Is your card on the list of approved ones for use with AE ?

I think it's unfair and insultive to say that anyone who has happened to signup for the subscription model is "stupid". That is an unreasonable statement and not reflective of the concept of "choice" that people are using as the platform for their argument against what Adobe has done here.

If as Creative Professionals you value "choice"and I sincerely believe you do, then you don't have the right to demean your comrades in the industry for their choices. Particuarly since those choices may be perfectly valid and reasonable given their position and how it differs from yours.

Creative Cloud may not favor your situation your business or your finanaces and may not suit your needs. But it's arrogant to presume that is true for all Creative Professionals. If it is advantageous for somone to use Creative Cloud then they should, and it doesn't mean they are stupid or driniking the "Adobe Koolaid" (disclaimer no offense is meant to anyone by using the word Koolaid).

For example, in my case I don't care about having a perpetual license for the simple fact that my Youtube Channel makes more than the value of my Creative Cloud Subscription, Web Hosting and all of my other online monthly billed services. So from a business standpoint all I did was add Creative Cloud to the pot of online monthly services that come out of my "Passive Income Streams" like Youtube, Adsense, Apple, Envato etc.

Based on my business model I get to leverage the latest version of Adobe Software, the cost against it comes out of money I would have if I wake up and do absolutely nothing... So does this mean that I'm a "Stupid Adobe Troll"? No it means rather than complain about something which was a valid business decision, I turned it into a profitable business opportunity...

Now I can add Adobe CC tutorials, reviews, articles, walk throughs etc to the list of things that make me passive income on top of the CS6 versions I've already done. And I can still produce CS6 versions for the people who still want to those.  Also can repackage CC version of template files to sell in the online marketplace etc.

I realize that not everyone is in this position, but as Creative Professionals there is no reason you can't be in this position very easily.

So you don't use all the applications? Why not? Have you downlaoded a trial and seen if you like it and how easy it is to watch some tutorials and pick up something new? A lot of my friends who are Photo Purist have transitioned into video through Creative Cloud and foud their inner Videographer. In fact a friend I introduced into video production though Creative Cloud last year is shooting a Fashion show with me this weekend, and opportunity and money he wouldn't have had on the table without Creative Cloud giving him access to all the tools affordably. Do you think he is going to miss the $50 this month? No.

For the problems Creatives solve on a regular basis I can't believe $50/mo and lack of the idea of "ownership" is a problem most haven't figured out for themsevles yet.  The problems (valid problems) with Creative Cloud are also something that can be solved, and the tone of moaning in this forum is not the way to accomplish anything more than comisserating.

I know a brother/sister team that just split their cost on Creative Cloud and have been doing successful with it. But they never could have afforded to buy Master Collection upfront even with a student discount

The truth is Creative Cloud is only a "problem" for those of us who are "established" and set in our ways. For folks starting in this industry, for the Creatives of the "future", its an opportunity that woud have been denied to them otherwise. I care about this because my younger siblings and personal students belong to that future, and obviously because I turned it into an opportunity rather than a liability, whch required a little creative thinking on my part.

So my challenge to others on this thread are, other than threatening Adobe, learning other software that won't impress most people on a resume as much, and whining about changes that will never come because there is no reason to make them...
What can people actually do to make this work for themselves? How can people turn Creative Cloud into an asset instead of a headache? What are ways to actually solve the problem on our end?

Lasvideo, yes indeed, it's even one of those "cuda" cards Adobe listed when Mercury playback engine was introduced..

Well let me answer some of those points you raise.

I think it's unfair and insultive to say that anyone who has happened to signup for the subscription model is "stupid". That is an unreasonable statement and not reflective of the concept of "choice" that people are using as the platform for their argument against what Adobe has done here.

What word would you use when you saw someone sacrifice their long term benefits for a short term gain? Imagine someone who had the money to buy a car, rented the car instead. With a price that will equal the buying price in three years. And a contract that makes no guarantees not to raise the price. In this car example, would you call that a wise decision? Do you think it's generally a "wise" move to put yourself at the mercy of a large corporation? If you do that, then fine, I wish you luck and end the discussion right there.

If as Creative Professionals you value "choice"and I sincerely believe you do, then you don't have the right to demean your comrades in the industry for their choices. Particularly since those choices may be perfectly valid and reasonable given their position and how it differs from yours.

Oh indeed! Which is why it's strange that you are not fighting to have more choice. I would be happy to have CC and CS both as a choice. I am pro choice. Seems like you are the one happy with only one option.

Creative Cloud may not favor your situation your business or your finanaces and may not suit your needs. But it's arrogant to presume that is true for all Creative Professionals. If it is advantageous for somone to use Creative Cloud then they should, and it doesn't mean they are stupid or driniking the "Adobe Koolaid" (disclaimer no offense is meant to anyone by using the word Koolaid).

Sure, let's not presume that. CC is indeed great for former pirates and those who are just starting up in the industry. With the exception of students, the deal is awfully bad for the students compared to the CS deal they got.

