
  
  But the beancounters much prefer constant revenue streams so the subscription model will be here to stay for a very very long time.
  
  6 0 Reply
  1. Friday 3rd February 2017 18:25 GMT John H Woods
    
    Re: By The Short and Curlies
    
    A more honest approach would be to say "if you subscribe for x years then when you cancel you get to retain the version you are on" --- Morphius
    
    Perhaps the Eurocrats might propose this kind of cap on the subscription model? Good job the UK will be out of the EU and safe from all their silly concerns about consumer protection by the time that happens.
    
    8 4 Reply
  2. Saturday 4th February 2017 09:45 GMT P. Lee
    
    Re: By The Short and Curlies
    
    >But the beancounters much prefer constant revenue streams so the subscription model will be here to stay for a very very long time.
    
    Right up until the point that someone looks as the vast amount of cash being raked in and writes a new bit of software. Well that's the theory, anyway. Sadly, the ability of large companies to tie smaller ones up in legal knots until they run out of cash spoils the theory somewhat, as do the problems of moving data between products.
    
    The reality is, if your business depends on a piece of software, you will probably pay whatever. Massive price hikes don't work in the long-run as they encourage alternatives, but that's a different manager's problem.
    
    4 0 Reply
    1. Saturday 4th February 2017 13:11 GMT John H Woods
      
      Re: By The Short and Curlies
      
      "The reality is, if your business depends on a piece of software, you will probably pay whatever." P.Lee
      
      Indeed. Furthermore, most businesses are, in my experience, ridiculously squeamish about CapEx even when their OpEx is almost out of control, so an ongoing subscription or licence often gains approval more easily than a lump sum. Although, that's possibly a good thing, because often when they do cut OpEx they normally do it in a way that damages the business.
      
      3 0 Reply
  3. Saturday 4th February 2017 21:43 GMT pompurin
    
    Re: By The Short and Curlies
    
    This is currently how Intellij license their software. When you first buy you have a perpetual fallback license for that version (including minor updates).
    
    Originally they didn't allow this and were the same as Adobe, but with community anger they were pushed towards it.
    
    I think it's fair and reasonable.
    
    1 0 Reply
2. Monday 6th February 2017 02:08 GMT Mark 65
  
  Re: By The Short and Curlies
  
  Interesting that they always tout currency movements as the reason for price rises but don't give you the option to pay in $US and hence take on the currency risk yourself. Arseholes.
  
  3 0 Reply
Friday 3rd February 2017 15:25 GMT Oh Homer

Does not compute

A bunch of code monkeys sitting in cubicles somewhere in San Jose spend a few weeks writing an Adobe app.

Job done.

The results are then "licensed", forever, to millions of people.

Adobe recovers its investment costs after the first few dozen thousand "licenses", with a markup big enough to keep everyone driving new Beamers that year.

Then this mystical thing called "Brexit" comes along, and suddenly it's vitally important that "license" prices in the UK be increased drastically, in order to cover the additional cost of ... erm, what exactly?

What an utter scam.

25 4 Reply
1. Friday 3rd February 2017 16:04 GMT inmypjs
  
  Re: Does not compute
  
  "What an utter scam."
  
  Scam? Vendors will always get what they can for their products. I remember saying at the time Adobe was forcing the subscription model that they were expecting customers to say thank you for being bent over and butt fucked.
  
  Well you are still bent over and still being fucked - more fool you for taking it in the first place.
  
  9 0 Reply
2. Friday 3rd February 2017 16:21 GMT ratfox
  
  Re: Does not compute
  
  Yeah well, you don't expect them to give it away for free after they recovered their investment costs, do you?
  
  From their point of view, they set the price once and for all — and that price hasn't really gone up. It's the worth of the pieces of paper in your wallet that has gone down.
  
  2 2 Reply
  1. Friday 3rd February 2017 18:27 GMT Oh Homer
    
    Re: "you don't expect them to give it away for free"
    
    But they wouldn't be "giving it away for free" since they've already been paid several millions of times over, which is already several million times more than they should have been.
    
