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Autodesk subscription model
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[andy patterson] “Would you now agree we get less and pay more?”
Nope. Not at all.
[andy patterson] “See my point?”
No. I don’t.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[andy patterson] “We paid a lot but got less than the CS 4.0 to CS 5.5 upgrade. We all paid for the upgrade regardless if it was worth it or not. “
If I’m reading you right, it almost sounds like you are saying there is a point where they could price themselves out of the market by charging more than people think the program is worth.
Obviously there is a cap. If they charged 1000 a month people would say I’m not paying that.
So how far can they go before they hit a realistic cap?
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[Oliver Peters] “andy patterson] “As of now Apple and BMD do a better job of that price wise than Adobe.”
Apple and BMD have hardware sales to provide additional financial development support. Adobe and Autodesk do not have that.”
Adobe didn’t own hardware back in the CS days either. I am not saying the CC is super horrible or super expensive. I am saying the older CS paradigm was better. I myself would not have upgraded this year and with the CS paradigm I would not have to.
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[Tony West] “[andy patterson] “We paid a lot but got less than the CS 4.0 to CS 5.5 upgrade. We all paid for the upgrade regardless if it was worth it or not. ”
If I’m reading you right, it almost sounds like you are saying there is a point where they could price themselves out of the market by charging more than people think the program is worth.
Obviously there is a cap. If they charged 1000 a month people would say I’m not paying that.
So how far can they go before they hit a realistic cap?”
My point is before we could decide if the upgrade was worth it or not. Now we pay no matter what. We also used to get the DVDs. I would prefer the DVDs as opposed to downloading the software. I admit you still need to download the updates with the DVDs but at least you have something if you wanted to wipe and reload the OS. Like I stated this upgrade was not that great. CS 4.0 to 5.0 was great. CS 5.0 to 5.5 was good and so was CS 5.5. to CS 6.0.
Look what BMD did with DR.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vA1m6jeTf_M&t=136s
Also look at my request for Adobe from last year (below). I would not have upgraded this year if we still had the CS paradigm. Like I always say where will Avid, FCXP, BMD and Adobe all be in another 2-3 years form now. Will DR be free? Adobe needs to bring it’s A-Game ASAP and look at the competition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNi224djHbQ
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I’ve never spoken out against subscriptions per se.
Only against subscriptions linked to user access to their own Intellectual Property.
Heck, *I* do subscriptions at XinTwo. But you need to unsubscribe it’s as easy as subscribing and you keep all the knowledge you’ve gained and I control NOTHING outside my own IP.
I have thousands of photos in Lightroom with metadata that I have painstakingly created concerning cropping, color correction, and a thousand other creative decisions.
When my subscription ends this month, Adobe will wall me off from that prior creative work unless I pay them again.
Not acceptable in my opinion.
And it’s MY fault for working in a system that allows someone else to gatekeep my IP.
The other software systems seem to understand that, and come with IP terms that don’t put them between me and my own work.
I don’t know what AVID or others are doing in this area. Just publicly hoping that they develop similar environments where they respect my rights to IP ownership as NOT subservient to theirs.
FWIW.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Oliver Peters] “[Ricardo Marty] “Got a video this week on Facebook which claims that the adobe subscription will go up ton $69. if they don’t renew.”
Completely bogus.”
I completely agree with Oliver here.
This is completely antithetical to the long term success of the Adobe Subscription model since wild fluctuations in price will drive attention to costs that their subscriber base has already accepted. When people NOTICE something – they can decide they can live without it.
In this model, you don’t want people to NOTICE that direct bank draw as anything but totally normal.
At least while you’re actively building the subscriber base, you want those monthly draws to become regularized. Nothing to see here. Just ignore them everyone.
I’d be more concerned that at some future date, they find it difficult to resist – not wild increases like 30% – but incremental adjustments.
Once you have a system with a million people are paying $50 – an increase to $52.50 yields an additional $2.5 million dollars in profits against absolutely ZERO additional costs and likely almost no push back from your subscriber base.
(Just put out a press release mumbling about “keeping up with inflation” and you’re fine.)No individual gets hurt, but you suddenly have a “pure profit” dial in the hands of executives who have nothing to constrain them from using it to make their investors happy. Subscriptions down? Adjustment time. Economic downturn? Where’s that dial?