For example, in my case I don't care about having a perpetual license for the simple fact that my Youtube Channel makes more than the value of my Creative Cloud Subscription, Web Hosting and all of my other online monthly billed services. So from a business standpoint all I did was add Creative Cloud to the pot of online monthly services that come out of my "Passive Income Streams" like Youtube, Adsense, Apple, Envato etc.

Using the same reasoning you could buy pretty much any crap you want. Just because you can afford something, doesn't make it a necessary or smart buy. Please enlighten me, what features of CC are absolutely essential for creating your Youtube channel content?

So my challenge to others on this thread are, other than threatening Adobe, learning other software that won't impress most people on a resume as much, and whining about changes that will never come because there is no reason to make them...

What can people actually do to make this work for themselves? How can people turn Creative Cloud into an asset instead of a headache? What are ways to actually solve the problem on our end?

Yes let's all just be happy and sing songs together. No matter what Adobe does to us. Eternal slavery... la-la-la-la-la... 2.9 million stolen credit cards, la-la-la-la. Buggy software... la-la-la-la! Let's stop all this whining and just praise Adobe for it's greatness!

 

Yes let's all just be happy and sing songs together. No matter what Adobe does to us. Eternal slavery... la-la-la-la-la... 2.9 million stolen credit cards, la-la-la-la. Buggy software... la-la-la-la! Let's stop all this whining and just praise Adobe for it's greatness!

This is funny! And spot-on.

I'm not trying to be argumentative but I think you are doing the points I raised and injustice, I want to have a meaningful conversation.

You made a point about renting a car vs. buying. In your point you made an assumpition, you automatically went to the sipulation someone had the money to buy a car outright. In that case the choice of vehicle they get is limited by the cash they have on hand, so many/most people actually finanace/ rent to own their car with a monthly payment, and those who are wealthy often lease their vehicles so they can always have the latest model and avoid covering much of the maintance themseles. The Adobe CC model is more akin to leasing than renting based on your analogy, which is the practice of many who could easily afford to buy the vehicle of their choice outright.

You make a point about long term gain, and I like your thought process, but I feel its an oversimplification, I hope your not offended by that. Let me elaborate, the reason it is not straightforward is because there are other factors. For example, Adobe InDesign CS6 is 32bit vs CC which is 64bit. In print publishing when dealing with larger multipage documents this can be a huge performance difference and a trade off in time and productivity, which can translate very easily into quite a bit of money. log

To use the car analogy if you buy a  $5000 2006 used car cash, but have to spend $1200/yr over 3-4 years on repairs repairs you've spend nearly $10K on a car that is a bit older than less than what you want. If you had went into a carnote of $200/mo  on a 2010 model over the same period of time you get a warrarnty, some free oil changes and spend roughly the same amount for a better experience.

You're not at the mercy of a large corporation anymore than your own clients are at your mercy as a vendor in my view. There are other services we all use montly. Are we at the mercy of our internet and phone providers (it cetrainly feels that way sometimes, sure), I don't disagree with you entirely on that point, but I feel its a larger argument referencing 1984 that we are likely on the same side of if we don't agree on everything about, that I wouldn't mind hearing your thoughts on outside of this forum.

Your other point, "Im the only one happy with the one option". Its not a matter of "happy" so much as practicality. I don't think Adobe could be leveraged into chaning their business practices anymore than Apple could from consumer outcry, we never got Flash back into Apple products from it, Tmobile never caved on giving back free tethering. So I just don't think its a fight that is productive use of energy.

I also understand from another perspective that the choise is also somewhat ideologically based within a cultural shift in Adobe, part of this has to do with conversations I've had with people who work closely with Adobe at other companies and from articles and interviews with various people in the industry. It's part of a much bigger picture and I think it hits the tone of this forum. Its a matter of what people value that puts them on one side of a conflict or the other. What I value is what puts me in favor overall of Creative Cloud and that also has to do with the fact I have not negatively been impacted by it. "From Anikin's point of view Adobe is evil..."

"Using the same reasoning you could buy pretty much any crap you want. Just because you can afford something, doesn't make it a necessary or smart buy. Please enlighten me, what features of CC are absolutely essential for creating your Youtube channel content?"

Essential is not the word I would use. Convenient is. In truth anyone using Apple products understands this point. So in this thread that point is almost moot but I will entertain it anyway. I could just as easily (and laptop wise I do) do the same work on a Windows Machine as Mac. So why pay extra for a Mac? (Don't everyone in thread jump in at once here).
But fine. Firstly because I can do screen cast demonstrating the new features in each Adobe CC product, it means I can produce more content subject matter wise with little effort. It also means that I can do VS videos detailing the difference advantages and pitfalls of both versions, more content.

This videos have a high SEO value and are in demand and each individual video that I do in this vien tends to make $15/video in its first month only taking 45mins to produce each individual video tops (reduced from a longer time period due to some improvements in Premiere Pro CC that effect my particular editing workflow.) And obviously since the videos stay online they can make more money as they grow in popularity. They also contribute to stickyness on blogging sites, which with Google Adsense also means more money. So a better faster video production workflow that saves time could be argued to be "Essential" but I just find it convenient.

