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Comment by mschuster91

6 days ago

I 'member Adobe's Creative Suite costing hundreds of dollars. Photoshop alone clocked in at 699$, the full CS6 was 2599$ [1]. Either you were a professional and paid dearly every odd year or you were a student and used a cracked/keygen'd CS6.

Today? The full CC license is 70$ a month for individuals (30$ for students) and 100$ a month for businesses. Despite inflation, assuming a two year upgrade cycle you still get the same price for the full Adobe package when comparing CS vs CC.

One may complain a lot about Adobe (RIP Flash, and anything Gen AI can go to hell for all I care), but "enshittification" is one thing that can't reasonably be thrown at them.

As for Adobe Credits, AFAIK that's credits for fonts and assets - and again, I vastly prefer dealing with one storefront (Adobe) than having to buy and license individual font files or stock photos.

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2012/4/23/2968192/adobe-cs6-pricing...

8 comments

mschuster91

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cmonbuddy  6 days ago

You just successfully rationalized the exact tactic that Adobe sales team pitched to their leadership: That most users will pay the monthly subscription because the math “evens out.”

Very very very few people have a legitimate need to upgrade Adobe product versions every 2 years.

  • cosmic_cheese  6 days ago

    > Very very very few people have a legitimate need to upgrade Adobe product versions every 2 years.

    I suspect that most, even a lot of professional users, could get along just fine with CS1 or CS2. The core functionality hasn’t changed all that much and in a lot of ways, CS/CC apps have gotten worse. The only reason these individuals aren't still using those old versions is because they aren’t well suited for modern machines.

    I’d personally be elated if Adobe started selling a lightly modernized single-purchase Photoshop CS1, even if it cost what single purchase PS licenses used to. The lack of cruft and UI churn alone would be worth it before even getting into the savings compared to a subscription.

  • scarface_74  6 days ago

    The existence proof that people are paying the subscription price when there are other tools out there. Do people must think there is a need for it

    • p_ing  6 days ago

      There are other tools out there; I use Affinity Photo myself.

      There are no other workflows that 100% match Adobe Photoshop. Until you like-for-like replicate the workflow, professionals will continue to use PS.

wlesieutre  6 days ago

As a hobbyist, I owned CS4 (purchased on sale) and kept using it for ages. Turning it into a subscription might be fine for bleeding edge professionals who care about whatever new bells and whistles every year to finish a job 2% faster, but the ongoing costs cut out anybody who isn’t making money with it.

Thankfully there are better competitors like Affinity in that space now.

RIP Macromedia Fireworks though.

dhruvrrp  6 days ago

It's enshittification because most people don't need the 2 year upgrade cycle. For most individuals and small businesses, it was more like buy once and use forever.

  • scarface_74  6 days ago

    A majority or at least large minority of Adobe users were/are on Macs.

    The Mac version has lived through 68K MacOS pre and post System 7, PPC Mac pre and post OS X, x86 Macs pre and post Carbon support and now ARM Macs. After each transition , there was a limited amount of time that you could use the same version and even a smaller amount of time that you would have wanted to.

    But the same argument applies that applies to Figma. It’s a professional tool that should help you generate income far greater than the cost