    Imagine you went to your first ever day of work, never went back, but got paid forever, justified by the pretext that you left behind a photo of yourself sitting at your desk working, as if this abstract representation of a single instance of labour were somehow equivocal to the actual labour itself, in perpetuity.
    
    That's "licensing". It's basically theft.
    
    Then, years later, some equally abstract market fiction occurs that prompts you to demand an increase in your salary, for the work you're currently not doing, presumably in honour of the one and only day of your entire life that you actually did some work, all those years ago. This is to cover the additional costs you're not incurring as a result of the work that you're still not doing.
    
    Is Adobe allowed to do this?
    
    Our perverse laws say "yes".
    
    Should they (or anyone else) be allowed to do it?
    
    Billions of people who have to actually work for a living say "no".
    
    8 1 Reply
    1. Saturday 4th February 2017 09:41 GMT allthecoolshortnamesweretaken
      
      Re: "you don't expect them to give it away for free"
      
      By now I'm so monumentally fed up with Adobe's way of doing business that I wouldn't use any of their products if they actually were giving them away for free.
      
      Fortunately, in my line of work, I have non-Abode alternatves I can work with.
      
      3 0 Reply
    2. Saturday 4th February 2017 18:53 GMT ratfox
      
      Re: "you don't expect them to give it away for free"
      
      @Oh Homer:
      
      It's irrelevant that they already got their money back. As long as the product is useful to you, it makes sense that you need to pay for it.
      
      If you rent a house, there is no magical point in time after which you don't need to pay rent anymore. Once a movie has become profitable, you still need to pay to watch it in a theater.
      
      People get rewarded in proportion to how useful their work is, not how hard they worked. If Adobe's products are useful for many years, they deserve to get paid for many years. This is in fact their incentive to do a good job. And if you think they're not doing a good job, feel free to use a competing product, or write one yourself.
      
      3 0 Reply
3. Friday 3rd February 2017 16:21 GMT Sykowasp
  
  Re: Does not compute
  
  "in order to cover the additional cost of ... erm, what exactly"
  
  An executive's new lear jet.
  
  And the fact that Adobe is a US company and earns in dollars, so the exchange rate means more £s to get the same $ value. But they've gone way over the real world change, unless they didn't change prices since 2014.
  
  5 0 Reply
  1. This post has been deleted by its author
  2. Friday 3rd February 2017 17:47 GMT billse10
    
    Re: Does not compute
    
    "And the fact that Adobe is a US company and earns in dollars, so the exchange rate means more £s to get the same $ value. "
    
    True - and fine, just let me pay in $, regardless of location.
    
    6 0 Reply
    1. Friday 3rd February 2017 21:03 GMT Lars
      
      Re: Does not compute
      
      "just let me pay in $, regardless of location.#.
      
      Could well happen, that's the easy way out and how companies deal with odd and unstable currency like with African countries. Some of the American companies mentioned in this article did that and were duly up voted by some commentards. With some luck I will eventually be able to be charged in $ and not in this problematic Euro, the lack of sovereignty seems to be the problem I have.
      
      Life is complicated, I have met Americans who claim they have had price hikes although they pay in $ and in the USA. And then there are people who complain and complain about no wage hikes in years, and when I ask them why - "are you going to work harder", I manage to make them speechless. To be honest, such a good feeling.
      
      As for Adobe, look, both "up or down."
      
      "As part of doing business globally, Adobe monitors currency exchange rates in order to make adjustments to our pricing up or down as needed.".
      
      May's speech must have impressed them, all those promises, all that uppidy up.
      
      0 7 Reply
      1. This post has been deleted by its author
        
        Friday 3rd February 2017 22:43 GMT Lars
        
        Re: Does not compute
        
        @Shadmeister, what do you think I tried to explain.
        
        0 5 Reply
        
        Monday 6th February 2017 14:17 GMT Anonymous Coward
        
        Re: Does not compute
        
        "are you going to work harder", I manage to make them speechless. To be honest, such a good feeling."
        