InDesign CC being 64bit actually makes my printwork go a bit faster when I have do posters (which is quite lucrative), those time savings let me do other things. Opportuntiy cost.

AfterEffects CC has a lot of improvements that are too numerous to list but the obvious one is Cinema4D lite, which I'm enjoying a bit and will be a large part of my future After Effects videos, and saves me the time of working in another application and having to import into AfterEffects.

Illustrator and Flash CC have nothing new for me that I use. I love Illustrator but CS6 is fine for this app since that was its upgrade to 64bit. Convenience and a better workflow and user experience is worth the money as I'm sure anyone here owning a Mac or iPhone can attest to...

"Yes let's all just be happy and sing songs together. No matter what Adobe does to us. Eternal slavery... la-la-la-la-la... 2.9 million stolen credit cards, la-la-la-la. Buggy software... la-la-la-la! Let's stop all this whining and just praise Adobe for it's greatness!,

Moving on profiting and remaining positive despite shifts and changes in the industry or even your own personal situation is a sign of strenght and character, I wouldn't make light of it. Eternal Slavery... I thouht we were talking about software not Marriage, Adobe does deserver praise for its accomplishments. I'm  not saying its without its flaws. But I don't have a hardware or software vendor or service provider that I couldn't makes some complaint about at some level.

Adobe products allow me to do the work I need to do. CC allows me to do somethings more convenietly than I could otherwise, and the workflow is faster and more intuitive than I have experienced with alternatives, many of which I own and have perpetua license for. And incidently I do still have a few miscelaneous standalone Adobe product licences incluidng one for InDesign CS6. So do I feel trapped by Adobe? No. I didn't put myself in a position to.

If the cost is the issue I think we've covered at length that its a simple enough problem to solve. If the relationship or slavery is the issue, its a relation ship you already have with every monthly or yearly service provider you have. Most of us pay more than that for our cable for mere entertainment, so from that perspective I have a hard time rationally not writing it off as a non-issue for something that can potentially make you money.

I understand that my words probably haven't swayed many of you. Thats fine. But I wanted to make several points. Your choice was based on whats right for you. If you expect people to respect your choices, you can't be insultive or dismissive about other people's choices if they have a rational basis and they've explained their reasons to you. Obviously if they've made the choice arbitrarily they've opened themselves up for citicism. I sincerely doubt that most Creative Cloud users made their choice without thinking, anymore of those of you not in favor of it did.

Creatives are some of the most intelligent people making up the world, if we can't respectfully disagree with one another without insults and belittling, the world may as well burn. We have enough people out there to devalue us without doing it ourselves.

Its not only students and bootleggers that benefit by the way. As I pointed out, my friend Jon, who was a photoshop and lightroom user, paid user by the way, expanded his business through the Creative Cloud without the up front risk of investment, since he had to invest that money in a few new leneses later moving over to the video production side, it was a wise business decision for him to grow his business and make more money.

So you will have to forgive me for not hoping on the Bash Brothers Band Wagon, but I can't rationalize that anymore than I could side with the people who hate constantly one Apple, Samsung or Nikon when my product experience with them has been consistently good and profitable, on top of the fact there are reasonable solutions to most of the negative scenarios in dealing them.

RobertoBlake wrote:

 

...

You made a point about renting a car vs. buying. In your point you made an assumpition, you automatically went to the sipulation someone had the money to buy a car outright. In that case the choice of vehicle they get is limited by the cash they have on hand, so many/most people actually finanace/ rent to own their car with a monthly payment, and those who are wealthy often lease their vehicles so they can always have the latest model and avoid covering much of the maintance themseles. The Adobe CC model is more akin to leasing than renting based on your analogy, which is the practice of many who could easily afford to buy the vehicle of their choice outright.

 

...

I think the "buy" verses "lease" is the best analogy to what Adobe is doing. If car manufacturers suddenly decided that the only way to use their cars were to lease it, there would be a lot of angry people. And given Adobe's near monopoly position, it really is more like 50% of all car companies moving to lease only.

Of course there are plenty of people who can afford and also prefer to lease a car and always have the latest and greatest. But there are a lot more who will buy the car outright and keep it for 10 years. The primary reason is price. It's a lot cheaper to buy a $30,000 car and keep it for 10 years (even with repairs) than to pay roughly $100,000 during the same 10 year period on a lease. I'm sure car manufacturers would certainly like the extra $70,000 over the next 10 years, but that doesn't make it right to make lease the only option.

There are even a lot of people who could afford the $100,000 over 10 years, but aren't concerned as much about having the latest and greatest. They would rather keep the car pay for a few repairs and spend that extra $60,000 on something else. Maybe a second or even a third car.

In the software world, lets say you spend 35 hours a week in a 3D modeling software and just 5 hours a week in Adobe's software making minor touch-ups. Such a user might justify leasing his 3D modeling software in order to have the latest and greatest features without the upfront cost. This user might only upgrade his Adobe suite ever other version or even longer if his computer continued to work fine.

