7/11, not 9/11

[Harm Millaard]

Normally it is frowned upon to give links to other fora, but in this case I make an exception, since it is not a matter of copying and pasting, but informative.

See Adobe Community: 7/11, not 9/11

I may have more time to spend here now.

[Jerry Porter]

Considering how bad CC works right now...... I'm sticking with 6 as well. I'm not sure why they continually feel the need to use the end user as BETA testers.

[Oren Arieli]

I'm with you 100% Haarm. It's a shame that Adobe chose to go this ham-fisted route. Thank you for your tireless contributions. I know that I've personally benefited from your wisdom. If Adobe was wise, they would be listening more to you, and less to the accountants.

[Battle Vaughan]

Apparently Adobe is following Microsoft's decision to put Office 365 in the cloud. I am afraid this may become the model for software of all types as we go forward. So I will still be using Office 2007 and Adobe CS6 until they cart me off to the rest home...

[Alan Craven]

There seems to be a huge number of serious, long-term users of Adobe products who are not boarding their Cloud - and not only in the video field.

On the other hand, new-comers find it a wonderful cheap way into what used to be very expensive software for a start-up.

An obvious reason is the derisory discount that Adobe offer to people who have purchased multiple versions of the software over a period of years.

Adobe's official silence in the face of the mass protests I also see as an insulting attitude to adopt to the customers who have made the company pre-eminent in its field.

When I saw Harm's thread title, my first thought was that Adobe had adopted the position of the market trader - "Buy your cloud now. Not nine shillings and eleven pence a month, but a mere 7/11d!!!"

[Duane Adam]

Passing on the cloud too. I don't do monthly payments. When I can afford something, I pay cash, when I can't I use what I have. That won't change for me.

[Jeff Dean]

Originally Posted by Battle Vaughan

Apparently Adobe is following Microsoft's decision to put Office 365 in the cloud. I am afraid this may become the model for software of all types as we go forward. So I will still be using Office 2007 and Adobe CS6 until they cart me off to the rest home...

Software companies are going to want to try to do the subscription model which is why it's so important for people to take a stand with Adobe. You'll always will see a few who will say "what can I do. I have to use the software." NO you don't. I'm "switching"

If you want real change - begin it yourself. I don't rent my tools and I don't subscribe to software.
EVER. Doesn't matter if CC is $1 a month or $1000 a month.

Adobe will get $0 from me moving forward. The Cloud has a negative connotation and the subscription model for CC is even worse.

[Marc Salvatore]

I agree about passing on the cloud. If they changed their policy and gave you ownership of the current version after each year of subscribing I could live with that. I'm actually about to upgrade to CS6 because I need some of the features but after that I plan to look elsewhere if they do not change their rental model.

In fact I'm usually a Sony Vegas user but need Premiere for a big project that Vegas is unable to handle. Premiere has come a long way since the days of 6.5 when it almost drove me insane but they are not the only editor on the block and this CC model feels like extortion to me.

[Al Gardner]

The subscription model is already out of hand.

I was looking at JWplayer the other day and it's now $99 a year for the stripped down version for one site. The premium version is $299 a year for up to 10 sites I think.

[Noa Put]

The only thing a yearly licencse model will achieve is more people using cracked copies. I think the jwplayer owner will see a big drop in sales as well.

[Eric Stemen]

Completely agree with you Harm.

[Battle Vaughan]

Been doing a little reading, seems this is the coming trend in software. There is already an industry acronym for this (SaaS, Software- as -a -Service) and when something has an acronym, hey, it's there to stay.:)

Apparently it has not been lost on the software companies that Symantec (Norton system protection software) has been raking down annual fees from providing constantly-upgraded software as an on-going contract. This provides a reasonably constant revenue stream, as opposed to launching periodic products and hoping that people will buy them --- essentially, betting the company on your next upgrade.

IT professionals, who like systems and software to be locked down and thus maintainable, view the constantly-changing software model with alarm. Users -- such as those of us who take a dim view of renting our AV software from Adobe --- don't care much for it. But it's a coming thing and we may not have many choices as the idea catches on with other producers.

[Denez McAdoo]

I really don't get exactly what everyone is upset by? I would understand the frustration mostly when it comes from casual users who probably would not upgrade so often. But from professionals? I just don't get it?

The CS release schedule was to release a new one each year, a full number release every two years, and a dot 5 release in-between. But the only way to get a discount was to upgrade on each release, from CS5 to CS5.5 to CS6. You could not skip an iteration. If I remember correctly, the upgrade discount was in the realm of about $600 or so (this is just for the Premium Suits, not for the Master Collection). Skipping an upgrade did not save you money, as you'd just have to double the cost next year.