        "And the sometimes answer is, "no I'm going to leave and let everyone else work harder to clear up the shit you've created"
        
        0 0 Reply
      2. Sunday 5th February 2017 21:06 GMT Dan 55
        
        Re: Does not compute
        
        "As part of doing business globally, Adobe monitors currency exchange rates in order to make adjustments to our pricing up or down as needed."
        
        Have Adobe ever lowered prices? Maybe it wasn't "needed".
        
        1 0 Reply
4. Saturday 4th February 2017 09:52 GMT P. Lee
  
  Re: Does not compute
  
  >in order to cover the additional cost of ... erm, what exactly?
  
  Marketing.
  
  Like the music industry, *making* the stuff is actually cheap, its convincing people to buy it that's hard and consumes large amounts of cash.
  
  The same is true of most IT. Look at the top tier support for Enterprise IT and it normally runs at around 40% of the new cost every year - that's without a cloud model.
  
  Realistically, we've consolidated so far that we now have to spend large amounts of cash - its too big to let it fail.
  
  0 0 Reply
Friday 3rd February 2017 15:26 GMT forger

You had me at

"Adobe, the developer of overpriced software for creative types"

11 0 Reply
Friday 3rd February 2017 15:32 GMT James 51

Sorry in advacne but it had to be done.

Adontbe.

13 0 Reply
Friday 3rd February 2017 15:33 GMT cd

Clearasil for that adv-acne.

5 0 Reply
Friday 3rd February 2017 16:04 GMT phuzz

Remember a few years ago, when someone found a page on Adobe's website with links to Photoshop and Illustrator CS2, along with valid license keys?

It's still there if you search for it. You know, just in case you need a working copy of photoshop for a quick task, but don't need the latest version.

2 1 Reply
Friday 3rd February 2017 16:17 GMT breakfast

The annoying thing is that InDesign is apparently the only product that is any use for publishing. Annoying when it feels as though there is no choice although rumours of Affinity Publisher on the horizon are hopeful and the new Quark may be alright. By and large InDesign is the thing everyone seems to use, though.

0 0 Reply
1. Saturday 4th February 2017 14:53 GMT Hope Spirals
  
  <Shame> I was employed by Adobe </Shame>
  
  As such entitled to very cheap copies of InDesign amongst other things.
  
  Time passes and so my job left tearfully for Noida leaving me behind; only with an option to take up a subscription.
  
  So I've use Scribus ever since.
  
  1 0 Reply
Friday 3rd February 2017 16:21 GMT Zog_but_not_the_first

And coming soon....

Windows 10 subscription (and increases).

Money {slurp, slurp}

Data {slurp, slurp}

7 3 Reply
Friday 3rd February 2017 16:28 GMT MrNed

Inevitbale

Ah - the inevitable gouging-out of locked-in customers. I think we all saw that coming.

IMO Affinity Designer is considerably more powerful than Adobe Illustrator whilst being slicker and smoother in use; it is simply awesome for doing GUIs and screen designs too. It costs less than one month's Adobe CC tax.

Affinity Photo is also excellent and I have yet to discover anything it can't do that Photoshop can. Again, it's less than one month's Adobe tax.

Both Affinity products are available for MacOS and Windows. And both launch in seconds rather than minutes. No, I am not affiliated with Affinity in any way - I'm just an extremely satisfied user.

Let's see - what else has Adobe got and what could it be replaced with...

Premiere? Try FCP-X if you're on Mac, or DaVinci Resolve on Windows or Mac

After Effects? Trickier... try Apple Motion (not a full solution, but capable of most things), or DaVinci Fusion, which also runs on Linux

Dreamweaver? Komodo edit, Eclipse... many many many more!

Flash? Obsolete. HTML5 and JS will take care of that for you.

InDesign... hmm... come on Affinity - I've heard the rumours...

I "consciously decoupled" the moment they launched Creative Cloud. It was tough at first, but I'm on wide green uplands now! During a recent OS refresh I didn't even bother to reinstall my old Creative Suite license - I haven't needed to open an Adobe app in months.