BUT, he would be angry if Adobe suddently told him he could now only lease the software at 2-3 times the price (over time). It's fully in Adobe's right to jack up their pricing if they want (essentially what the CC is doing). But it's also fully in the customer's right to complain and stop using Adobe.

All of this backlash toward Adobe wouldn't be happening if Adobe had kept both options on the table.

I completely agree with you on this point Jones. And that is why I want to have meaningful dialouge rather than continue ineffecive backlash. In my case I found a way not be hindered by an option leaving the table. In any given situation you have to account for the possibility that things will change.

How do we help people adjust or adapt if they could benefit from CC. If the old option was on the table, I could see many of our comrades talking about (and some actually do) the benefits from CC vs CS6 versions. The aversion seems to be cost/choice. The choice factor isn't likely to change, so what can we do about cost?

What can we do to help our comrades firgure out how to get the latest features without breaking their bank account?
One suggestion I've put out before is, don't upgrade but get a subscription under a different email account.

You see this way, you are not giving up the freedoms that your current perpetual license gives you, but you also have an opportunity to benefit from using the latest software, its just a matter of affording the subscription at that point, right?

What about splitting the cost of the subscription with a family member that uses a part of the Suite that you don't, or would like to? You mostly use the print suite while they use the video or web stuff?

What kind of creative solutions can we come up with?

Wow! Did I just understand correctly that if you use your old email address and upgrade to CC, Adobe removes your old CS6 license? And do you get that licence back if you stop using CC?

If this is really true then couldn't you basically destroy your CS6 Master Collection license just by trying CC for some months? Haha, say it ain't so Adobe!

OK

Lets assume that if the current CC was available as a perpetual licensed CS7 which would probably cost £2600 in the UK for the Master Collection and I use it for the next ten years. 

If I then upgrade every 18 months at £400 per upgrade as the products are updated then in 10 years I would have paid another 6 x £400 = £2400

That makes a total of £5000 over ten years

In the UK the CC costs £46.88 so in ten years I would pay £5625.60

Now that is £625 or c$1000 more that the CC would cost against a CS upgrade path, ergo Adobe is screwing you the CCers and yet you have your heads so far up your cloud that the sun is shining

Col

jbjones wrote:

 

 

All of this backlash toward Adobe wouldn't be happening if Adobe had kept both options on the table.

That's right. Spot on. It would have been that easy.

Now that is £625 or c$1000 more that the CC would cost against a CS upgrade path, ergo Adobe is screwing you the CCers and yet you have your heads so far up your cloud that the sun is shining

 

Col

And on top of that the CCers get the added bonus of never being able to open their projects again if they ever stop subscribing.  What a DEAL!

RobertoBlake wrote:

 

 

 

What kind of creative solutions can we come up with?

Easy. Best creative solution = Edius.

yeah, now it's an affordable monthly fee but now it's riddled with problems you never had to deal with before. Awesome. For me the transform tools in Illustrator FINALLY being updated to do what photoshop has done for years was reason enough to sign up. When I bought CC it on an Amazon sale back in august the second auto payment failed because my debit card had closed due to a fraud attempt on it.

They just cancelled the whole thing- no request to update payment info, no warning, just go to open photoshop to get an assigment done and "your cloud subscription has ended. Access to apps will be cut off in 7 days"

so, after a week of back and forth between amazon and adobe, they managed to get it sorted ( or so I thought) by creating a new subscription on the back end and forcing my current subscription to cancel early.

well, fastforward 2 months and I open photoshop to the same message "your creative cloud subscription will end in 7 days"

I check it, see that there's still the old subscription in there, not yet expired, as adobe told amazon it would be, and my new subscription and figure it will transition over to the new one by itself. of course it doesn't

Now it's the second to last day, I open photoshop and get message: there was a problem processing payment. Apps and stuff will quit working in 1 day. login to manage your account" Now I've been sitting here on hold for chat for 3 hours, waiting for a rep to become available. I had one at the tail end of 2 hours, but I'd gone to the bathroom and they ended it because I couldn't respond. Now I'm waiting through the queue again. I have no reception to call, I guess I could get a new Skype subscription so I can call support. Do you think Adobe would reimburse me for that? Maybe they can reimburse me for th 3 hours I've been sitting here waiting for them to answer the chat window so i can make sure I still have access to the software I need for work tomorrow.

Adobe is no longer a software company- they're an awful slumlord taking advantage of the fact that an entire industry is completely reliant on them and they bought all the competition.

oh, yay! I finally reached someone on chat! They're transferring me to tech support. Let's see how long this takes... .

Wow! Did I just understand correctly that if you use your old email address and upgrade to CC, Adobe removes your old CS6 license?

I don't believe that's correct.

Jim I really hope so!

Just wondering why RobertoBlake wrote:

One suggestion I've put out before is, don't upgrade but get a subscription under a different email account.

 

You see this way, you are not giving up the freedoms that your current perpetual license gives you, but you also have an opportunity to benefit from using the latest software

Right now, many users (including me) are getting corruption and installation mailed messages when they try to update their CC apps. While I understand that Adobe has a major problems supporting all of their products and that a subscription is probably the best option     ...

