Goodbye Photoshop

[Majeed Badizadegan]

Look, I get it. You're upset.

But you also don't have an understanding of big business.

I worked for one of the largest musical instrument manufacturers in America. The following for our products was downright rabid.

Came a time, though, when the boss-man decided that changes needed to be made. He decreed that certain things would happen. Many of the changes were unpopular not only with the rabid fans of our products, but with dealers, as well. The chorus of "You will doom your business" was deafening. The "fans" of our instruments vowed never to purchase our products again. Dealers swore they would drop the line in lieu of something else and, in fact, some did exactly that.

We made the changes anyway.

Dealers were pissed.

Customers were pissed.

And revenue in my territory increased by 537% in six years.

That company's products remain at the top of the heap. Yes, many former fans left the fold and switched to other brands. Yes, we were lambasted on the internet. And I made more money in a single year than I had made in any four years previous to that combined. The customers we lost, in all honesty, didn't matter much. They were our customers, sure, but many would only ever buy one or two of our products in a lifetime. What we cared about was the fact that, in some territories, we gained three customers for every single customer lost. Every single territory around the globe saw an increase in revenue. We were damn near printing money. If someone hopped on the internet to decry the changes we were making, we really, truly, didn't care.

That company, and the people who own it and run it, are among some of the most respected people ever to grace that industry.

Does the customer matter? Sure. But the reality that "the customer" needs to wrap his pointed little head around is that he doesn't matter as much to big business as he believes he does, or should. Big business; in this case Adobe, will do that which they believe will increase their revenue. Adobe isn't in business to provide us with affordable digital editing software, they're in business to make money. The software is simply the manner in which they do it. If market research showed them that they would make more money selling coloring books, you'd see Adobe in bed with Crayola.

This is business, and business is often an ugly thing. Ugly or pretty, though, it revolves around money, and after the dust clears, that's one fact that simply cannot be contested...

I agree with pretty much all of this

 

[Steve5D]

Look, I get it. You're upset.

But you also don't have an understanding of big business.

I worked for one of the largest musical instrument manufacturers in America. The following for our products was downright rabid.

Came a time, though, when the boss-man decided that changes needed to be made. He decreed that certain things would happen. Many of the changes were unpopular not only with the rabid fans of our products, but with dealers, as well. The chorus of "You will doom your business" was deafening. The "fans" of our instruments vowed never to purchase our products again. Dealers swore they would drop the line in lieu of something else and, in fact, some did exactly that.

We made the changes anyway.

Dealers were pissed.

Customers were pissed.

And revenue in my territory increased by 537% in six years.

That company's products remain at the top of the heap. Yes, many former fans left the fold and switched to other brands. Yes, we were lambasted on the internet. And I made more money in a single year than I had made in any four years previous to that combined. The customers we lost, in all honesty, didn't matter much. They were our customers, sure, but many would only ever buy one or two of our products in a lifetime. What we cared about was the fact that, in some territories, we gained three customers for every single customer lost. Every single territory around the globe saw an increase in revenue. We were damn near printing money. If someone hopped on the internet to decry the changes we were making, we really, truly, didn't care.

That company, and the people who own it and run it, are among some of the most respected people ever to grace that industry.

Does the customer matter? Sure. But the reality that "the customer" needs to wrap his pointed little head around is that he doesn't matter as much to big business as he believes he does, or should. Big business; in this case Adobe, will do that which they believe will increase their revenue. Adobe isn't in business to provide us with affordable digital editing software, they're in business to make money. The software is simply the manner in which they do it. If market research showed them that they would make more money selling coloring books, you'd see Adobe in bed with Crayola.

This is business, and business is often an ugly thing. Ugly or pretty, though, it revolves around money, and after the dust clears, that's one fact that simply cannot be contested...

I agree with pretty much all of this

Good.

Then I won't have to worry about you "modifying" it in another failed attempt to make a point...

 

[Majeed Badizadegan]

Good.

Then I won't have to worry about you "modifying" it in another failed attempt to make a point...

Everything I said still stands. Failed attempt to make a point, huh? Is this what you say to those who disagree with you? I'm pretty sure I provided coherent counter-points to some of your lofty statements in this thread. Maybe you didn't like that. Whatever.

You've qualified what you've said in your previous statement much more adequately, while also finding a bit of middle ground and not making highly extreme statements, as compared to your posts prior to it.

I agree with it mostly. But even agreeing with you seems to irritate you, so I don't really have much more to say here if you don't intend to keep it civil.