Adobe chummed the waters with their Creative Cloud con, and sharks came. Now they're re-chumming the waters whilst surrounded by sharks, and those sharks are already fat from the last chumming. Adobe have not only lost their monopoly on creative design software, they also now have some very real and totally viable competition. And yet they choose to raise their prices by how much?

Don't bend over for another Adobe shafting - retool and be happy.

11 0 Reply
1. Friday 3rd February 2017 17:28 GMT Steverh
  
  Re: Inevitbale
  
  I'll second the recommendation for Affinity Photo. I'm ditching my Creative Cloud subscription. I was never happy with their raw processing, and increasingly fed up with their business model.
  
  I've just bought Affinity Designer as well.
  
  4 0 Reply
2. Friday 3rd February 2017 18:58 GMT Steve Davies 3
  
  Re: Inevitbale
  
  I'd be Adobeless is I could find a decent replacement for Lightroom that can handle a catalogue of 110K+ photos (1.3TB)
  
  any suggestions most welcome.
  
  2 0 Reply
  1. Friday 3rd February 2017 19:58 GMT MrNed
    
    Re: Inevitbale
    
    "any suggestions most welcome."
    
    Isn't Lightroom still purchasable as a standalone pay-once license? If so then at least you're not gouged monthly, and once purchased the license remains valid no matter whether you continue to pay or not
    
    There's Darktable - maybe you've tried it already. It's fiddlier than Lightroom and is a bit quirky, but has pretty-much the same toolset. Couldn't tell you how well it works with large catalogues, but it won't cost you anything other than time to find out cos it's open source. There're versions for Windows, Mac and Linux too.
    
    0 0 Reply
    1. Saturday 4th February 2017 15:00 GMT Anonymous Coward
      
      Re: Inevitbale
      
      Darktable is not yet a replacement for Lightroom for serious work. Affinity Photo (and other tools like PhaseOne, etc.) are better alternatives.
      
      The main issue anyway switching from Lightroom is all the photo processing is stored in the catalog or sidecar files (unless you exported everything to tiffs or jpegs, but then changes are persistent and no longer editable), and processing results depends on the internal algorithms. What you get moving to another tool may be different enough to require a tedious long work of checking and reprocessing.
      
      0 0 Reply
    2. Sunday 5th February 2017 17:35 GMT Steve Davies 3
      
      Re: Darktable
      
      Thanks for the pointers.
      
      Sadly there is no Windows version
      
      http://www.darktable.org/2015/07/why-dont-you-provide-a-windows-build/
      
      For the reasons.
      
      If I can get my hackintosh running then I'll give the MacOS version a go. None of my Linux system have a GUI, command line only.
      
      0 1 Reply
      1. This post has been deleted by its author
      2. Sunday 5th February 2017 19:40 GMT Lars
        
        Re: Darktable
        
        Your comment is: "None of my Linux system have a GUI, command line only.".
        
        What do you mean by that. In *nix you always have a command line and if you need a GUI then choose one.
        
        There are many to choose from, like KDE, Gnome and many more, all for free, just check your Linux distro.
        
        From the link:
        
        "Up till now there is one technical thing that unites all developers: None of them is using Windows as operating system. Some are using Mac OSX, Solaris, etc, but most run some Linux distribution. "
        
        1 0 Reply
3. Sunday 5th February 2017 15:13 GMT Doctor Syntax
  
  Re: Inevitbale
  
  "I think we all saw that coming."
  
  No, there always seemed to be those who thought it was a good idea. They thought it was working out cheaper.
  
  0 0 Reply
Friday 3rd February 2017 16:37 GMT Mr Humbug

I seem to recall ...

that when Adobe was taken to task a few years ago for selling it's software in the UK using an exchange rate of close to $1=£1 it said that this would "protect us from constantly changing prices owing to currency fluctuations" or something like that

9 0 Reply
Friday 3rd February 2017 17:06 GMT AegisPrime

Software rental sucks.

Which is why I'm still using my circa 2010 Photoshop CS5 and MS Office 2010.