It is 1) a subscription service and 2) premium-priced. As a subscription service, I expect it to be available when I want to use. When the subscription service fails, they are in violation of their contract to provide me with that service. As a premium-priced service, I expect premium support. I'm not getting that - http://www.2brotherspainting.net

Going forward, I'm looking for options to get rid of my CC service. CC is just not worth the hassle and expense. There are several other products that meet most of my needs better.

I can completely understand your frustration, Yesturday the Creative Cloud service had an outage in the EU which wasnt reported by Adobe. I had to post a link up in the community to inform other members of the outage (this reduced my productivity time for the day dramatically.) I have also had problems with the CC Desktop app causing high memory leaks and being told to stop the proccess while running applications. Overall I wonder where the QA is when launching these products now. It feels more like they are ticking boxes then actually fixing the problems people report! The web outage took Adobe 2 hours to fix and prevented people from installing apps. After upgrading to Windows 8.1 and being told "adobe has worked hard with Microsoft to deliver working windows 8.1 apps out of the box" we got a launcher error and was put in touch with 1st line support which did a remote access to my machine, Disabled All Services (including anti-virus) I had to re-enable the services as Adobe left my machine in an unsecure enviroment and had to then reimage the machine after the OS was corrupted after the remote access from so called technical support only to be informed they couldnt help me and would refer my case to 2nd line support. Since then Ive had no contact with 2nd line support and have given up hope of having the issues fixed so much that ive actually removed CC from all machines in my workforce and informed staff to find alternative software as Adobe is incapable of providing a standard level of service. Hopefully Adobe will fix the launcher and the CEF helper in the future but for now ive had to undeploy CC from the work enviroment. I hope Adobe will bring back the CS series. It was far more stable than CC.

I'm sorry guys. I can't help but laugh at all the people who actually bought in to the CC concept. I wish you guys good luck in your future endevors whether it'd be through the corrupted CC model or alternative resources.

Me, a CS user

A typical CC user

Oh how I love not paying Adobe £50 a month for software that sucks

Enjoy your cloud

 

And on top of that the CCers get the added bonus of never being able to open their projects again if they ever stop subscribing.  What a DEAL!

This is the scariest part of the  whole (bad) deal, and the mail reason why I also will avoid the Cloud. If it looks like a shite, smells like a shite, chances are it's a shite.

"Completely uninstall Adobe Application Manager" has finally unseated this thread in the "Popular Discussions" list. Indicative of all the wonderful things CC has to offer on the most basic of levels.

2 massive security breakes in 3 weeks by the same organization. Can you belive it. Adobe has a discusting record with hackers and security. This is just 1 more reason to not touch cc (crazy contaminent, its makes your go crazy and belive you can only be sucessful if using the adobe drug then propogates it self) with a 10 foot pole and treat it like the plauge! The more adobe messes up the move im lilking their competetors.

For my quest ive found 3 alternatives to multiple adobe programs.

Serif, prosumer, decent but not great for proffesionals. Better than most hobbyist software. Good for students. Cheap.

Xara, professional, good products and reputation, worked with corel for a few years on CorelXara a drawing program so they know what they are doing, worth looking into

Corel,professional, very good and many products are equal or better than adobe and a few programs are lacking, much better than alternatives, next best to adobe, has the most pottential to take some ground from adobe

Corel is doing alot to counter adobes many bad moves. They and others are giving massive discounts and some to current adobe customers. Corel promised to not get rid of perpetual licenscing in the forseeable future. Adobe gouged non US customers and corel is giving many countires a discount on their product. Adobe tried to force us all to the cloud like cash cows. Corel countered with still selling lisences on cd/download, a standard + premium cloud member ship and a subscription only membership. They have the valued middle plan. They are really capatalizing on every mistake adobe is making since crazy contaminent.

It's about time Adobe realised that people need to be able to work and not worry about being connected to some kind of mothership to operate. Start putting your customers FIRST.

Bring back perpetual licenses, pay once, use the tools, and understand people don't want to be connected by a technological umbilical chord that hemorrages trust, time, security and money. Software as a service has failed. This is costing users dearly (and not just right now, but long into the future once details hit the dark corners of the web).

Adobe - Let us get on with our jobs without the constant fear that something is going to go wrong. Let us purchase software and disconnect until we need you.

I'm so glad I cancelled my CC membership.

The BBC report more details -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24740873

38 MILLION ADOBE ACCOUNTS HACKED!!!!

wow, 38 million. Thanks to adobe telling us is was 2.9 million. Lied by a factor of 10! Adobe you lieing, bean counting, manipulating magicians! There is no way I will go Cash Cow. If this is what we see what else are they hiding and is 10x as worse? Im a student getting ready to get my BFA in a few months. To think I almost thought it was ok to just get student edition of cs 6. How can we trust a company like adobe? It all goes back to star wars: revenge of the sith. Palpatine talking to anakin tells him the jedis are corrupt. Reminds anakin that all those with power want to keep their power and will do all they can to keep it. Not agreeing with palpatine. Im saying adobe has become the power hungry controler and will do what ever it takes to keep that power! Who knows whats adobe will do in 3, 6 or 9 year, next you might have to log in every day with a retina, finger print and voice scanner to prove that its you!

