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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?
I can guess how this is going to go ./ Pretty much everyone will be fully supportive.
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'm not a fan of the sub model; I use several of the Adobe apps, so the $50/month seems like a steal when you consider the Suite used to cost in the thousands of dollars. But I'd still rather pay up once and be able to keep using the software as much as I wanted.
Jason Van Patten
If a had a nose,
Iâ(TM)d gladly pay through it, twice.
But my nose expired.
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.
As a user of Blender, I am fine with Autodesk's destructive attitudes. I've noticed that some animation studios are now providing both money to the Blender Institute and software coders to help it's development. It may still feel like a drop in the bucket but Blender is capable to do many of the tasks needed out there already.
Now I know that won't cover all aspects but maybe other programs such as FreeCAD will get a boost from these vendor lock in tactics.
If Gimp could speed up their development, people might see a benefit to replace Photoshop in businesses too but I might be asking too much here.
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.
When they saw that they were going to be forced into extortionware like this, they essentially told Adobe to fuck the hell off.
Sure, very well-to-do companies can afford perpetual payments.
But smaller creators who still need access scrimp and save and simply buy a copy of CS5 or CS6 when they can find it.
Sure, up front it's more. But ammortize it out over time.
CS6 was released in mid-2011. Coming up on 7 years here.
It was discontinued in late 2013.
Even if it was $1000 (which it wasn't) at inception, that's basically be just under $12/month ownership cost at this point.
Or you could have been spending $20/month for Photoshop CC since mid 2013 (about $1200).
Hell, the bastards don't even cut you any kind of financial break for prepaying for a year!
And god help you if you want to pay month-to-month instead of an annual contract that's paid monthly. Tack an extra $10/month on!
Fuck extortionware.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
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.
I'm much more restrictive about spending money on a monthly basis compared to one-time purchases. So for me personally they lose sales. I would have no problem purchasing a license at irregular intervals for Adobe Lightroom and maybe also Photoshop, but I will not pay for a subscription
The thought of it costing money every month just bugs me. And it's easy to calculate exactly how much it will end up costing
Take 25 years of Lightroom and Photoshop as an example.
$10 * 12 months * 25 years = $3000
But Isuspect this works quite well for those who have to use their products.
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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The Quicken change is garbage, once you upgrade to 2018 all of your data gets held hostage going forward. If you don't renew for the low low price of full price next year you only have read-access. Before at least they just disabled downloading financial statements which sure that's no problem. It just made the old versions a pain but I understand that limitation, importing external data could require ongoing support.
If a user doesn't need to download statements or new features, forced upgrades are no benefit so long as everything is working fine.
I setup a new PC for the gf's family that I got for them, I had to dig up a copy of Quicken 2015 to reinstall since they're poor farmers. Their old PC was a Pentium 4 with Windows XP running Quicken 2011.... They were happy with 2011 and don't need anything new or fancy, unfortunately they lost the CD and it probably wouldn't work on Windows 10 anyways. Forcing them to pay $35-50/yr to be able to manage not going into debt is counter-intuitive. This sounds like it's thick with exaggeration but unfortunately this is the case. People trying to make ends meet responsibly trying to be forced to shell out more out of what they have, Quicken isn't used just by rich people with money burning holes in their pockets.
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.
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=
I love photoshop, lightroom and other Adobe products. However, at this point, I stopped at CS6 for the Adobe suite of tools.
I have LR5, and may try to go to LR6 while I believe I still can to get that last perpetual license, but that's it.
While Adobe has put out "some" upgrades and new features over these past few years of Creative Cloud, I frankly haven't found anything there to be groundbreaking, that I cannot work without. IMHO, the adage that if they don't have incentive to innovate (due to steady income stream no matter what) they won't. And I don't see that they have really.
ON the other hand, it may be that things like Photoshop and Designer, AI, etc...have pretty much for the most part hit the wall on what you can do....and there isn't much room left for improvement for completely NEW features.
If that's the case, then if nothing else, Adobe should try going in and rewriting the engines behind the scenes, but you don't see that either.
One nice thing about the Adobe CC rental thing is, it has spurred on other companies to try to fill that void, and there are a number of them that are.
So far as a PS replacement, I'm enjoying Affinity Photo . It is damned fast, their engine work blows Adobe away. And for functionality, well, I'd say it is about 98-99% there. My only gripe is they need to emulate PS in that when you have the brush tool, you need to have the keyboard command to allow quick sampling of colors with the brush on the image. Other than that, the healing, cloning and content aware tools are JUST as good as Adobes from what I've seen so far. And I think with some extra time, it may equal or surpass PS. It is reasonably priced for a perpetual license, and they've been doing a LOT of updates for free since I bought it a couple years ago.
