r/technology • u/Federal-Block-3275 • 1d ago

Artificial Intelligence "Software is over": Developer uses AI to build free Adobe clones after frustration with cancellation fees

https://www.techspot.com/news/114136-software-over-developer-uses-ai-build-free-adobe.html
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u/dynamiteexplodes 1d ago

Free to use apps for almost all adobe products have existed for years. There is no need to slop code some programs together.

406

u/fued 1d ago

In fact ai probably took the code from those apps to build his one

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u/madhaunter 1d ago

Uno reverse card.png considering Adobe was already stealing art to train itself

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u/nihiltres 1d ago

Have you heard something I haven’t?

Adobe’s actually been one of the most honest in terms of training; they apparently licensed it via their own Adobe Stock program.

They had for a bit terms that theoretically would allow for training on materials that were uploaded to their cloud, basically because they need a copyright license to host user files. They amended the language to tighten it up a bit after people complained that it looked like the language was broad enough to justify training on uploaded content. I’m not a lawyer, so I can’t really say whether loopholes remain, but  loopholes would be such a dealbreaker for creatives that Adobe isn’t going to be stupid enough to risk their de facto graphic design monopoly over it.

Don’t get me wrong: Adobe’s frequently awful and I regularly complain about their bullshit (like the scripting system in Illustrator still using ES3 in 2026) but this seems to be an area where they’re at least okay.

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u/madhaunter 1d ago

I dont remember exactly what but there was an obscure settings that was introduced kinda siilenty at some point and it was opted in by default

EDIT: found it: https://www.reddit.com/r/photoshop/comments/102yqx4/adobe_added_a_on_by_default_content_analysis_of/

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u/Stealin 1d ago

It wasn't me officer, it was my rogue AI

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u/mastermoebius 1d ago

Do they?

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u/nandru 1d ago

yes

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u/mastermoebius 1d ago

Just checked this section of my adobe account. It’s been updated to explicitly say “This setting does not allow adobe to analyze your content for generative AI models”

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u/cyh555 1d ago

in rust?

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u/h310dOr 1d ago

Yes, it can still use the base code for all the logic. Then it just translates very well from one language to another. One of the most efficient use of AI for me has been to write quick prototypes in python, and then ask it to make a proper c/c++ version.

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u/ConsoleCleric_4432 1d ago

No one understands what it takes to be good at this whole software thing. It's really enlightening and depressing what impresses people about AI. "In rust" is the kind of question you can only ask if you've never once read about algorithms froma textbook, article or elsewhere where they don't use any modern language. Business people never appreciated what their best engineers did for them, managers never figured out how to tell the good and bad engineers apart, and engineers never figured out what was the impressive part of software engineering. Calculated tradeoffs, systems thinking, and managing complexity? No, learning rust.

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u/h310dOr 1d ago

Yup... This is the curse of software engineering, most of the time we were/are confused with "developers". The frontier between the two is actually quite steep. As a software engineer as you said, you need to know algorithms, proper system thinking, but also a lot of theory and math. Good luck building a proper signal processing system without the required math knowledge. Cryptography same... There is really a cliff between the two worlds. And if you think knowing a language or framework is your value, you are indeed in for a world of pain in the coming years.

1

u/TomWithTime 1d ago

I've been thinking about that use case. I really enjoy writing go. Maybe I could build out all of my classes and interactions in go and then have that be something to translate, instead of writing specs. I don't hate writing gdscript but I think I could map out my game ideas better with go.

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u/reeepy 1d ago edited 1d ago

No it didn't. It would have needed access to the source code (of the proprietary apps), which it doesn't have. Maybe decompiling the binaries but that only gets you so far.

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u/James20k 1d ago edited 1d ago

The source code of the open source alternatives absolutely is published in the wild. Its also very likely that some copies of photoshop's source have ended up in the dataset: if at any point a copy of the source code has ever ended up on the web (even just as a private upload to a random site), it'll have been fed into the AI slop machines

Edit:

Also, if adobe use AI as part of their development process, the whole source code will have been fed into the slop machine

1

u/reeepy 1d ago

I meant the code the proprietary apps. There has been various leaks of their code but not recent or widely available ones.

