The business of Adobe cloud subscriptions

**boriscleto** · 07-23-2015, 07:13 PM

Originally posted by Oakland Rob

Aperture actually started before Lr, and was sorta groundbreaking. Later, Apple started letting it rot on the vine, unfortunately (BTW, it never incorporating any aspect of iPhoto. At some point it became possible to share libraries, but each was independent of the other). And if anything, subsequently it became harder to use with anything but Apple stuff. And that's even worse with Photos. I'd love it if the Apple fans became disgusted with that, and clamored for an alternative, which would either spur development of a completely new DAM/PIE or get current ones to drop prices.

The last revision of Aperture and the last few versions of iPhoto could,share the same library. The last few versions of iPhoto were using the same processing engine as Aperture, the only difference was Aperture had more advanced editing and asset management.

It was sad to see Apple let Aperture die the way they did. I much preferred editing in Aperture to Lightroom. Photos is just a joke.

**WPRESTO** · 07-23-2015, 07:48 PM

The point is, the fact that a company is out to make money doesn't mean you automatically accept what they offer because they're doing to make yet more money. The new Adobe "sales" of LR & PS is being done strictly to make more profit, from our pockets. Would you buy into it any more than you would purchase worthless overpriced chrome on a car, justifying your outlay of money because, after all, the company is just trying to get my money because that's what companies do, so it's OK. Will the "upgrades" they will be offering free to subscribers be worthwhile, or just glittery chrome of no practical use sent out periodically to make subscribers think they're getting their money's worth? And if you get tired of dishing out the money, what then? You have nothing.

**boriscleto** · 07-23-2015, 07:51 PM

Originally posted by WPRESTO

And if you get tired of dishing out the money, what then? You have nothing.

What did you have if you stopped updating PS or LR? An increasing outdated application that might break at the next OS upgrade. And with Adobe you were stuck with all the bugs because Adobe doesn't fix bugs till the next version...

**Rondec** · 07-24-2015, 03:32 AM - **1 Like**

Originally posted by boriscleto

What did you have if you stopped updating PS or LR? An increasing outdated application that might break at the next OS upgrade. And with Adobe you were stuck with all the bugs because Adobe doesn't fix bugs till the next version...

I think you exaggerate a little. I have Elements 7 on my laptop and it does fine even though it is many years old. If you shoot RAW with DNG files, then you can continue to open them in Lightroom, even if you camera isn't supported (Adobe takes a long time to support Pentax cameras anyway) and you can down load color profiles from Hue Light or elsewhere to keep the functionality going.

I really think Adobe had run out of ideas for new features that would sell folks on a new version of Photoshop and so they decided better go to a monthly subscription and trickle out little features, none of which would be significant enough to sell a new and expensive version of Photoshop, but satisfy folks who are "only" paying ten dollars a month forever.

**Oakland Rob** · 07-24-2015, 08:35 AM

Originally posted by Rondec

I think you exaggerate a little. I have Elements 7 on my laptop and it does fine even though it is many years old. If you shoot RAW with DNG files, then you can continue to open them in Lightroom, even if you camera isn't supported (Adobe takes a long time to support Pentax cameras anyway) and you can down load color profiles from Hue Light or elsewhere to keep the functionality going.

I really think Adobe had run out of ideas for new features that would sell folks on a new version of Photoshop and so they decided better go to a monthly subscription and trickle out little features, none of which would be significant enough to sell a new and expensive version of Photoshop, but satisfy folks who are "only" paying ten dollars a month forever.

$10/mo for Photoshop is less than the cost of the perpetual Ps, unless you skip upgrades. Sheesh, I'd have to go for about 4 years or more under the subscription before I hit the cost of CS6 Ps. And that's without upgrades. For some of us, that lower price, irrespective of features, is what got us to buy it. As dakight noted above, it's more like 6+ years. It's a great deal if you were a Ps user.

Quicksand · 07-24-2015, 09:35 AM - **1 Like**

... and for pure Lightroom users like me, upgrading from a prior version, the breakeven point is at only eight months. If I use standalone LR6 for more than two years, like I did with LR4, I'm saving more than two thirds of my money.

It's no surprise Adobe doesn't like this and would try to punish a user like me.

