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Ask Slashdot: What Is Your View On Forced Subscription-Only Software?
dryriver writes: All used to be well in the world of Digital Content Creation (DCC) until two very major DCC software makers -- Adobe and Autodesk -- decided to force a monthly subscription model on pretty much every software package they make to please Wall Street investors. Important 2D and 3D DCC software like Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere, InDesign, 3DMax, Maya, and Mudbox is now only available to "rent" from these companies. You simply cannot buy a perpetual license or boxed copy for this software at all anymore, and what makes matters worse is that if you stop paying your subscription, the software locks itself down, leaving you unable to open even old files you created with the software for later review. Also annoying is that subscription software constantly performs "license validity" checks over the internet (subscription software cannot be run offline for any great length of time, or on an air-gapped PC) and the software is increasingly tied into various cloud services these companies have set up. The DCC companies want you to save your -- potentially confidential -- project files on their servers, not on your own hard disk.
There are millions of DCC professionals around the world who'd love to be able to buy a normal, perpetual, offline-use capable license for these software tools. That is no longer possible. Adobe and Autodesk no longer provide that. What is your view on this "forced subscription" model? What would happen if all the major commercial software developers forced this model on everyone simultaneously? What if the whole idea of being able to "purchase" a perpetual license for ANY commercial software went away completely, and it was subscription only from that point on?
There are millions of DCC professionals around the world who'd love to be able to buy a normal, perpetual, offline-use capable license for these software tools. That is no longer possible. Adobe and Autodesk no longer provide that. What is your view on this "forced subscription" model? What would happen if all the major commercial software developers forced this model on everyone simultaneously? What if the whole idea of being able to "purchase" a perpetual license for ANY commercial software went away completely, and it was subscription only from that point on?
SolidWorks is close to that model now as well.
Sage accounting has a perpetual / offline license available, but you can't buy it from them - you have to go through a reseller.
It brings up a question I always ask: Who owns your data?
If you have to keep paying someone in order to access your designs, then you don't really own your data, they do.
- The Sigless Wonder
I personally don't like it but it's one of the more surefire ways of reducing piracy whilst kicking your actual customers in the wallet to make up for any perceived piracy losses.
Adobe has a stranglehold on that market, and they can pretty much do whatever they want. They realized that people weren't bothering to buy new versions, and as such their revenue was threatened, so they changed course to a subscription, to guarantee future revenue, unless a competitor came in. No competitors in sight and given the state of software today, it is highly unlikely that another vendor would choose a non-subscription path. I get everything I want out of GIMP personally, so I'm not too personally invested in that per se, but it does serve as an inspiration to all sorts of software vendors as a 'I can't make customers pay for new function, and I can't branch into new markets competently, so I can make them rent the same old software to get revenue and as a bonus, I don't have to work as hard to innovate'.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
This is just an extreme case of vendor lock-in, which has been a known risk of using proprietary software for decades. Vendor lock-in was one of the primary motivators for the free software movement.
Frankly, I do think proprietary software such as MS Office, PhotoShop, AutoCAD, etc. often offers a better user experience than free and open-source (FOSS) alternatives. I have been willing to bottle my FOSS sympathies and shell out cash for productivity software for a long time for that reason. When the UX is better, that's worth paying for.
Once the vendor starts blocking me from access to my own intellectual property, that's a deal-breaker. First it's a moral outrage. Second, for people who won't factor morals into their business decisions, it's an extreme and unacceptable business risk. Now that we have a word for "ransomware," we can call this subscription model what it is.
I know people will say "Adobe will never kill PhotoShop." Never is very long time. People used to say General Motors would never go bankrupt, or Lotus would never kill Lotus 1-2-3.
No deal. Even if the subscription were "free." I'm looking at you, Google.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
My company is in the architectural visualisation sector, so that means we are utterly dependant on Autodesk AND Adobe software. Lucky us! The subscription system has it's pros and cons. Pros are that you get the latest and greatest technologies as soon as they become available (and bugs ofc). Cons is you are totally at their mercy, and in certain cases we pay much more than we used to. To be honest, I'm not so bothered about Adobe, their software is still cheap, as far as I'm concerned, and Photoshop is one of the most refined and evolved tools I've ever used (been using it professionally since v2.0). As for Autodesk, they are total price-gouging bastards. The money we have to spend - and make no bones about it, we HAVE to spend - on 3DS Max is outrageous. If there was a realistic alternative, we'd move in a flash. Except that would probably be owned by Autodesk too.
One of my friends is a top level graphic designer. He has simply stayed with a bought-and-paid-for version of PhotoShop...CS5, I believe. There is literally nothing he can't do with it.
His comment about Adobe's attempt to force him to rent the new version and effectively put his business under their control was simple and direct. He said (and yes, this is a quote), "Adobe can go fuck itself."
I've done photography at the professional level and use Lightroom (mostly) and CS2 (for occasions when I have to do serious retouching). This was never an issue for me, because I don't need the newest bells and whistles for what is now more a hobby than a profession.
