Poll: What concerns you most about Adobe's move to subscriptions?

Gotta love DxO ;)

My biggest problem is the thought that a couple versions down the road I can't simply choose to not keep paying because if I do I'll have to fall all the way back to CS6. With that in the future, I have to question committing to using their products now.

I'm glad I saved my RAWs even thought I convert to DNG for lightroom, and I hope lightroom stays out of the mess. I don't use photoshop much so I'm not that concerned about that, but I've bought into premiere for videos -perhaps regretfully now.

Enough already! Profit margin. We'll soon see just how much of us "hobbyist" cut into the Adobe PhotoShop pie! Just watch this company go belly-up in no time. Aperture, get ready to rock!

I have a CS suite and Lightroom.
It's time to upgrade both. I think I'll upgrade neither with Adobe.
I think I'll try Aperture.

First they squeeze us our knowledge out to get some decent products, now they pretend it is all theirs and try to squeeze our money out. Well, I don't care too much, arrogance will be punished as usual. Who makes the alternative?

I can see that some business users that always upgrade to the latest releases may not notice any difference to the cost or perhaps may even be better off, if they use all the apps.

The problem is that you are locked in to whatever they serve up to you, good or bad, because if you stop paying you lose access and have nothing to show for years of investment. You can't skip a version. If you have a bad cash flow month and the banks aren't lending, you are in trouble.

The pricing is too crude too as choosing 1 app or all is not realistic to someone like me, a serious amateur/semi-pro still using CS2 & Lightroom 4.

Also, Cloud Computing is premature in many places in the UK as broadband speed is terrible (downstream <3Mb/s, upstream <1Mb/s). Uploading ONE 25MB raw file would take how many hours?

It means 'goodbye Adobe'. I guess individually I may be no great loss to them but there must be many more like me and that will add up.

For me the poll choices are inadequate. The subscription model and the prices involved do not suit the hobbyist photographer, plus Adobe have already said that subscribers will end up enjoying an enhanced Lightroom compared to the non-cloud version.

Bad news for the likes of me but maybe Adobe see their future security is solely with commercial users?

There should be an option for concern about the future of lightroom going CC only. Yah I know they said it will stay standalone also, but they may change their mind like they did with Photoshop. Not sure if I want to continue investing time with Lightroom if this is the direction they will be going eventually. Adobe will loose a lot of Lightroom users over this concern.

Hmm, what if Adobe had a software vestment policy: after N years or X hundred/thousand dollars, you could stop at any time and be frozen at that version. This option could cost more per month than the simple rental/subscription. Adobe would then keep you hooked by adding new features just often enough that you are never tempted to settle for what you have but you would have the insurance of knowing you could. Alas, it's a complication that has it's own costs to implement but what if?

As a _very_ occasional user of Photoshop, a lower month-to-month rental price or shorter rental periods, e.g. $10 for a week or even $2 for a day, would be much more appealing to me. I went with option 2 in the poll, but I would make more use of shorter terms — even at a higher per day cost, as in my examples.

Were I a more regular user of Photoshop, right now I would be very unhappy indeed.

DPR, duh! All of the above. Why force people to only choose one?

Well, not a good setup
multiple choices should be allowed
I voted for the first item , but in fact I could have chosen 1 2 3 and 4; the last one (it might work for me) is the only one out of question....
PS as suggested it's maybe time to check for lightroom alternative ( COPro , DXO ...? I hope these companies will take in the next months the opportunity to attract at least some of us.....shame on you Adobe)

I don't care WHAT the 'improvements' to the application are, having to pay a monthly fee to use Photoshop is the stupidest licensing scheme ever put forth in the software biz! As a working Pro who has been in the game since 1980 not being able to 'own' the application that my entire business revolves around makes no bloody sense to me! I jumped on the Photoshop bandwagon with v3.0, and since then I've bought every upgrade whenever I felt the added features made sense to my workflow and needs at the time. Adobe will always have me on their corporate tit, but making my typically bi-annual Photoshop upgrade a mandatory monthly fee (at a substantially higher cost) is nothing more than profiteering on their part. And generally those incremental upgrades prove to be mostly unnecessary! I don't want or need every new toy and filter they trot out. I'm not a Strobist fanboy who has to be perched on some techie cutting edge with my like-minded, weekend-warrior, amateur photo-geek pals.