**RobA_Oz** · 07-24-2015, 02:23 PM

Originally posted by Oakland Rob

$10/mo for Photoshop is less than the cost of the perpetual Ps, unless you skip upgrades. Sheesh, I'd have to go for about 4 years or more under the subscription before I hit the cost of CS6 Ps. And that's without upgrades. For some of us, that lower price, irrespective of features, is what got us to buy it. As dakight noted above, it's more like 6+ years. It's a great deal if you were a Ps user.

I've been using CS5 for longer than four years, and I can't see any significant advance that four years of paying an annual subscription to Adobe will gain me. There's an implicit promise in a subscription service that isn't there explicitly, so upgraders would be there on pure faith: it's a different matter for new users, up to the four year mark.

johnmflores · 07-24-2015, 02:53 PM

Originally posted by WPRESTO

The point is, the fact that a company is out to make money doesn't mean you automatically accept what they offer because they're doing to make yet more money. The new Adobe "sales" of LR & PS is being done strictly to make more profit, from our pockets. Would you buy into it any more than you would purchase worthless overpriced chrome on a car, justifying your outlay of money because, after all, the company is just trying to get my money because that's what companies do, so it's OK. Will the "upgrades" they will be offering free to subscribers be worthwhile, or just glittery chrome of no practical use sent out periodically to make subscribers think they're getting their money's worth? And if you get tired of dishing out the money, what then? You have nothing.

Then don't buy it. Simple as that. If you don't trust Adobe, then go somewhere else.

I've been using Adobe products since Photoshop 3. I've watched them acquire Aldus Pagemaker. I've watched them acquire Macromedia and in one fell swoop own the thousands of dollars of software (Macromedia Authorware, anyone?) that I was making a living with. They haven't been perfect by any stretch of the imagination (who is?), but the fact that Photoshop is still standing and the editor of choice for entire industries says something about them not resting on laurels and letting others out-innovate them.

Is the company that's been the industry leader for 20+ years just going to lay back now and count the money that's flowing in with the CC subscriptions without forging ahead? Is the company that just a handful of years ago introduced Lightroom and changed the digital photography landscape irrevocably going to lay off all of those designers and engineers (because paying them to sit there and not improve Photoshop and Lightroom is not going to help their profitability) and sit back and count the CC subscriptions?

When it comes to longevity, the safe bet is with Adobe. See Apple Aperture. See Kai's Power Tools. See any number of image editing programs that didn't make it out of the 20th century. If you're like me with Zip disks in the basement filled with files from programs long gone, you eventually toss them out and move on.

And practically speaking, except for a rare handful of historically important photographers, who's really going to care about our hard drives of photos fifty years from now? Seriously? If you're lucky, when you die, some family member's going to take your hard drive, put it in a box, and stuff it in an attic somewhere, where it'll collect dust for years before someone discovers them and asks, "What's USB?". That's if you're lucky. For the rest of us, they'll end up in the landfill shortly after we end up there. I'm pretty sure that my family is going to be satisfied with the highly compressed photos I've posted on Facebook and just toss my archaic RAID drives filled with DNGs.

Sorry for the rant, but it sounds like there's a lot of straw men here.

**Mikesul** · 07-25-2015, 06:47 AM

John,

Nice rant. We need that sometimes. I still wear my Marcromedia tee shirt occasionally

**Oakland Rob** · 07-25-2015, 08:59 AM

Originally posted by Mikesul

John,

Nice rant. We need that sometimes. I still wear my Marcromedia tee shirt occasionally

Agreed; thanks. I'm still pining over Canvas on the Mac. And Kai's Power Tools, wow, what a blast from the past.

**GUB** · 07-26-2015, 03:33 AM

I am not a lightroom user but have been skimming this thread.
A couple of cut / pastes from my camera club FB thread:

I have just signed in with my ID for Lightroom and it says "Develop module is disabled. Please restart lightroom to sign in to the Creative Cloud" even after I have signed in.

Reply:

Have you tried reinstalling the software? When I was trying to get my LR cc working they said to disable 'Use Graphics Processor' (go Preferences... Performance, and untick). Anyway... in the end I gave up with the online connection dropping out a few times every day and so having to restart or reinstall LR! I got a refund and bought Lightroom 6. Now there's no problems

A quick google gets plenty of other hits of this issue.
I think you LR5 guys are fish in a barrel

