Adobe Creative Cloud...

[ScreenFoo]

I have to agree with Pierre on this--fifty bucks a month (going straight down the drain) is a drop in the bucket?   Plenty of people advertise for themselves, or buy a building so they don't have to rent.  I agree with your take on it being an expense, but IMHO, the money isn't the issue, it's the paradigm shift.  To me, the issue is that Adobe is no longer making money by creating useful software for us--they're making money by continually changing the terms of the license and charging more.

[royster13]

Adobe could care less about people that do not see value in their software......I do and it is worth way more than what I pay for it each month....I have no doubt Adobe is working hard to reduce the number of users but make more revenue on each they retain....Is that smart?....No idea yet.....They are focusing on higher value clients and will leave the masses to other companies...Works for me....

[ScreenFoo]

I understand your end of it.  Seems odd though, once few can afford it, few use it, ergo few need it.  I can't imagine they're blind to the fact.

I'm going to GM with a fantastic new plan to decrease production, and at the same time increase the value of their customers.   

[Croft]

A problem with it that I see is US funds, I'm sure there are people around the world having to spend more on it for that reason, In our case there would have been a 10% increase in price over the last year. And if it were the early 2000 's it would have been at +56%.  For myself I just purchased CS6 to put off getting it as long as possible.

[royster13]

Where would you get the idea that few can afford it?....Last I heard they had 1.25 million subscribers.....And based on current pricing for subscriptions versus purchases there is really not much difference in prices, especially if you use more applications.....And if in the future the prices goes up too much and they lose subscribers I suspect they will respond accordingly and reduce prices.....

I guess if you distrust Adobe, it will never be a solution.....But I trust them and love all what is included...

[starchild]

CC will have to provide some out of this world advantage, something that totally makes me unable to use CS6 for me to switch.. I just can't justify the monthly subscription for no great reason.. But if your business main operations depends on CC then that is what you got to do.. I guess Premier and Encore will make these users more productive but there's nothing in PS and Ai that does this for me..

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[ScreenFoo]

I can't say I bring trust into it--if you trust Adobe or MS or Apple  or whoever, hey, that's your deal.  I just think it's poor judgement and bad business--except, perhaps, for the stockholders.  The Cnet survey I saw placed 93% of people looking for alternatives to the Adobe software they were to be forced to subscribe to.  The core elements of them not letting you edit or change graphics of yours without paying in perpetuity have not been addressed, and honestly, we have a paltry art collection, and it would cost tens of thousands of dollars to import/export and redraw what we had to. 

As far as affording it, you can google a zillion results of people complaining about the price, and I, personally, am one who will not be able to afford their new business model.  I know I'm not the only one running an old version so people can give us saved down native files instead of bitmaps or corel files.  If I really need CC for something, I'll rent time on someone elses computer.  You know, a high value customer.   

And as far as this type of software 'contract' goes, you can read all about how nearly every *nix OS has bit the dust because of draconian licensing and price gouging--we may see history repeat itself, as GIMP and XDraw keep racking up millions and millions of downloads...

[jvanick]

Maybe I'm missing something here?   I might be wrong on my prices, however you can add your own #'s in here:

the 'cost' of illustrator+photoshop cs6 is like $1400-$1500... 

if you say that you're keeping the version for let's say 2 years, you're looking at $62.50/month... 

the $50 a month for the cloud subscription is 'cheaper', plus you can write it off every year as a business expense.

(as far as Gimp and Xdraw goes, I love open source, and I'm a huge linux supporter, but neither of those applications truly compete with Illustrator/Photoshop, they're harder to use, more finicky, and nowhere near as polished).

Also, the tracing tools in Illustrator are awesome... saves me tons of time and money in sending them out each month.

[gtmfg]

With the rule of thumb being upgrading software every 3. The traditional set up was cheaper plus the fact that I could run it on 3 computers at the same time makes a huge difference. In the end it's just the cost of doing business, I could probably pay for the subcription if I just moved my squeegees and floodbars closer to the press so the press up didn't have to walk so far.

[blue moon]

Maybe I'm missing something here?   I might be wrong on my prices, however you can add your own #'s in here:

the 'cost' of illustrator+photoshop cs6 is like $1400-$1500... 

if you say that you're keeping the version for let's say 2 years, you're looking at $62.50/month... 

the $50 a month for the cloud subscription is 'cheaper', plus you can write it off every year as a business expense.

(as far as Gimp and Xdraw goes, I love open source, and I'm a huge linux supporter, but neither of those applications truly compete with Illustrator/Photoshop, they're harder to use, more finicky, and nowhere near as polished).

Also, the tracing tools in Illustrator are awesome... saves me tons of time and money in sending them out each month.

Upgrades to the latest version were in the $370 range. You could be running the latest and greatest for much less than $50/month. 

Pierre

[gtmfg]

There are already some pretty big differences between 6 and CC

[TCT]

I am a bit out of context here, but I thought a large reason Adobe went to "the cloud" was to help reduce on pirated copies. While that will definitely reduce the total number of users it will with out a doubt actually increase their legitimate(paid) user base.

What I think will become interesting is if and how it will affect the art files we receive from customers. I suspect we have a good amount of customers that didn't spring $1k+ for design software...

[Boldline]

I've been a big vocal opponent of CC since it was announced a few years back. It seemed to be more accepted so long as they also kept the "buy a copy outright" model. I didn't like that they were forcing users to upgrade every version at one point after years of allowing upgrades from much older versions. I run a full copy of CS4 and have done so for several years now. I would like to upgrade to CS6 but at this point I'm having difficulty find a copy to purchase! I plan to run my CS4 copy and later CS6 copy for as long as possible. I have no plans to ever go to the Creative Cloud

[royster13]

I think you can still buy it at www.adobe.com

PS  CC fan here......

[Croft]

No problem ordering mine from Staples up here, overnight. About a month ago?