Im not finial on my decition of cs 6 or alternatives as corel but my trust and like for adobe has actually plumeted to below microsoft. I regret to say I now actually consider... gulp... microsoft a better, more honest and user freindly company. I think I want to puke...

ADOBE! It is now time to fess up and reverse your backwards thinking into the cloud. Admit your foolish decisions and mistakes and give customers back the right to own perpetual licenses. End of story.

Check back in 2-3 years or when the announcement is made the current CEO is dismissed. Until then, it is what it is.

Here is how I feel about crazy cloud.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPTc79Qw2g4

Yes you get upgrades that are nothing but flashy and not essential.

Adobes story is like a Greek tragedy at the point that the hero has reached their long sought victory and becomes proud. The bigger you are the farther you must fall to hit the ground.

After years in 80s they innovate with font types and improve the industry of print and design. The peasents take note of their courage and start to gain favor with them. Adobe is lifted to the title of lord of tools by some. In the 90s they continue to innovate and improve the landscape of digital software, fonts and universal file sharing. Adobe is lifted to the title of king of tools by their many proud peasents. They rise above their competitors and start absorbing them out one by one into their kingdom.  Many of king adobes tools become renowned the through the world as photoshop, illustrator and indesign. The kingdom of Quark makes massive blunders thinking they are too big to fail as king of all things desk top publishing. They anger their peasents too much for too long and adobe sweeps in with indesign and starts a second desk stop publishing revolution. The peaple flee from quark as soon as they can and join forces with adobe. In 00's adobe joins forces with many smaller counties and dethrones others. It is during this time it proudly claims itself king of the world and in not just land but sea, air and outer space. They increase their prices as a tax upon their loyal followers who supported and cheered them on for 20 years. In the 10's is declared the professional standard of tools the world over. This is where our story really starts...

The fall of the rise of adobe

Adobe decides it is king of the world and imposes further taxes upon their peasants. The peasants reluctantly agree and hail them as king of the world and together crush all who oppose them united as ruler and subjects. This is when they impose cs 5.5 which is short for creative siblings first child and declare that to be the start of many 0.5 yearly upgrade new children to add more to the family and cancel upgrading more than 1 edition back. They announce their newest child crazy cloud and many peasants over time join in to feed it and pay tribute. Not long after Adobe king of the world declares it will be sacrificing its oldest living child creative sibling to crazy cloud as it is very hungry and needs to grow. The peasants shocked as Adobe starves its once proud oldest child and instead use all their resources to baby crazy cloud. Crazy cloud is very hungry and knows nothing else and gets a hunger that is never satisfied. The taxes increase and the peasants must now rent their tools from adobe to help raise the new child. Adobe promises the crazy cloud will be even greater than creative sibling ever could be but that it will take time and we must pay to help this. The peasants see adobe about to sacrifice creative sibling to crazy cloud and revolt in anger to rescue it. Adobe unbelieving any would still support it reluctantly allows it to survive but in the dungeon and only just enough to survive. All the while the other kingdoms of Quark, Corel, Xara, Microsoft and many more called the alternatives have been lying in wait for such an opportunity. They look and wonder how the peasents will deal with the new tax. They decide that if it works for adobe it will work for them but if not its a great chance to strike and ithe way they win. The peasants petition the king to free cs but the king refuses to go back on the decision that cc will be the future of the kingdom and the world.  The peasants rally around the chained cs and many refuse to pay tribute to cc new tools and use their tried and true ones made by cs. Adobe gets annoyed by the lack of funds and promises reduced taxes the first year and that is enough for some but the majority are still refusing to pay. Adobe commands them to pay or be thrown in jail. The peasants start plotting against adobe to not pay cc, free cs and join forces with their long time enemies. The alternatives see the peasent unrest and plot adobes destruction but wait for the right time. They offer reduced taxes to and who with to join them.

The beginning of the fall of adobe

The some peasants flock to any other kingdom they can afford to live in. Adobe smirks and says they will never survive on such unprofessional tools and disregards them leaving knowing some would leave. As time passes when the peasants cs tools finally wear out and cc has grown to adulthood their is a decision to make. Creative Sibling dies an honorable death and many morn across all lands. The other kingdoms have grown from the disloyalty of adobes peasants and to a point joined forces against their common enemy adobe. All the while adobe sees its followers leave and instead of apologizing or making amends just increases the taxes to those who stayed to keep its taxes comming in full. They care not for the care of their people or that their enemies have grown some what. The peasants have to decide to join cc or the other kingdoms. Some reluctantly finally submit to adobe and join crazy cloud and are given golden shekels to forever wear in its service. The vast majority in the course of a few months threaten to abandon adobe.