Unfortunately Microsoft (being the asses they are) won't allow me to install it on my laptop since I've supposedly used all my registrations (which I haven't) - subsequently neither they nor Adobe will get a penny from me for these products in the future.

They're both gradually becoming less relevant anyway - if I was in the market for a PS and or Office replacement there's plenty on interesting alternatives for the consumer (not so much for big business though).

1 0 Reply
Friday 3rd February 2017 17:52 GMT Anonymous Coward

Ahh, the advantages of pay forever subscriptions... (for the seller).

Autodesk bought Eagle PCB and version 8 is now pay forever. The excuse was more releases, so I checked and over the last few years there have been one or two per year.

Still, it's the push I need to move to a more open alternative.

0 0 Reply
1. This post has been deleted by its author
Friday 3rd February 2017 20:00 GMT Tromos

Vote for Bugxit

Expunge every last trace of Adobe Software and rejoice in vastly improved system security.

4 1 Reply
1. Friday 3rd February 2017 21:41 GMT John Crisp
  
  Re: Vote for Bugxit
  
  >Expunge every last trace of Adobe Software and rejoice in vastly improved system security.
  
  Not always as easy as you think.... as I discovered years ago
  
  http://computers-linux-other-nonsense.blogspot.com.es/2011/03/flexnet-sector-32.html?m=1
  
  0 0 Reply
Friday 3rd February 2017 20:11 GMT IsJustabloke

bit rich to blame the pound....

given that no physical product is shipped with a cc subscription.... perhaps electrons have had an import tarrif imposed on them.

As it happens, my sub has increased from 9.99 to 10.25 which i don't consider outrageous.

1 1 Reply
Friday 3rd February 2017 20:40 GMT IsJustabloke

Afinity Photo

have just seen that it's now available for Windows, so as soon as trial becomes available I'll give it a whirl.

1 0 Reply
Friday 3rd February 2017 22:43 GMT fruitoftheloon

For once I'm not entirely pissed off

Thankfully for the stuff I do (UI, Web, local print-not pre-press) I can now give Adobe the two finger salute, as Affinity Designer/Photo are shaping up just fine.

Of course they won't meet the reqs for all folk, but £100, as a one-off cost for both, not too terrible methinks.

Plus I understand they are now available on Windows as well.

Happy times, £45/month was a lot to my little business.

Cheers,

Jay

4 0 Reply
Saturday 4th February 2017 06:56 GMT Mark Simon

The bigger scam

Remember that Adobe subscriptions are automatically renewed, and if you attempt to cancel before the next renewal you get hit for half the remaining fees.

I had to cancel my credit card to stop them from ripping me off further.

1 0 Reply
Saturday 4th February 2017 10:49 GMT Anonymous Coward

And people (adobe)

wonder why piracy is STILL a thing...

2 0 Reply
1. Saturday 4th February 2017 12:48 GMT JulieM
  
  Re: And people (adobe)
  
  Well, piracy is the reason why software developers suffer, but The Industry are dead wrong about who loses money due to piracy. When you take a pirate copy of Adobe Photoshop, you aren't causing Adobe any loss; rather, it's whoever you would have bought a graphics editor from, if you couldn't have had Adobe Photoshop for nothing, that is losing out on an opportunity to earn. And since you have learned your skills on a pirate copy of Adobe Photoshop, your future employers will have to buy Adobe Photoshop at the full business rate when you get a job with them, and not some competitor with a less expensive graphics editor, even for business users.
  
  Historically, the likes of Adobe preferred to tolerate rampant copying of their products in order to get as large a user base as possible, rather than to risk driving ordinary users into the arms of competitors.
  
  If they are now moving towards a model where there is no possibility of using the software without paying for it, then there suddenly appears a market for inexpensive, competing software. The pool of users trained for free in the use of expensive proprietary software is diminished, and prospective employees begin to demonstrate familiarity with alternative, less-expensive tools.
  
  So, will users keep paying for Adobe products, or bale out and learn to use something else? That's the gamble .....
  
  4 2 Reply