Affinity has a designer app and I belive a Publisher app coming out....windows and mac.
For a lightroom replacement, I'm playing with On1 RAW ...it is very good so far, I do miss some of the LR cataloging, but On1 appears to be adding those options. I like that it has in the RAW development area, simple and luminosity masking...something you have to drop out of raw imaging processing from LR and got to PS for on the Adobe side.. And again...very quick and responsive engine.
And for video...well, the free version of Black magic's Davinci Resolve ....well known and respected for its color grading capabilities, now has a very respectable e NLE inside, and they're adding some impressing sound tools too. Premier? Well....it has competition. I also like FCPX too, but since it is so different and Mac only, I won't put that one up there right now.
Adobe After Effects? Well, now I love me some AE. I also have some 3rd party filters for AE from Red Giant and Video Copilot I enjoy using....so far, that one is the hardest to find a replacement for, but it appears that Blackmagic Fusion may be a real contender there.
So, there are alternatives....may take a little retraining, but then again, not that much. The PS alternatives often have pretty much the same layout of tools and keyboard shortcuts. A NLE for the most part is a NLE with some minor differences...
So, if nothing else, with Adobe going rental, it has put forth incentive for other companies to come along and truly compete.
So far, I'm voting with my wallet....I encourage anyone that can to also do so.
And I do this through a business....so, those that think the rental model is great for a business write off......I'd rather write off purchases of something the company owns, and doesn't go vapor when you stop rent payment.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Mmmm, subscriptions to software. They're definitely the future. Look for this to become more of a thing as time goes on. I personally don't like it, but I do see the benefits of this model. We have to admit there are some boons to the subscription model we might not readily see.
The biggest one is going to be support. If a company is making you pay every month to use their stuff, they better be supporting it. The entire model sustains a decent support team assuming the company is willing to shovel some of their profits into it. Also, the support part includes continuous updates. See Microsoft Windows 10 for an example of how this looks.
Also updates, yep, you never have to pay a large one-time licensing fee, and your subscription includes updates, for as long as you keep paying. Never have to worry about buying the next version at a large one-time licensing fee.
But then the cons: You're married to this company, dependent on them to make a living. Not sure I'm comfortable with that. Offline usage. I imagine a lot of subscription models are going to have to provide for more security conscious customers, like DoD or three-letter-agencies whom can't have stuff always connected. So there will definitely be stipulations for that, but it's still annoying. Hopefully they'll give a fairly decent amount of 'offline usage' before the license gets angry with you. Access to your files after subscription ends.. yeah, that's not good, companies definitely need to provide a read-only mode of their software so you can still get at your stuff, just can't modify it anymore until you resubscribe.
Final thoughts: It definitely has a place. It's not all evil. It's not ideal for all situations and I do wish companies would offer both options. If I want to buy a perpetual today's latest and greatest version of doffusofficecadauto, I should be able to do that, and never get updates ever, until I buy a new version or subscribe. For some situations it's really ideal and actually a boon. It does sort of force companies to stand behind their product for as long as you're subscribed to it.
Long term I worry, computer companies of all shapes, sizes and flavors come and go at a breakneck speed. I do worry about people losing work trapped in defunct subscription software. At the end of the day, you have to decide which works for you. For those of us who are bitching we can't get perpetual licenses anymore.. well, there's a market opening for someone ambitious. Fill that niche?
Don't use Adobe or Autodesk.
Not using AutoDesk is basically impossible if you hope to work with anyone else in the fields of architecture and engineering. Some municipalities even explicitly require AutoCAD/Revit files as part of the deliverables.
But yes, I suppose "Not using AutoDesk" is just as much an option as "Not having a job."
=Smidge=
I just quit giving Adobe my money. I own the most recent non-sub version of Photoshop, and that'll do fine for whatever I need to use Photoshop for in the future, and to work with what I have already used Photoshop for.
My position - both as a user and a developer - is that I am quite happy to buy software, including buying upgrades; I absolutely refuse to steal software; and under no circumstances will I rent software: I think the entire rent/subscribe model is profoundly toxic to the end user.
The general class of problem is that if I produce a document (such as a .psd) with software X, and then X stops working because [I can't afford to continue to pay || the company is out of business || the company is no longer supporting it || any other non-remediable reason] then my document may become frozen and/or impossible to access, depending on just how the version of the software I finally ended up with handles such things, something you can't really predict because these companies change their policies from time to time.
I can't, in good conscience, support the model / mindset that embodies the potential for such problems. I certainly won't create software that imposes such a thing on my end users.
You want to sell me software, fine, let's do that. You want to rent/subscribe it to me, you can toddle right the hell off without my money.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
cayenne8 revealed:
So far, I'm voting with my wallet....I encourage anyone that can to also do so.