Not even including the first year intro discount, at $50 per month X 12 months, your still paying $600.

As a professional, I'd be surprised if you have no intention of upgrading after 2 years. I felt like most people were happy and excited to get the latest and greatest iteration of their product?

I'm not saying I 100% am in love with this new model, but frankly it doesn't seem that bad. In fact, I'm looking forward to the updates and knowing that where ever I sit down to edit a Premiere Pro project, I'll be using the latest version of the software. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm missing something, but I feel like most people are just complaining about the "idea" of CC and less about practical reasons.

[Harm Millaard]

I can only speak for myself, but for me it is not so much about price, it is about the principle of not renting.

I own my house, I have no mortgage on it, I own my cars, my cameras, my video stuff, my PC's, I don't lease or rent anything and I'm glad I own everything and do not rent at all. It gives me a kind of security in the sense that I know what lies ahead for me. No surprises.

I offered Adobe a lump-sum payment to give me a CC subscription for life, a multitude of several years of subscriptions, which BTW is $ 82 per month over here, but no reaction at all.

Once you start using CC, there is no turning back. There is no exit strategy and you can no longer access your own copyrighted material if you no longer pay the rent. It is like renting a house. If you no longer pay the rent, you get evicted. If you no longer pay your car lease payments, it gets repo'ed. In all cases, you are in serious trouble.

It took me years to pay off my mortgage, but now I don't have to worry about not meeting a monthly payment, because there is none. I feel I would be crazy to start renting now, to be completely handcuffed by Adobe and having no exit from it. If Adobe were to double or even triple their subscription rates in the future, well that is your bad luck and you have no way to get out.

I do not attach much value to the Marketing claims that the software will be updated much quicker than in the past. Adobe CC still has bugs, dating back from CS5 and CS5.5 that have been postponed to somewhere in the future, but are still not solved. There is no performance improvement in CC over CS6, all that came out in the past weeks were bug releases, similar to CS6.01 or 6.02. Something that should have been discovered during beta testing. CC is IMO a rush job with many bugs still to be solved and with too much emphasis on adding mobile devices instead of improving existing functionality. There are too many bugs in CC to allow me to have a closer look at all the claimed benefits over CS6, because of hangs, or program errors that prevent me to use the program.

I'm not interested in InCopy, Muse, Flash builder and all that stuff. All I need is the video related programs, like AU, AE, PS, PR, AME, EN. And to make matters worse, Adobe has decided, in their infinite wisdom, that DVD and BR is dead, so they pulled Encore, which I use on a daily basis. They also left out all the functional content for CC, that was included with CS6. It was too complicated to add that to the installation, but they added around 2 GB of utter legalese crap in 41 languages to the installation, replicating around 2000 files and directories all over the place.

Bottom line for me:

I'm not impressed by CC, I'm not willing to rent, and I have to see the much touted improvements and their quick availability of updates first. I have to see it, before I believe it, like the blind said.

[Denez McAdoo]

Harm, thanks for giving your insight. I recognize you from the Adobe forums and I respect your opinion.

I do have a few questions though, in response to a few of your points, if you don't mind continuing the conversation.

Your first sentence seems to confirm what I said at the end of my post. It sounds like the #1 complaint is just against the principal of renting from Adobe, and less that it it's practically bad. I don't love renting either, but isn't it generally more manageable then having to cough up $600 a year for the new release? You might disagree, but my main point is as long as the cost is roughly the same, it is for all practical purposes just about the same thing. This sounds to me just as much a scam as Adobe's previous once a year CS release schedule, which forced me to upgrade in order to stay compatible with everyone else, and frankly that still didn't work since someone was always just ahead or behind me. BTW, this seems to be the model of Avid now as well, right now they're on MC7, so expect MC7.5 shortly.

I actually see this as one of the biggest benefits of the new CC model. From here on out, anyone using premiere will be current (except for those who didn't upgrade, of course.)

Isn't offering Adobe a lump-sum for a life subscription the same thing as buying one of the CS releases and asking for all future updates for free. That's not going to happen.

I can't argue with what you said about the program itself. I haven't had any problems with it, but everything you mentioned are legitimate reasons not to jump on board, imho.

By the way, has anyone confirmed that if your subscriptions ends, you can no longer open up the programs, or that you just simply can't get updates? You do download the program to your computer. Wouldn't something like this fix everyone's woes?