Adobe Creative Suite charges

[smirking]

I'm constantly amazed by people who complain about $500-$600 per year for Creative Cloud. Adobe's apps are pro-level software packages. They're not for hobbyists. And they're not for folks who think they're pros, but charge $50 for a logo design, $100 for a website, or $20 per hour for video editing.

I generally agree even though I'm sort of complaining. I actually agree that if you're a full fledged pro user, $50 a month should be nothing. $50/month is not cost prohibitive, but it does add up to a pretty crappy deal even if you are a pro, but just not one in the mold of an end to end Adobe workflow type of pro.

That would be me. I was lamenting that my niche of the old Adobe market had been written out of their plans. I'm not bitter about it like some people. I just think it sucks that I have to be ready to move on each year when my renewal comes up.

The cost of a year subscription of CC can (and should) be made up in less than a day of work. Heck, for many designers, the inclusion of TypeKit is worth the cost alone.

$600/day x 260 working days a year = $156,000. I get the idea and you probably didn't work the numbers out before posting, but regardless what the breakdown is, a lot of full fledged pro users doing media production don't make near enough to make $600 something they can swallow without a second thought. Ones that work primarily with small businesses and small local organizations would fit this mold.

I'm a developer and I only snack on Adobe products. Half of my work is with larger companies and half with small businesses or local level organizations. They're totally different worlds. There's a huge divide between those who operate in local space vs. those who operate in global space even when doing similar jobs. Some of the complaints might be coming from fully fledged pros who have a fraction of the budget of people servicing large organizations.

 

[satchmo]

Just as an aside, I stumbled onto to this and thought it might be worthwhile to post.
It's another competitor to Adobe Illustrator. I haven't tried it myself but it could serve as an add-on/replacement/substitute.

I believe it was called iDraw for iPad and has now been bought out by AutoDesk.

Graphic for Mac = $25
Graphic for iPad = $10

http://graphic.com/mac/

 

[MacGizmo]

$600/day x 260 working days a year = $156,000. I get the idea and you probably didn't work the numbers out before posting...

No, I worked the numbers out. CC costs around $600 per year US. Most mid-level designers will charge between $500-$1,000 US for a simple brochure design/production, which (for all the designers I know) takes about a day to design. Obviously there are exceptions, and everyone works at different speeds. But even the slowest designer can pay for the entire year of CC in under a week if they have moderately steady work.

The other side of the coin, of course, is that not every designer is a full-time pro. Lots of freelancers who do work only on the weekends and evenings. For those folks, the pricing model does suck if you get the full CC Suite. But you can rent the individual apps as well. Or better yet, they can use competing apps like the Affinity Photo/Designer apps which are (in my opinion) quite good and more than adequate to produce pro-level work.

 

[MacGizmo]

Done!

Gosh, I was just kidding about that quote attribution... LOL. But thanks anyway!

Regarding #5, What I meant was that under the subscription model, all upgrades are forced on me whether I want them or not. In the past, I could choose not to pay for the upgrades if I felt they weren't useful to me, saving me the cost of a yearly upgrade price.

I suspect the subscription model was conceived for this very reason. It makes business sense for Adobe, but it's an added burden on me (as I point out in #6 - the 260% increase in cost).

Ah, I see what you're saying now. Yeah, the skippers most certainly are getting hosed. But you assumption of why Adobe switched is mostly spot-on. They had to come up with enough new features to get you to upgrade every 18 months - and then hope that enough people did that they could sustain growth. Unfortunately, many users then took the other side of the argument and said there were too many new features they didn't need (bloat), and so they didn't upgrade. Adobe literally couldn't win.

Yeah. I can afford it for both users, but I'm not happy about the idea of "renting" software. I'm old-school - I prefer to own my tools (and my music, but that's for another forum).

I also prefer the ownership route... for almost everything. But sometimes Adobe throws in tiny little features into these updates that absolutely make my day, and it would suck to wait a year to get them if they were ready to "ship" today.

I must admit though, Serif's Affinity apps are extremely well done. They're releasing a beta (and hopefully a shipping version) of their InDesign competitor in 2016 according to statements they've made in their forums. Once they do that, and IF the app is up-to-snuff like the Illustrator and Photoshop-competing apps are, I'm going to SERIOUSLY take a look at switching.

Don't get me started on the music rental. I just don't get it. I could not bring myself to pay a monthly fee to listen to the same music over and over that I've owned for the last 30 years. But I suspect that's a young person's (or music aficionado's) game. I just don't place that much importance on "discovering new music."

Here's a scary thought: What if Apple adopted the subscription model also? I usually keep my computers for 6 or more years. I think I'd consider retiring at that point. Ha!

I can't imagine a scenario where Apple would switch to a subscription model for hardware or OS-level software. I mean, how would they pull it off? But I'm with you. If it comes to that, I hope I'm already retired.

PS: MacGizmo, I've bookmarked your web site. Looks like a lot of useful information lurking there.

Why thank you, kind sir. Much appreciated!