 

[manaheim]

Good.

Then I won't have to worry about you "modifying" it in another failed attempt to make a point...

Steve... This is totally uncalled for. The guy AGREED with you, and yet you attack.

You've repeatedly been spoken to about your behavior around here, and yet you continue.

Not acceptable.

 

[ronlane]

Okay back to the topic. Here is an interview by dpreview about all the uproar and Adobe's response. The interesting thing to me is that they address the Lightroom topic on here by saying that they are still going to sell it as normal for now.

 

[SCraig]

...
Came a time, though, when the boss-man decided that changes needed to be made. He decreed that certain things would happen. Many of the changes were unpopular not only with the rabid fans of our products, but with dealers, as well. The chorus of "You will doom your business" was deafening. The "fans" of our instruments vowed never to purchase our products again. Dealers swore they would drop the line in lieu of something else and, in fact, some did exactly that.

We made the changes anyway.

Dealers were pissed.

Customers were pissed.

And revenue in my territory increased by 537% in six years.

That company's products remain at the top of the heap. Yes, many former fans left the fold and switched to other brands. Yes, we were lambasted on the internet. And I made more money in a single year than I had made in any four years previous to that combined. The customers we lost, in all honesty, didn't matter much. They were our customers, sure, but many would only ever buy one or two of our products in a lifetime. What we cared about was the fact that, in some territories, we gained three customers for every single customer lost. Every single territory around the globe saw an increase in revenue. We were damn near printing money. If someone hopped on the internet to decry the changes we were making, we really, truly, didn't care.

That company, and the people who own it and run it, are among some of the most respected people ever to grace that industry.

Wow! That's GREAT news for many people! It will take a load off of many minds to know that since screwing the customer worked in this instance that it's going to work every time.

Not!

For every instance that can be quoted in which things worked out in favor of the company another can be quoted in which the company suffered. In fact I could state one from personal experience that is virtually identical to yours in many respects, but the ending is quite different. This particular company didn't fare as well as yours did.

 

[amolitor]

A point to ponder:

In what ways does Adobe's new cloud/subscription model more and less closely resemble the traditional model of photograph sales?

 

[sleist]

I'd like to see Google/Nik create a program that rolls all the plugins into a stand alone editor.
Something like Capture NX2 on steroids that isn't doing battle with GIMP for worst interface ever.

 

[leighthal]

Rental Hell:
Cable=$80/month
Cell= $200/month
Internet=$45/month
Netflixs=$10/month
Sirius=$4/month
Xbox=$8/month
itunes=$10/month
PS Cloud=OVERDRAWN

My entertainment budget is getting out of hand. I switched to PS5 from Corel in the misguided allure that it would work better with my Lightroom. Yes it works better, but I'm lost most of the time. Unlearning Corel shortcuts and work flow is a struggle. I use PS5 daily. I didn't mind paying the big ticket price to own it. I would never pay that amount to rent it. If and when my CS5 conks out I'll just move on to something else. I think I still have my Atari in the garage..... some Pong and Pitfall will fill in the time usually spent on PS.

 

[Jad]

Okay back to the topic. Here is an interview by dpreview about all the uproar and Adobe's response. The interesting thing to me is that they address the Lightroom topic on here by saying that they are still going to sell it as normal for now.

Only Lightroom 4 will be sold as a stand alone. Two different Adobe sales reps have told me the new version 5 will be available only in CC. You can contact them yourself on their live chat and get the answer for your self. Most all Adobe current products are dead ended at this point. You have to sign up with their CC to stay current. It is nothing I would suggest rushing into until the fog clears. I will use my CS5 for as long as I can. Maybe some other software producer will step in.

 

[ronlane]

Jad, the article is with Adobe VP of Creative Solutions and Senior Product Manager for Photoshop for Adobe's. They don't say specific versions won't be, they say Lightroom won't be. I think I'd take their word over a sales rep. Just saying.

 

[texkam]

1382 | What The Duck

 

[TCampbell]

I laughed..the so-called core group of users that is quoted in the article "supports" being charged on a monthly basis...

zOMG...wow...gullible much???

The full version of Photoshop CS6 is $650, and if you do the new membership it's only $20 a month so that's 32 months or 2 years and 7 months.

Most people are on a two year upgrade cycle so you are actually saving money in the long run.

What is you creative cloud username?

Wait... that's not quite accurate. In the old pricing model, you don't pay the "full" version price when you upgrade, you pay the "upgrade" price, which is $200.

