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Adobe turns subscription screw again, telling users to pay up or downgrade
(www.theregister.com)
this post was submitted on 20 May 2025
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It's the 'professionals' fault, they got locked into that shit years ago because it's what they learned in school and they don't want to learn anything else even though there are alternatives.
I'm just happy when they don't imsist on an overpriced Mac just to use Adobe.
I wouldn't say its their fault tho.
Professional will use software that suitable for their workflow. I've seen professionals changing their main software if there was better alternative.
For example, there are wave of professional that are moving from Adobe to Affinity. Illustrator and comic artist are moving from Photoshop to Clip Studio Paint or Procreate. Some video editor will instantly change their software to Davinci Resolve.
Most of the time, they can't change their software because their client requires file compability, such as Photoshop-native PSD. Sure, other software can open/edit PSD, but they might not fully support all PSD format specification.
That's why people on open source community focused on open format and open workflow instead. Inkscape use SVG. Krita use ORA. And so on.
Most probably didn't learn in school - they learned because they pirated the software. This used to be a boon for Adobe as by mostly ignoring piracy they were training the workforce in private. Somewhere along the lines Adobe got greedy and will eventually pay the price as they won't own the landscape forever. Software like Blender is already allowing people to not buy the poison that is After effects in some cases.
I really hate it when people blame consumers for problems instead of producers. Let’s go ahead and examine your hypothesis.
Can you point out where in this process our hypothetical user should have done something different? And more importantly why it’s this person’s fault they’ve been vendor-locked their whole career? Note that a critical assumption I’m making here is that not everyone is a power user because, unsurprisingly, not everyone is a power user.
It's like the saying: The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time to plant a tree is right now.
If James Lee's videos are a barometer on how artists and creators deal with Adobe, I'm convinced that a relationship Adobe is abusive. He went from defending and offering to help Adobe to cutting them out of his life over the course of 5 months. No one deserves an abusive relationship, but leaving or staying in one is totally a choice that has real consequences.
This doesn’t answer the question at all. Don’t get me wrong; I have zero interest in supporting Adobe and I tell anyone they’re toxic. What I’m frustrated with is blaming users of their software. To use your real world examples, that’s like blaming millennials for the myth of plastic recycling. You can attack them writ large for something they have no control over or you can go for the source.
A very similar argument can be made about cloud software. The cloud engineering pipeline is geared toward forcing you into Azure, GCP, or AWS. Attacking the DevOps engineer just trying to make a living for the AI abuse supported by Azure is the wrong idea.
Your response is a much better way to change the picture. Education and connection, not blame.
I thought my answer would be obvious, but the answer was to not use Adobe from the start and the next best time to stop using Adobe is right now. It doesn't matter where you are at in your career. The answer isn't always easy to implement and it isn't what we want to hear. It's why many of us are here on Lemmy and not Reddit. We decided that not having the good things at Reddit was better than the shit we had to put up with over there.
As far as the cloud goes, moving things back on prem is the best option to not be in that abusive type relationship. It's what I've been learning in my skillset in IT over the past 2 years in my spare time with some junk parts I had laying around, a few hard drives, and retired PCs I acquired that can't upgrade to win 11. My skills will be sharp as the momentum builds toward the tipping point of moving off cloud including running AI locally. My favorite thing has been learning pf/opnsense. If you're old enough to remember the PIX before Cisco it was originally created with off the shelf hardware. pf/opnsense feels like a return to that adapting to a lot of different hardware.
Ultimately I don't blame someone for staying in an abusive relationship, but I can't pity them when there are options to get out. I just show them how to get out and the struggles that will come with my choices. Otherwise the next cloud thing will be User Operating Systems as a Service and that's going to be a whole 'nother shitshow. Imagine $20+/mo just to boot your computer/phone/tablet.
I’m somewhat flabbergasted. How does someone starting design tomorrow get schooling and career experience (both of which almost universally require Adobe products) without using Adobe products? Where are these programs and jobs accessible to the entire market? Where the easy path that most will take (do you know how many active users Facebook, Reddit, and X the Everything App still have?)?
That's the other half of that saying. Hindsight is 20-20. (I could've sworn the tree planting idiom was more well known, sorry for not completely explaining it) Obviously the best solution is to not get in an abusive relationship . The next best time to not be in an abusive relationship is right now.
