I respectfully disagree. $600 USD per worker, per year is a massive expense for a small to medium firm, and those rates will only rise in the future. In my country at today’s exchange it's more like $830 per user per year! I much preferred the model of paying once and owning a copy of the software.
Sure you get updates now, Adobe was very bad at even basic patching before the CC era, they offer features that no one I know is requesting. It's like a fishmonger backing up the van and dumping a bunch of fish you don't need then billing you every month.
So bring on the competitors. I'm a big fan of Sketch on the Mac.
I was pretty specific about what I said. In the US it's $15 dollars a week for the software and $1000+ a week for the user. It's not a big cost if the software provides that individual with much value.
Sure, they are clearly ceding a chunk of the market to other companies. I don't think it's obvious that this is a bad business decision...
Relative to buying software outright, yes, it's a big cost. Any it's also annoying. You don't own the software, which ends up effecting you negatively in a myriad of small ways.
This argument is always brought out like a standard bearer. Adobe software was NEVER a buy it once, own it for life. Sure, that particular version, maybe. But nobody stays on that version forever. Pre-subscription days to CS bundles, the bundles were $1200-$1500USD. They would release a new version of software each year, and they would charge $600USD for the upgrade. So, your $1200 in, plus an annual $600 in upgrades. Pre CS bundles, it was $800 for Photoshop alone. Premiere was even more.
If you worked alone that might have worked. Sending/receiving files from someone with newer versions caused problems. I suffered through this once when doing 32page magazine layouts, and I was a version behind the printer. That experience alone convinced me to upgrade.
In my experience the printer was always a good few releases behind the current version. No-one wanted to upgrade unless they absolutely had to. The switch to InDesign from Quark was particularly drawn-out, and even then no one took Quark 5 files.
It’s very different now it’s all done by PDF - as long as it’s formatted correctly it doesn’t matter what program created it or how old it was.
Going further back to Aldus Pagemaker. Plus, I come from a time of Quark and SyQuest drives to move data around. Things were different in the stone ages. PDFs were not a thing people used.
When I worked in print design, we’d typically send two things to the printer: a zip of the Quark or InDesign “collect for output,” and a PDF for reference.
Later, though, I seem to recall some printers accepting PDF/x-1a files – I don’t know if the industry has transitioned to that now, or if some still prefer a collect for output.
I managed to get a new chair once. It took an ergonomics expert visit. Everyone was filled with envy from vp's down the line. In the end management pushed me into full time remote so they could take the chair.
If the moderately paid person is inefficient or unproductive because they don’t have a $600 piece of software, management is egregiously misguided about where to spend money. I mean if an add’l $600 spent on a position or role is the balance between being profitable and bankruptcy then something is seriously wrong in that company.
Sure they can have the user use a $0 piece of SW, but if it’s costing more than $50 a month in productivity via frustration, unfamiliarity or shortcoming (90% of the value at $0), Thats misuse of that person’s talent and detrimental to the success of the company.
I have a hard time seeing how sending you $600 has anything to do with the productivity of a tool. Most people design PCBs using Altium which is $10,000 per license. Are you saying companies should send you 10k because they could use Eagle instead?
$600 is a budget item that will be available next year to spend. If you never expense me you will never create the budget room for when you really need it.
If the size of your company allows for $10,000 software purchases I would expense me for 2 copies. Next year you can use that budget for post covid grow.
The idea is to pay me today to create budget room for you in the future for when you need that budget. By paying me $600 you create a budget increase that carries forward annually. Simply pay me yearly until you are ready to spend your free $600 budget.
The idea is you're spending $600 to use software that directly or indirectly contributes to the co's revenue. If you do it right, you make that $600 back and then some.
Sure you get updates now, Adobe was very bad at even basic patching before the CC era, they offer features that no one I know is requesting. It's like a fishmonger backing up the van and dumping a bunch of fish you don't need then billing you every month.
So bring on the competitors. I'm a big fan of Sketch on the Mac.