O how the proud have fallen

Adobe will not tolerate such a thing and demands they stay and it fails. They desperately offer even better tools but the pleas fall on deaf ears. The peasants join forces with adobes enemies and welcome the paying of small tributes to new masters. The alternatives as they are known have been growing stronger as adobe was growing weaker and can now content in open combat with it. The added support of adobes many peasants enforce their armies to the strength any one of them can match and overthrow adobe. They alternatives squabble among themselves on who gets the killing blow while adobe shrivels to nothingness. shrinks. Adobe instead of being allowed to die in peace is split into equal pieces as a remembrance of what used to be the tyranny of adobe. The land and power of adobe is split fairly evenly by chance by all the alternatives as they grab for adobes land.The alternatives now all stronger and of near equal strength vow to never let one become so much stronger than the rest for so long or to try to over throw the world again. For many years the alternatives focus in different tool making and none completely rule any one tool. Many years later after they have forgotten their alliance they start to grab to be king of the world and the cycle starts again.

Well, I have to admit that greek tradgedy was a little long, but thoroughly entertaining.

I thought it was excellent and very well crafted. Props to MycCoalescence for summing up the reality of this tale in the making.

Thank you kindly. Was a bit long. Im not much of a writer but I do like irony and Greek tragedy is the best example. They show struggle, epic win, fail and epic self caused fail usually taking everything you loved down with you. I just think this is where adobe came from, is at currently and probably the direction they are heading unless they make a significant change to save the fleeing customers. The success of adobe was epic and the fall would be equally epic.

They think they are kings and can do what ever they want to us but luckily we live in the 21st century and can do something about it. We are not cash cows of the dark ages that you could force to pay taxes or die for there whole lives.

Not only did Adobe shoot themselves in the foot, they've screwed the companies selling plug-ins.  I buy $1,000's in plug-ins, and with this situation, I am not purchasing anything new.  Like the Adobe Master Collection, which I purchased whenever a new one was available, I did the same for my plug-ins such as Red Giant, Boris, etc.  For arguments sake, If I did purchase CC, if I had to stop my subscription for some reason, I would lose all the money I've spent in plug-ins as well?  I don't think so.  Even though I love my Adobe software, I will move on, and this will open the door for new companies to get a share.  Don't ever think your products are bigger and better than your customers.

Adobe didnt just shot them selves in the foot but both feet and manages to burn their hands by holding the gun by the barrel as they fired it and did the hot potato toss in the other hand and burned both hands. They are too proud to admit they made massive mistakes. This monty python and the holy grail video of arther vs the black knight is a great example. The black knight is adobe and arther is its competitors. Adobe is in complete denial and lying to its self and the world hoping it will some how make it through by staying the course.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jvqhk7YDH9U

I have not used many plug ins and had not considered that adobe cc move could really kill plug in companies. Luckily corel does support adobe plugins! I cant say off the top of my head which ones or which products but I did see it mentioned in more than 1 spot that some or all of corel software supports adobe plug in. I didnt pay a lot of attention since I dont use plug ins much. Corel also imports/exports adobe which it and Xara and a handful of other can do. Corel has a photoshop and illustrator workflow set up option just as illustrator has workflow options like "essentials". The adobe plug in makers may not be 100% doomed as many could migrate to corel and maybe others.

As my Greek Tragety implied it could be a few years of people migrating away from adobe as their cs product is no longer supported by OS, RAW, hardware or is getting obsolete. Right now my top choice is to migrate to Corel or Xara. Im also throwing around the idea of getting a cs6 standard suite for students. The only problem would be it will be 2 years old when i graduate and currently there is no discount for it getting older. It also would be a partially bad investment as i wont upgrade it to cc and by the time I would be done with it no one would want to rebuy it. Corel and many others are running nearly constant sales. I am boycotting adobe for sure through the end of the year.

Adobes goal was to get 1,250,000 cc members by the end of the year. Also in its first year it only got about 350,000 members and it hopes to triple that in its 2nd year. Just bad planning. The start of september they reported they had 700,000 members. I also read that since the beginning of the year they are getting about 12,000 new cc members a week. The funny thing is this number has not changed with the may decision to stop CS development. They have september, october, november and december to get 550,000 more cc members. Though from march-august they only got about 350,000 members in 6 months. They did report "people are migrating to the cloud faster than expected". This is a lie. People are going at about 1/2 the speed they had expected. If the trend stays the same they will get 12,000 x 17= 204,000 new cc members putting them at about 904,000 which puts them at only 75% of their goal. That is not an epic fail but it is a significant fail and stock holders will notice and some one will have to explain to them why they didnt make adjustments based on changing conditions to get that number up. Also that is people joining with the introductory rates so they will have much harder time getting people once those sales end in december. They also had the goal of 4-5 million cc member by the end of 2015. That is 102 x 12,000= 1,224,000 + 904,000= 2,128,000 which puts them extremely short of their goal. That puts them at 52.3% of their goal which is an epic fail worthy of their epic story and successes! Not sure how good adobe is at sales projections...