Avid Corporation's Pro Tools is the standard DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) in the recording industry. Every professional recording studio uses it, because their customers demand that they do so.
Avid decided more than a decade ago that renting, rather than selling, recording software would be their model - and, like the Adobe examples listed in TFS - they've stuck with it ever since. And their license fees are not cheap. Like, at all. To frost the feces cake, most major makers of audio processing plug-ins have adopted the same strategy. All of which, naturally, makes running a commercial recording studio a hideously expensive business, given how much it costs to design and build one, and how much the necessary hardware (professional-quality microphones, for instance, start at around $1,200 and go way up from there) adds to the start-up expense.
That's why, for my home studio, I chose to go with Reaper, instead. Justin Frankel, the lead developer of the seminal WinAmp music player founded the company that makes it after AOL bought (and promptly forgot about) WinAmp from him for gazillions of dollars. He's publicly stated that the price of Reaper ($60 for private use) is purposely set low to make it affordable for everyone, since he's already rich enough to afford not to gouge his customers - so the cost is just high enough to pay the development team to keep working on the product.
Reaper kicks ass. It's just as capable a product as Pro Tools - and, once you buy it, it's yours. You get no-cost upgrades through the entire major version you bought. And the next one, as well. It's compatible with all the major plug-in formats, and it comes bundled with a whole bunch of them (including VSTi's) at no additional charge. It's WAY more configurable than Pro Tools, it uses very little RAM, comparatively speaking, and it's scriptable up the wazoo.
Oh, and there's a Linux version, as well.
I didn't mean this post to be a Slashvertisment, but I guess it turned into one. Sorry about that. See, my point is that there's a pro-quality alternative to what is practically a software monopoly in the audio recording world, too. And it doesn't require you to compromise on functionality or power.
Fuck rent-seeking. And fuck rent-seekers ...
(Posted as AC only to keep from undoing prior upmods in this thread.)
--
Check out my novel ...
... should ask, "What have I done for Open Source Software, lately?"
" That's odd. My pirated copies work just fine. No problems here. "
I just can't bring myself to trust pirated software anymore. I got burned too many times during my Amiga days with all sorts of evil shit that came hidden / bundled with the Yarr Matey versions.
I don't really care for the subscription model, but I use Adobe's software too much to avoid it.
I greatly dislike the fact that Adobe keeps open / talking connections back to their servers at all times. Even more annoying that it's encrypted so I can't see what is going out. I let it talk initially, then a script kills the active processes for the remainder of the session.
I have experimented with Photoshop alternatives, but I find their performance is seriously lacking ( Wacom Mobile Studio Pro platform ) in comparison.
Capture One Pro ( v11 is latest ) works very well for a Lightroom replacement though I don't typically shoot 5k shots that I then have to sort through.
Now, Autodesk can just kiss my ass on their Maya / Max subscription systems. ( I like how they bought and then discontinued Softimage just so they could remove any potential competitors )
Last I checked, they were around the $1500 / year mark ( for a subscription ) and that price is why I got serious about Blender.
*I was amazed to see that Word Perfect is still lumbering along. I had no idea. Also Word Perfect supplanted things like Wordstar (of which I also have fond memories of running under CP/M)
WordPerfect is still in existence because they got bought out a few times and ultimately ended up at Corel, a company I affectionately call "the software retirement home". With titles like WinZip, WinDVD, CorelDraw, Paint Shop Pro, and WordPerfect (which itself contains Paradox), it seems as though the company's plan is to play law-of-large-numbers on acquisitions of software titles which were de facto standards in their day. But I digress.
WordPerfect survives primarily because they have a solid niche in law firms. Legal documents depend heavily on the "Reveal Codes" functionality, which is kinda-sorta like a middle-of-the-road between WYSIWYG editing and LaTeX, which allows for consistent document formatting without either the weirdness of Word rearranging everything when you move an image one pixel to the left, or the learning curve of LaTeX for those who "only know Word". Reveal Codes begat document libraries (keeping in mind that law firms also notoriously keep everything forever), and templates, and plugins, and enough of a cottage industry around a highly profitable sector that has enabled it to avoid utter irrelevance.
All of that being said, I completely agree with your assessment that no program is beyond being dethroned. Oracle used to be the platform for databases (unless you were using IBM or small enough to use Access or Paradox), but newer databases commonly end up being designed in MariaDB or Postgres; even MS SQL Server has more favorable licensing. MS Office is still the standard, but GDocs is making inroads, especially in the education market. Good ol' Internet Explorer was the standard until Firefox chipped away at a solid clip, themselves supplanted by Chrome for many. Adobe themselves supplanted Quark with Indesign, and didn't take long to do so. Software comes and software goes, and while Adobe's decline will be incredibly gradual, it's far from impossible.