As much as I prefer owning instead of paying a subscription, I don't mind the subscription model providing it is priced right and the incentives make it worthwhile. It would be even better if after our subscription lapses, we were able to retain some form of core product or just no longer receive updates and cloud exclusives until we renew again. I have one product I use that works like this and I feel it is fair.

The subscription model is common in IT, we pay for "services" that need to be renewed. It just so happens the software is tied to the services,you don't get one without the other. But support is usually top notch, speaking directly to the developers, ensuring a quality product and experience. This model is trickling down into the consumer world, but the transition is being force fed and at corporation prices instead of consumer prices. There doesn't appear to be any separation between the two, despite both requiring different kinds of service levels.

it's funny that the item most voted for right now (Having to repeatedly pay to retain access) is probably their main reason for doing this in the first place. there's no way that they will change that, they want the constant money coming in.

In these uncertain times (if there ever were any certain ones) I suspect that it is very difficult for most people not earning a living from photography to suck-up the concept of yet another monthly charge; it certaintly is for me. To move to a monthly subscription would make my photography seem like a tax rather than a pleasure that I'd previously enjoyed at my convenience. Basically if I stick with Adobe and they "cloud" Lightroom (which I guess they will within a couple years), I lose my edits too.

I love photography as a pastime and, I suppose, aspire to producing great photographs. Up until now, for the most part, it has been possible to access the best tools that even the professionals have access to and to guage the quality of my efforts against the great good, perhaps no-longer.

Adobe, with this very cynical move have alienated the enthusiast and at a stroke placed those that can afford it in a (perceived) tier of there own. I for one will not pay the Adobe Tax.

Flat out; this new plan costs me far more while providing far less.

I will use Nik and other software as much as possible. I will not consider the creative suite software. Elements has most of what I need and if Abode gets too greedy the competition should be able to catch up.

I have a very long memory and will do my best to avoid Adobe products...forever.

Bottom line is Adobe is doing this ONLY to make more money. No matter how you slice and dice it, is more money out of your pocket.
Even if the entry cost is low, once you have files made by PS you can only access them by paying them a monthly fee. You will be nickel and dime to death in the end.
10 years from now, you have a bunch of files you can't use because Adobe is either sold off (Very high possibility) or because their monthly cost is too high (ie. Cable TV monopoly). All the work you have done just vanished.

First of all, this poll should be multiple choice.
Second... The last entry is laughable; please replace it with "all of the above", if you don't give us the opportunity to tick multiple reasons.

The poll doesn't provide my answer. The reason why I won't--and really can't--subscribe is because as soon as I drop my subscription (or Adobe goes away) I lose my license to edit my own content. This is simply not tolerable, and too much risk. If I can't archive the software that was used to generate my proprietary content, I can't use it. It is simply off the table.

Remember 1985?
I think that this will be Adobe's "New Coke" moment.

D.

First good hack and how many of our accounts will be vulnerable to outside access?

I don't save my work to the cloud because of this, and the fact that companies fail everyday.

I wont go for the "Perpetual Pay". Guess Semi-Pro is not good enough for Adobe and I've been using their products for many years.

If you read the article closely you will have to "CC" to get more "functionality" from Lightroom as well. Read the fine print. Lightroom is too widely used for them not to squeeze ever bit of money from you that they can.

They have too many of us locked into their software with thousands of photo XMP files/catalogs that would be lost.
I'll be slowly moving to other software and keeping the versions of PS and LR that I have.

Still don't like though that for now I could afford the £19 pm however it doesn't stop Adobe from jacking it up in the future and for my circumstances from changing to the worse and not being able to afford to use Photoshop CC.

@dob'e reminds me of Sheriff of Nottingham we just need an Robin Hood alternative.

Another option could be to deliver a Photoshop basic version and have the user subscribe to use extra tools - pay as you use.

Who needs the latest and greatest anyway. I'm still having great fun with CS2. Just stick with the latest version you have.

Unfortunately, at least three of these choices are pretty tightly coupled: if the price were low enough and you could trust Adobe to maintain the price, then you could "buy" N years of use which would be the effective lifetime of the product - paid in one go or via installment would be relatively insignificant. Outages due to lack of connectivity will be rare but always come at the worst possible time - I've seen this happen already with plugins and other products.