I echo my friend's sentiments, though. I will never put myself into a situation where Adobe might be able to forbid me from having access to my own work. I can't imagine what kind of idiot would do so.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
It's very simple, really. Richard Stallman was right, and saw this coming over 30 years ago. It's better to use inferior Free software than it is to use the world's best non-Free software. In some cases, it's even better to resort to pencil and paper than to rely upon non-Free software. I fought against this notion for years, but it finally clicked for me about 20 years ago when all the proprietary software I relied upon was pulled out from under me.
I could write a very long treatise as to why Free software is always a better choice than non-Free software. One major point is that you will learn how to make Free software work for you, even when it has missing features, and will then be free of the near absolute power wielded against you by large corporate interests which do not dovetail with your own.
It brings up a question I always ask: Who owns your data?
THAT is exactly the key question. It's the reason I refuse to use Lightroom to manage my photos. I'm not about to tie myself in perpetuity to another company and effectively hand over control of my data to them. While I'm not saying it's always wrong to make that choice it's a choice one should make with extreme caution. It would be one thing if the software continued to work if you stopped paying the subscription and you just stopped getting upgrades. But to disable the software and effectively deny you access to your data if you stop paying for the subscription is just shady as it gets to my mind.
I personally don't like it but it's one of the more surefire ways of reducing piracy whilst kicking your actual customers in the wallet to make up for any perceived piracy losses.
In my case it reduces piracy by keeping me from using their products at all. I'm not about to hand over control of my data to a company just so they can pad their bottom line to Wall Street. Sadly I'd actually pay for some of their products but they refuse to license them to me under terms I'm willing to accept.
It doesn't matter if you wanted a smart TV or not, you'll take what maximizes profits and like it.
It doesn't matter if you wanted a headphone jack or not, you'll take what maximizes profits and like it.
It doesn't matter if you wanted to pay a one-time cost, you'll take what maximizes profits and like it.
It doesn't matter if you wanted a removable battery, you'll take what maximizes profits and like it.
It doesn't matter if you wanted A la carte, you'll take what maximizes profits and like it.
Bottom line is consumer opinion no longer matters. And don't give me that Vote with your Wallet crap. That's as dead as the concept of competition. The mega-corps could care less about the 5% of you that would actually stand up and "vote". The other 95% of mindless consumers just stand in line and beg for more product regardless of price. And Greed is infectious, which is exactly why we are seeing more SaaS mandates, not less. Shareholders and investors demand it.
And it's been this way for a long time now, so you might as well get used to it. Your entire life will be subscription-based 30 years from now.
I think the advantage here is mostly for the developers. They want to make a predictable, dependable stream of income. Previously they had to make new versions of software to make people pay again but that resulted in bad updates and lot of redoing things from scratch, just for sake of making a new version so people would pay again. With subscription model they can stop making major updates every 2-5 years and enjoy their steady rent without doing much beside maintenance.
The worst part is none of this will stop piracy. The software can be cracked to disable/fool the periodic authentication and proxy servers can be set up to emulate the cloud services for saving files.
Only businesses that need to stay legit will be affected by this. If there is a network outage or bottleneck they will be shut down. If they let their subscription lapse they will be shut down. If they refuse to upgrade for too long, they will eventually lose the ability to collaborate with other groups as new features are added that are not backwards compatible.
It's tantamount to extortion for anyone who wants or needs to stay legit, but really only an annoyance for people who are willing and able to pirate.
=Smidge=
That's odd. My pirated copies work just fine. No problems here.
I'm not a pro photo guy, but I have used darktable and found it useful. Whether or not it is useful to you is obviously your call. I invested time into learning open source equivalents years ago knowing that software and licenses change to much for the average consumer to find proprietary software financially worthwhile.
once more into the breach
Darktable is fantastic. Adobe's model is why I switched to it. Autodesk did the same, which is why I'm learning Librecad and QCad for my (generally simple) furniture design. I switched to Linux completely (after dabbling for years) a year or so ago when it started to look like Windows was becoming a rental/portal for advertisement. It takes some work up front, but even with a slightly (and the gap is constantly narrowing) inferior application, knowing that I own the data and that it is free is worth it to me. Perhaps it would be different if I were a professional photographer or a CAD professional, but the subscription model is, I think, alarming either way.
... should ask, "What have I done for Open Source Software, lately?"
On other note, we do need more competition and the need to continue to strengthen free alternatives like GNU/Linux, LibreOffice, NextCloud, GIMP, VLC, etc. So please send a small penny to your favorite free software each year if you can. It will keep your commercial proprietary software in check if possible, and save you more money in the long run.
Gonna sound like a troll (if I was I'd post AC) but come back to me when LibreOffice has the same if not more functionality than Microsoft Excel. Sure MS have changed the layout several times and have even broken macro spreadsheets with some iterations of Excel but they aren't the only ones guilty of doing this (not to sound like an apologist).
Say what you want about excel but its pretty handy for a lot of things (but the vast majority of credit goes to Dan Bricklin who invented VisiCalc).
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