Yes I know how many users the major centralized social media platforms have. I've chosen not to be on those platforms and with it the benefits that come with having those amount of users. Like I said though, I don't blame one for staying and I cannot pity those that stay because there are options.
Watching YouTube videos, reading manuals, just using alternatives, and asking questions to other people in places like forums, stack exchange, and the like. The self taught route is a completely valid option when the whole world is-wrapped up in nonsense. My experience post school taught me more in 6 months in the field than schooling and prepping for certification exams ever taught me. If you watched that 2nd James Lee video he goes through what he did to switch to DaVinci.
LMGTFY
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Many of these programs are free and open source and available across all platforms.
as far as jobs go, if it's like mechanics, you bring your own tools and do the job required. Even if Adobe products are provided, use alternatives when and as often as possible. Then when the opportunity presents itself show how you did your work without Adobe to those with purchasing power at the company. Change isn't going to happen overnight.
I never claimed that ditching Adobe would be easy. My opinion is that it is necessary for the health of the industry.
You haven’t linked actual jobs and programs. Your snide Google search was a GitHub repo, not school programs or job postings that show your anecdotal dream is a reality. Your foundational assumption is that everyone wants to grow exactly like you did (ie not the easy path) which is completely wrong.
You do not appear to actually understand the audience you’re holier than. This the same conversation that’s been happening in the Linux world for more than two decades. Good luck changing the world.
I'm not going to do all the work for you. Go into business for yourself or check indeed or some other job site. I honestly thought I was being trolled with how little you tried to understand or put forth some modicum of effort, but now I somehow think it's genuine that you need someone to hold your hand through the entire process. Change is scary and often not easy. I don't know how else to break it to ya.
If you are the audience, then the industry is doomed to be stuck in the Adobe abusive relationship until some self starters take over. All it takes is some effort to break a habit, effect change, or start something new. If you expect to have other people change things for yourself, well good luck with that.
I stick with the overpriced Mac and ditched Adobe when I was in charge of the design department. The hardware lasts and the trackpad is unrivaled and Pixelmator and the Affinity apps are good enough.
I don't know how much I can blame the non-tech-savvy professionals on their selection of software, especially when the alternatives aren't broadly known or understood.
Either way, you should know and explore the tools of your trade.
You’re using lemmy.world. How much time did you spend deciding that was the place to be? Why did you pick Lemmy over the *bins? How much time have you put into your posting and commenting workflow? How much do you actually know about how ActivityPub works? What tools have you written?
My picking .world is not a meaningful choice in my life, I put at much time into thinking about it as it deserved. My commenting and posting workflow aren't things that I need to get by, that can help me buy a house or food. Knowing emerging technologies that command a higher salary can. I literally learned the skills of my career on my own, online. I read books, I learned how to use tools, I grew. Now I make more money because of that. I wasn't sitting around waiting for for employer to pay for and make me get better at something. I don't get how this is such a hard thing to comprehend.
You think a guy who learned to be an electrician in the 90s and never leaned new tools of the trade is going to compete with someone who has? I mean maybe these whole power tools thing are a fad. Now take that to tech where things in the web and design space can move rapidly and you get left behind way faster, all because someone didn't make you get better? That's a wild take on life to me. I want to be good at what I do so I can demand a high salary and live a comfortable life. That's the end goal, having a comfortable life with a job that's as easy as you can get while feeling good about it and pays well. Learning and leveraging that knowledge is the way to get there.
I agree with everything you’ve said. What I think you’re missing is that some people don’t want to be the best in class. Some people don’t take their work home with them and because employers are not required to give time to grow skills some people will just work the line. If your assumption about labor requires labor to spend their whole life working to be better at getting exploited, you have a lot to learn about the majority of labor.
I think we view skills differently. I don't see it as having to labor in my own time, I look at it as investing in my future so I can have a more comfortable life.
Yeah I get that it's bad to just say "they are being lazy" but this kind of thinking is just lazy.
Like sure you can just work the line, but if you don't understand any of the theory behind your work product or how to accomplish your same work product despite different tooling, you are just making yourself less competitive and more exploitable. Most other professionals know how to cut their project down to the minimum viable product, there's nothing special about working with graphics.