Aharon Rabinowitz Blogs about Adobe Creative Cloud

All Bets Are Off Productins by Aharon Rabinowitz

Let me start off this post by saying that I do not work for Adobe. I have never been an Adobe Employee, and probably never will be one after this article goes out. I don’t owe Adobe anything… other than my career, as their software has allowed me to support myself and ultimately start a family. For me, that buys Adobe is a certain benefit of the doubt, until proven that they don’t deserve it.

Adobe is a company that makes tools we all love and rely on for our work in video post production. But with their latest announcement – that from here on in, all software will only be available through subscription – a lot of people are upset and feeling betrayed. I want to try to address it all in a balanced way. I’ll ask that you read all the way through because I am going to start with why, about certain things, you’re totally wrong. Then, I’ll move into why you’re also totally right – and have the right to feel angry and demand more.

I want to own my software!

Before we start – lets get something out of the way. YOU DO NOT, NOR EVER HAVE, OWNED YOUR ADOBE SOFTWARE. You have licensed it. You must follow certain guidelines in using it (such as not copying your software and giving it to a friend) or you invalidate that license. That doesn’t mean it’s even close to the same thing as the kind of licensing model Creative Cloud uses, but it please stop talking about ownership. It’s an illusion.

I recognize there is a difference between Creative Suite and Creative Cloud, in terms of how you pay and use it, but lets just stop calling it “ownership” and address the real issue:

The non-cloud versions of the Creative Suites allow you to continue to create an access your work in perpetuity without ever having to pay again. But If you have no choice but to use the creative cloud, should you stop paying, you lose both the ability to create and to open previously created work.

As I understand it, this is true and it totally sucks. Just so you know – I’m on your side. I am not happy about this. But as you’ll see, there’s more to it than that.
Why you are totally wrong about Creative Cloud being about Corporate Greed. And why you are totally wrong about it being a bad idea with little or no merit.

Let’s look at the result of that older Creative Suite (non-subscription) kind of system and how it’s effected things. read more...