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07-23-2015, 07:13 PM	#76
boriscleto Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: North Syracuse, NY Photos: Gallery Posts: 16,475	Originally posted by Oakland Rob Aperture actually started before Lr, and was sorta groundbreaking. Later, Apple started letting it rot on the vine, unfortunately (BTW, it never incorporating any aspect of iPhoto. At some point it became possible to share libraries, but each was independent of the other). And if anything, subsequently it became harder to use with anything but Apple stuff. And that's even worse with Photos. I'd love it if the Apple fans became disgusted with that, and clamored for an alternative, which would either spur development of a completely new DAM/PIE or get current ones to drop prices. The last revision of Aperture and the last few versions of iPhoto could,share the same library. The last few versions of iPhoto were using the same processing engine as Aperture, the only difference was Aperture had more advanced editing and asset management. It was sad to see Apple let Aperture die the way they did. I much preferred editing in Aperture to Lightroom. Photos is just a joke.

07-23-2015, 07:48 PM	#77
WPRESTO Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Massachusetts Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 59,094	The point is, the fact that a company is out to make money doesn't mean you automatically accept what they offer because they're doing to make yet more money. The new Adobe "sales" of LR & PS is being done strictly to make more profit, from our pockets. Would you buy into it any more than you would purchase worthless overpriced chrome on a car, justifying your outlay of money because, after all, the company is just trying to get my money because that's what companies do, so it's OK. Will the "upgrades" they will be offering free to subscribers be worthwhile, or just glittery chrome of no practical use sent out periodically to make subscribers think they're getting their money's worth? And if you get tired of dishing out the money, what then? You have nothing.

07-23-2015, 07:51 PM	#78
boriscleto Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: North Syracuse, NY Photos: Gallery Posts: 16,475	Originally posted by WPRESTO And if you get tired of dishing out the money, what then? You have nothing. What did you have if you stopped updating PS or LR? An increasing outdated application that might break at the next OS upgrade. And with Adobe you were stuck with all the bugs because Adobe doesn't fix bugs till the next version...

07-24-2015, 03:32 AM - 1 Like	#79
Rondec Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Gladys, Virginia Photos: Gallery Posts: 27,650	Originally posted by boriscleto What did you have if you stopped updating PS or LR? An increasing outdated application that might break at the next OS upgrade. And with Adobe you were stuck with all the bugs because Adobe doesn't fix bugs till the next version... I think you exaggerate a little. I have Elements 7 on my laptop and it does fine even though it is many years old. If you shoot RAW with DNG files, then you can continue to open them in Lightroom, even if you camera isn't supported (Adobe takes a long time to support Pentax cameras anyway) and you can down load color profiles from Hue Light or elsewhere to keep the functionality going. I really think Adobe had run out of ideas for new features that would sell folks on a new version of Photoshop and so they decided better go to a monthly subscription and trickle out little features, none of which would be significant enough to sell a new and expensive version of Photoshop, but satisfy folks who are "only" paying ten dollars a month forever.

07-24-2015, 08:35 AM	#80
Oakland Rob Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Apr 2015 Location: Bay Area California Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 798	Originally posted by Rondec I think you exaggerate a little. I have Elements 7 on my laptop and it does fine even though it is many years old. If you shoot RAW with DNG files, then you can continue to open them in Lightroom, even if you camera isn't supported (Adobe takes a long time to support Pentax cameras anyway) and you can down load color profiles from Hue Light or elsewhere to keep the functionality going. I really think Adobe had run out of ideas for new features that would sell folks on a new version of Photoshop and so they decided better go to a monthly subscription and trickle out little features, none of which would be significant enough to sell a new and expensive version of Photoshop, but satisfy folks who are "only" paying ten dollars a month forever. $10/mo for Photoshop is less than the cost of the perpetual Ps, unless you skip upgrades. Sheesh, I'd have to go for about 4 years or more under the subscription before I hit the cost of CS6 Ps. And that's without upgrades. For some of us, that lower price, irrespective of features, is what got us to buy it. As dakight noted above, it's more like 6+ years. It's a great deal if you were a Ps user.

07-24-2015, 09:35 AM - 1 Like	#81
Quicksand Pentaxian Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Central Ohio (formerly SF Bay Area) Posts: 1,519	... and for pure Lightroom users like me, upgrading from a prior version, the breakeven point is at only eight months. If I use standalone LR6 for more than two years, like I did with LR4, I'm saving more than two thirds of my money. It's no surprise Adobe doesn't like this and would try to punish a user like me.