I didn't take the time to assess your numbers, My Coalescence, but I just wanted to expand on the part about people joining with the introductory rates. There is a number that is hard to factor in, that is the number of people who, like me, have been duped into trying the CC only to be disapointed. I'm probably not the only one that wants out but is deterred by the cancellation fee that goes with this choice. My gut feel is that more people will jump **out** as time goes by, as the fee to get out diminishes. Right now the *admission* fee may be OK for a lot of people, but how many have realized what the *release* fee is? Not only in terms of money, but captive documents. Think about the disappearance of the Freehand to Illustrator import feature. Some people had decades worth of legacy documents they can't import in CS6 now. Consider your future with a company that can deny you access to your work at any time...  Best course of action: DON'T join in. DON'T let friends join in. Don't let your boss, supplier, clients, or anyone you work with, join in.

Adobe can pursue the CC way if it wants to. There will always be some people to support it. But if Adobe comes to its senses and offers, say, CS7 perpetual licences next year, it will also need to start listening to its customers again and put the features they need into the software, instead of the "marketing" features they use to lure the kids without adding value... They have a long way to go before they earn our trust again, I think.

Totally agreed guys. The trust is completely gone. Adobe is now punishing customers to join the cloud with all their fees, rules and penalties that go along with it. Awesome business model Adobe, kudos for the failure.

Anyone who signs up for the CC and then wants out is just plain stupid.

Sorry if that offends but there are times when I am so frustrated that all CC adopters see is the $ sign.

CC is available FREE for 30 days...............if you have failed to take advantage of this then there is no hope for you.

Why would you want to do anything other than test it out thoroughly during that period before deciding to subscribe?

Learn from your mistakes, and do read up on any product or service before you buy and if there is a choice then test it out first.

Col

I don't mind you calling me stupid after I pointed out myself that it was a stupid move. But, why such anger, Biggles Lamb? Perhaps you feel the battle is lost and don't need to win people over to the perpetual licence option. Yeah, maybe you're the only smart guy on Earth and you feel lonely. But I'd rather work to win over all the dumb guys like me who've trusted Adobe and used their products probably longer than you've breathed.

You're the one fixating on the $ sign. Probably don't earn much to bring up the free 30 days. Did you test drive each of the CS upgrades before buying? Maybe you have too much time on your hands. The nature of my job dictated that I move to the latest version because I can't lag behind my clients and suppliers. I have test machines with the newer version while the production boxes still use the previous. It's not so stupid when you don't have the spare time to "test it out thoroughly". Until now, I never regretted trying an Adobe product. 

But then again, remember that opinions are like a**holes: everybody has one. I don't think you've contributed much with your comment and think you should quit while you're ahead.

I was using Adobe products for more than 20 years before cloud stupidity began.

I bought every upgrade of my master collections, soon after they came out.

(Made it like you - first only installed on one mashine till buggs where gone with updates).

I will never spend an cent to this "company" called Adobe.

And it´s not only me. We have a community here, which is also switching and of the opinion, that this way of Software Distribution is absolutely not acceptable.

I am of the opinion Biggles Lamp is absolutely right.

As Adobe wants to pay us for the use of our own archives, it´s simply stupid to look only for the sounding cheep fee entrance price (which will rise soon, I take every bet).

As you own nothing - standing alone in the rain with your files - after subscription I call it stupid again, to use this Cash Cow (CC) which isn´t a cloud anyway.

Allways good luck for you. And allways enough money to use your archive.

Any how back to reallity children...

Im glad you saw the good and bad of CC and decided it was not right for your after trying it for a while. I just finished my CC trial version this week. It did nothing to sway me to buy into it and drink adobes koolaid. I did a 4 week long 24 page booklet for a class project. I saw few if any changes from cs and none that were remotely significant. As an upgrade its not even 1/2 upgrade quality. I agree that there are probably cc users who are changing their minds as all the facts for good and bad set in. For now there is no reason to upgrade to cc as it is not a real upgrade at all yet. The only reason to get cc right now is if you want the master collection but only had a suite before. The only upgrades to illustrator in last few editions is what they ripped from freehand after buying it and even those took a few editions to get put in like multiple art boards and perspective grid.

As you mentioned you can leave cc but have a early penalty. Here is the funny thing. I just saw there is actually 2 pay rates for the same customer. There is the pay per month/year for 50/month with having to pay 50% of remaining amount if you leave early and 75/month for being able to leave any time. If you want to do more than the 30 day trial do the 75/month leave any time plan. Leaving at 6 months of ither payment plan is the same amount.

6 months x 75= 450 for leave any time plan

6 months x 50= 300 + 6 months x 25=150 = 450 for none leave any time and paying penalty

I suggest all take an honest look at what software is out there. Ive looked at just about any suggested. Im starting Xara and Corel trial versions this week. I am impressed by both and what they have done with 1/6->1/20 the revenue of adobe. They are both good about having free tutorials and tips and tricks. I know adobe does it but just seems so much better. They are also very good about telling you about the product and what it has to offer and where adobe is like "we are the market standard and need no introduction or explanation, you will be assimilated!"

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