I noticed that while they'll let you buy just a month's worth of the full CC, if you just want a single app (e.g. Photoshop) then I don't see an option other than to buy a full year. So it's really $240 (but they let you pay that $240 in 12 installments of $20 each.)

So old model: $200 to upgrade
New model: $240

But this assumes two things... (1) that Adobe will come out with a new version every year, on time, and never be late (because in the old model you don't "pay" until they have something new to sell you... nothing new, no payment. It's simple. If they don't ship a new version for 18 months... then that effectively means you divide your $200 upgrade over the 18 months it lasts until the next upgrade. And (2) that you would have upgraded for Photoshop software at every single release. I know a LOT of people who don't use enough or see enough to jump to the next version.

By my math, if all you use out of the CS/CC package is Photoshop (Lightroom isn't part of the suite) then this new model will cost you anywhere from a little more.... to a lot more.

If you use everything (e.g. Dreamweaver, Illustrator, Premier, etc.) and you use them all the time and you always want to upgrade, then I can imagine there might be those who will benefit from this. But most of the people I know in Photography aren't using the rest of the suite... they're mostly using LR & PS.

I don't care for their perversion of the "cloud" concept. It's not really cloud software... at all.

Sure sure... you get some storage space "in the cloud" with it. Amazon and Dropbox will give me that for free. I don't view that as making anything "cloud" based.

Speaking of Amazon... they have a cloud. Compare Amazon's idea of selling cloud services to Adobe's.

Amazon EC2 actually has a "free" tier for very light users -- mostly this is to let them test and get things working without having to pay. They're eventually expected to pay, but they get a full year before it comes to that. THEN... when they do finally have to pay, it's a $61 one-time charge plus (here's the kicker) $0.034 per HOUR of use.

With Adobe, even if you can find a way to go for just a month, the question is, how many photographers (even very casual photographers) on this forum use Photoshop at least ONCE per month. My guess is that if you own it, you probably do use it once per month. About 98% of everything I do can be done in Aperture. But just occasionally I have to launch Photoshop. It's not all the time, but it probably does happen at least once per month. That means if you use PS, on average, just once per month... then you pay at the same rate as those who use it daily as part of their regular workflow. So there's really no savings for occasional users.

If Adobe would tell us that we have to pay a $61 one-time charge and then $0.034 per hour I think we'd be doing cartwheels down the hall and singing their praises.

As it is... I think they're pretty much sticking it to everyone.

 

[Steve5D]

Failed attempt to make a point, huh? Is this what you say to those who disagree with you? I'm pretty sure I provided coherent counter-points to some of your lofty statements in this thread. Maybe you didn't like that. Whatever.

Yes.

You had to "modify" what I said into something you wished I'd said. That tells me you had no legitimate counter-points to what I actually said.

It's not a matter of disagreement. It's a matter of some people knowing what they're talking about and some people not. It's a matter of some people having been exposed to these things at a different level than others. I'll go out on a limb and guess that you've never been part of a decision-making marketing team in a multi-million dollar company. I have. Dismiss the experience with that if you must, but don't pretend the experience is invalid...

 

[Steve5D]

Wow! That's GREAT news for many people! It will take a load off of many minds to know that since screwing the customer worked in this instance that it's going to work every time.

How was "the customer" screwed?

We increased our market share, out customer base, our dealer network and our revenue several times over. That's what businesses want to do. The customer is only "screwed" if he has some lofty (and often unrealistic) ideal that "big business" exists to make his life easier for as little money as possible. That's a pipe dream. It's completely divorced from reality. Big business exists to make money.

You say we "screwed the customer". Care to explain how? As a result of the changes we made, we garnered a bigger market share (meaning we had more customers) and increased our dealer base (which means we made our products available to more consumers). A large chuck of the increased revenue went into dealer events, which brought consumers into their stores (which is good for the dealers). Even more chunks of revenue went into product development, which offered a greater selection to the buying public (which is good for them).

So who got screwed?

Was it the people who'd already purchased our very expensive product, and who would likely never buy another? If so, I would love to know how. They still receive outstanding customer service for the item they already own. Seeing as they likely wouldn't be purchasing a second one of our products, changes made to how those products are sold do not affect them...

For every instance that can be quoted in which things worked out in favor of the company another can be quoted in which the company suffered. In fact I could state one from personal experience that is virtually identical to yours in many respects, but the ending is quite different. This particular company didn't fare as well as yours did.

Seeing as you're in Nashville, I suspect I know what example you're going to give.

But don't leave us guessing...