07-24-2015, 02:23 PM	#82
RobA_Oz Site Supporter Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Tasmania, Australia Photos: Gallery Posts: 8,191	Originally posted by Oakland Rob $10/mo for Photoshop is less than the cost of the perpetual Ps, unless you skip upgrades. Sheesh, I'd have to go for about 4 years or more under the subscription before I hit the cost of CS6 Ps. And that's without upgrades. For some of us, that lower price, irrespective of features, is what got us to buy it. As dakight noted above, it's more like 6+ years. It's a great deal if you were a Ps user. I've been using CS5 for longer than four years, and I can't see any significant advance that four years of paying an annual subscription to Adobe will gain me. There's an implicit promise in a subscription service that isn't there explicitly, so upgraders would be there on pure faith: it's a different matter for new users, up to the four year mark.

07-24-2015, 02:53 PM	#83
johnmflores Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Somerville, NJ Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 5,361	Originally posted by WPRESTO The point is, the fact that a company is out to make money doesn't mean you automatically accept what they offer because they're doing to make yet more money. The new Adobe "sales" of LR & PS is being done strictly to make more profit, from our pockets. Would you buy into it any more than you would purchase worthless overpriced chrome on a car, justifying your outlay of money because, after all, the company is just trying to get my money because that's what companies do, so it's OK. Will the "upgrades" they will be offering free to subscribers be worthwhile, or just glittery chrome of no practical use sent out periodically to make subscribers think they're getting their money's worth? And if you get tired of dishing out the money, what then? You have nothing. Then don't buy it. Simple as that. If you don't trust Adobe, then go somewhere else. I've been using Adobe products since Photoshop 3. I've watched them acquire Aldus Pagemaker. I've watched them acquire Macromedia and in one fell swoop own the thousands of dollars of software (Macromedia Authorware, anyone?) that I was making a living with. They haven't been perfect by any stretch of the imagination (who is?), but the fact that Photoshop is still standing and the editor of choice for entire industries says something about them not resting on laurels and letting others out-innovate them. Is the company that's been the industry leader for 20+ years just going to lay back now and count the money that's flowing in with the CC subscriptions without forging ahead? Is the company that just a handful of years ago introduced Lightroom and changed the digital photography landscape irrevocably going to lay off all of those designers and engineers (because paying them to sit there and not improve Photoshop and Lightroom is not going to help their profitability) and sit back and count the CC subscriptions? When it comes to longevity, the safe bet is with Adobe. See Apple Aperture. See Kai's Power Tools. See any number of image editing programs that didn't make it out of the 20th century. If you're like me with Zip disks in the basement filled with files from programs long gone, you eventually toss them out and move on. And practically speaking, except for a rare handful of historically important photographers, who's really going to care about our hard drives of photos fifty years from now? Seriously? If you're lucky, when you die, some family member's going to take your hard drive, put it in a box, and stuff it in an attic somewhere, where it'll collect dust for years before someone discovers them and asks, "What's USB?". That's if you're lucky. For the rest of us, they'll end up in the landfill shortly after we end up there. I'm pretty sure that my family is going to be satisfied with the highly compressed photos I've posted on Facebook and just toss my archaic RAID drives filled with DNGs. Sorry for the rant, but it sounds like there's a lot of straw men here.

07-25-2015, 06:47 AM	#84
Mikesul Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Phoenix, AZ Posts: 7,594	John, Nice rant. We need that sometimes. I still wear my Marcromedia tee shirt occasionally

07-25-2015, 08:59 AM	#85
Oakland Rob Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Apr 2015 Location: Bay Area California Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 798	Originally posted by Mikesul John, Nice rant. We need that sometimes. I still wear my Marcromedia tee shirt occasionally Agreed; thanks. I'm still pining over Canvas on the Mac. And Kai's Power Tools, wow, what a blast from the past.

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07-26-2015, 03:33 AM	#86
GUB Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Aug 2012 Location: Wanganui Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 5,752	I am not a lightroom user but have been skimming this thread. A couple of cut / pastes from my camera club FB thread: I have just signed in with my ID for Lightroom and it says "Develop module is disabled. Please restart lightroom to sign in to the Creative Cloud" even after I have signed in. Reply: Have you tried reinstalling the software? When I was trying to get my LR cc working they said to disable 'Use Graphics Processor' (go Preferences... Performance, and untick). Anyway... in the end I gave up with the online connection dropping out a few times every day and so having to restart or reinstall LR! I got a refund and bought Lightroom 6. Now there's no problems A quick google gets plenty of other hits of this issue. I think you LR5 guys are fish in a barrel