Re:Subscribers are the new, new thing in business
by dingaling on Wednesday April 11, 2018 @02:00PM
(#16813704)
The other downside being that if you stop paying, or Adobe stops providing, you can no longer work natively with your PSD and DNG files.
That's a huge business risk. And as searching for 'Creative Cloud suspended' shows, it's not theoretical.
Re:Subscribers are the new, new thing in business
by parliament32 on Wednesday April 11, 2018 @02:48PM
(#16814190)
DNG is an open format: "Use of the file format is royalty-free; Adobe has published a license allowing anyone to exploit DNG, and has also stated that there are no known intellectual property encumbrances or license requirements for DNG. Adobe stated that if there were a consensus that DNG should be controlled by a standards body, they were open to the idea."
See also: http://www.barrypearson.co.uk/articles/dng/products_y7.htm
Re:Subscribers are the new, new thing in business
by Domenic_S on Wednesday April 11, 2018 @12:43PM
(#16812920)
Adobe's Creative Cloud is a bad example (compared to say Netflix or Spotify) because the plan is annual, but paid monthly. The photography plan is $120/year, but they let you in effect finance the fee at 0% by letting you pay $10/month.
$10/month is more palatable to many than $120 all at once, but it nullifies the threat of customers leaving.
Adobe's switch to the subscription model for Photoshop/Lightroom is an excellent example. I'd much rather pay $10/mo for both (plus a bunch of cloud storage) than a few hundred bucks outright (especially considering that we had to re-purchase the software anyway roughly every two years when a new version came out anyway). The subscription model is much cheaper for me, I don't have to decide between $$$ and new features anymore, and it guarantees Adobe will continue to provide support and updates to the software. The added benefit is that suspending a subscription is quite easy (away for vacation for a few months, busy semester at school, etc etc).
The downside is, of course, is that subscription software can look artificially cheap but can add up quickly.