Hey, we have these other services, right? Stock, etc? How about we just FOLD those purchases into your monthly Billings and let them FLOAT like electric usage? So you don’t really know what’s being charged anymore. Bingo. your Adobe bill becomes like your telephone bill. Lots of tiny charges and taxes and fees – yielding a monthly amount that you are unsure WHAT it should actually be unless you have the time to go through all the line items – but vaguely feel is necessary to continue into a service you can’t really disengage from.
THAT would scare me.
Constant future incrementalism. Not wild pricing swings.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Bill Davis] “Only against subscriptions linked to user access to their own Intellectual Property.”
I’m not sure about Lightroom, but in regards to Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Photoshop, that simply is not true. I realize it’s a sore point for you, but you keep saying that just to be inflammatory. However, that doesn’t make it so. Yes, you cannot open a project file unless you have a paid-up version of the app. However, you still have possession of it. It’s not in the cloud. Nothing prevents you from taking it to someone else who does have an active account and making changes. Or paying for a monthly use when you need it. Of course, if you had bought CS6, you still own those apps and things function at that level, assuming you didn’t upgrade your projects.
[Bill Davis] “I don’t know what AVID or others are doing in this area.”
In the case of Avid, you have two options with Media Composer. In one plan, you pay a larger fee upfront and then an annual support contract (subscription) from there on. If you lapse on the annual support, MC continues to work, but is frozen and not upgradeable beyond the last valid updated version. In the other plan, it’s pure subscription just like Adobe.
So what do you feel about Microsoft then? Do you use Word or Excel? Current or a legacy version?
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[andy patterson] “I myself would not have upgraded this year and with the CS paradigm I would not have to.”
Precisely the reason Adobe felt they had to move to subscription.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Oliver Peters] “[andy patterson] “I myself would not have upgraded this year and with the CS paradigm I would not have to.”
Precisely the reason Adobe felt they had to move to subscription.”
That is why I say we pay more and get less. I do hope the competition makes Adobe lower the price of the CC to $19.99 a month. That would be a fair price for the customer and Adobe.
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[andy patterson] ” I am saying the older CS paradigm was better.”
Better or not, the traditional software business model is disappearing and I don’t see that course changing. Also, don’t forget that towards the end of CS’s life Adobe changed the upgrade policy so that upgrade pricing only went back one version. So if you were on CS 5 you could get an upgrade discount to CS 6, but if you were on CS 4 and wanted to upgrade to CS 6 you would have to pay full retail for it. Creative Cloud or not, the Adobe was ending the ability for customers to ‘coast’ via the upgrade policy.
Hardware companies like Apple and BMD are transitioning software into a ‘freebie’ to help entice users to buy their hardware (which of course the software is locked to) which means software companies have to adapt or go under. Adobe and many, many other software companies (from video games to productivity apps) are moving to new business models (subscription, ad supported, freemium, etc.,) because they have little choice. Hell, even Microsoft (arguably the biggest computer software company ever) is pivoting away from a company that sells software into a company that sells hardware and subscriptions to software. The ripple effects of Apple’s restrictive sales polices in their App Stores and pricing polices for their first party software can’t be overstated, IMO.
[andy patterson] “At $14.95 a month more people would probably opt for the CC paradigm instead of the CS paradigm. See my point?”
How did you arrive at $14.95? I’d like Adobe to offer different application bundles for less, but $14.95 for everything just seems like a very low, and arbitrary, number. Avid’s annual subscription price is the same as Adobe’s yet with Adobe you get significantly more bang for your buck so should Avid charge $1.99 for MC?
Just speaking for myself, I’m less concerned with saving a few bucks today and more concerned with the long term health of the industry that makes the tools that I use to make a living. I’m really not a fan of hardware lock-in and/or race to the bottom pricing because customers ultimately lose in those situations. For example, I’m stuck using BM I/O hardware because I need it for Resolve, yet I’d prefer to be using AJA. I think the new color panels BM released look great, but I’d never consider buying them because they only work with Resolve.
I’d much rather pay a subscription to Adobe for CC than for Adobe to copy BM’s game plan and release Adobe brand I/O devices and Adobe Brand control panels that are tied to their software. I think users are best served when they have the freedom to choose what they think is the best hardware and best software for their needs, even if that means mixing and matching hardware and software from different venders.
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