Lets say that I pay the CC subscription for 3 years.... but after that I want to stop because i need to safe.... I am left with nothing,right??

Why not to leave the choice?

Shame of you Adobe,you and greediness !!!

hmmm... will be interesting. But I doubt I'll be updating or cloud-seeding or whatever you want to call it, anytime soon.

I have v5 at home and work on v6 at work (graphic designer/illustrator). I can get what I need out of 5, and now I feel it'll be a long time before I'll update it again.

Anybody remember Quark XPress, and how they dominated a while back? Anybody still use it? Adobe should remember that history repeats itself.

I don't like any of it (like a lot of people) and I think the overarching issue is this feeling of being controlled by this big (and hence greedy?) corporation. Just give me the option of a good product and leave me be. Make the cloud an option, sure, whatever, but why does Adobe want to force us to participate and connect and pay continually?

Maybe adobe could give away a cs6 version of the same app or suit as people buy a one year prescription for, that would probably make a lot of people a bit more pleased...

I pay $300 every two or three years to keep PS up to date. At $20/month, Adobe wants me to pay twice as much for a CC subscription for just PS. I'm sorry, but as an enthusiast, its just not worth that much to me.

The advantages of renting/leasing is it usually comes at a much lower cost then owning (whether you are renting a car, apartment etc). That offsets the fact that after you are done renting you don't own anything.

Those are the two big issues for me.. first is that I don't own anything and I can't choose to keep my old version while I stop paying AND there isn't any significant cost offset for that loss of actual ownership.

I would have chosen all above except the last item if it had been a choice.

I would have preferred to see only two options - price vs subscription. I don't mind the subscription option at all. I have many versions of Photoshop which I bought that are now sitting in CD cases and completely useless.

It is something like buying vs. leasing a car except with the car you have the option of selling the old copy. You don't with Photoshop so why buy. Except in this case Adobe is messing it up by charging more to rent.

Hey Adobe, this is better subscription-based model:
- pay $1 for every developed/organized RAW
- pay $0,5 for every edited/organized JPEG

Remember when Google proclaimed in one week they had 500K users and they saw themselves trumping Facebook? A month later everyone was scratching their head. I recently worked for a company producing microsites for Adobe training events and I can tell you that management ineptitude runs deep and into the core of this company. The gimmicks they try and sell with each Photoshop upgrade have become laughable.

My biggest issue with Adobe's new strategy is that your only choices for CC are a single application or the entire CS Master Collection. I'm currently a CS Design Standard user because I use Photoshop, Illustrator, and Acrobat. I'm having a hard time justifying the CC pricing for the equivalent of the entire Master Collection when I'll never use most of those applications. If they provided different CC levels that matched up with the previous CS packages at prices placed appropriately in between the current CC single application and "everything and the kitchen sink" options, I think I could make peace with CC. As it is today, a single application is not enough, and the "everything" package forces me to pay for much more than I actually use.

This poll does not include my main concern which is perpetual rental with no ownership. It is unacceptable to me. If I am subscription but I stop, I want to retain the features and base software until that point, otherwise I will replace PS with Corel PSP. I have 5 years to make the transition, Corel will catch up.

I want to own my tools not rent them.

I would agree that all of the points are awful, so very hard to pick one (except of course the last one). But clearly 1, 2 and 4 are the main drivers for me. Entry price is 2 1/2 times what I have been paying (faithfully upgrading each time) and no option to sit out an update cycle without losing all access to all the work I have ever done.

Once you area captive, then nothing to prevent Adobe from raising prices, except new competitor, which I hope shows up soon. I have been very loyal to Adobe products, and love LR, so hate to see the company self implode

The Quick poll.

Answers A, B, & D. With equal amounts of concern for each.

All points are highly valid for me except the last -Actually, I think it might work for me-. You should include the ubiquitous: "All of the above" as the last option instead.

Assuming Adobe can read DP Review, I don't think you need to communicate anything to them. You write for us, not them.

You need to communicate Adobe's and its competitors plans to us.

So far, it seems the sites writing about this for a photography audience are out of sync with that audience. We're crying foul and the site operators are tiptoeing around the issue or acting as if they have to explain Adobe's actions.

This is a great reporting opportunity for you. Take it.