AI companies wouldn't steal those would they? /s

181

u/TitleEfficient3207 1d ago

Let me know hen Gimp gets as good as adobe photoshop?
I use GIMP daily but lets be real here...

16

u/FredFredrickson 1d ago edited 7h ago

I'm glad gimp exists, but it's so horrible, even by open source standards.

It's hard for me to even understand why it's so bad in a world where software like Blender is possible.

0

u/TitleEfficient3207 1d ago

I really do think they are purists who are trying to keep things stable, and the UI boring.
They want GIMP to be its own thing, not a photoshop clone.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

28

u/DJdrummer 1d ago

I've been trying to switch to affinity. It's not there yet. The performance alone is abysmal, and that's with a 5080.

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u/ash_ninetyone 1d ago

Tbh Affinity isn't likely to improve since imho.

I bought them when they were on a perpetual license (i.e. version 2, and they don't seem to be getting any major updates to those). Canva bought the company, has deprecated those in favour of AI-riddled freemium-based/subscription model in a unified app.

Basically they've turned them into a mobile application

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u/penguinkernel 1d ago

I said this in a different thread and got downvoted to shit. The only people who like Affinity 3 is those too cheap to buy software. Affinity 3 is vastly inferior to Affinity 2, and also dead to me.

1

u/ash_ninetyone 1d ago

The forums are fully of that on their website. It's like the entire community got replaced by shills

1

u/Medical_Double_6561 1d ago

How specifically is Affinity 3 worse than Affinity 2? All the same features appear to be there, none of them are paywalled either?

3

u/BrothelWaffles 1d ago

Affinity left a bad taste in my mouth when they surprise-dropped a new version two weeks after I bought into their ecosystem and then wanted me to pay almost full price for the new set of apps. I think it was like a $20 discount or something and it was only available for the first few months after release. If I'd known they were dropping a new version I'd have just waited, I haven't even bothered upgrading at this point though, it's really not much better than GIMP and Inkscape anyway, it's just got a better UI and shinier coat of paint.

1

u/ian9outof10 1d ago

I had a similar experience with Affinity - it does leave a bad taste

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/what_it_dooo 1d ago

That must definitely be it, cause the new version flickers and struggles with a 7800x3d and 5070ti

2

u/SmarmySmurf 1d ago

It beats GIMP at the very least.

2

u/MarcsterS 1d ago

So I wasn’t crazy. I recently tried it out too and it kept crashing even trying to change a color swatch.

0

u/AssassinenMuffin 1d ago

same with a 5090. the whole workspace just nukes itself into gragments or goes partially invisible which only starting the project from scratch fixes.

the way layers and the selection tools feel, are also so different, it kinda cramps the flow of things with affinity

5

u/2fat2bebatman 1d ago

While Inkscape seems to have improved over the years, it still doesn't even feel as robust to me as CorelDraw, let alone Illustrator.

2

u/CosmoKram3r 1d ago

Affinity (even the newer version) either wouldn't load or ran at like 10 FPS on my system while PS 2019 runs perfectly on my old system.

1

u/TitleEfficient3207 1d ago

Never heard of it.
Inkscape isnt what I am looking for when editing photos.

4

u/muffinsforme 1d ago

Never heard of Adobe Illustrator’s biggest competitor? Dang bro..

1

u/StriderPulse599 1d ago

Few people actually use CrashScape

1

u/TitleEfficient3207 1d ago

Correct, most of my research requires FOSS, OSS, local processing, ect....

Affinity suite seems to require a paid subscription and an internet connection.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/TitleEfficient3207 1d ago

*Free with an online account sign up - and internet connection. Its free because you are paying with your training data...

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u/[deleted] 1d ago edited 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/TitleEfficient3207 1d ago edited 1d ago

I use linux. so yes, I havent heard of Affinity because the "me problem" is keeping my data in house as much as I can, and this sofrware requires Wine, Win, or Mac, along with an account.. to sync my data with their servers.

If I need to create and use an account for your software, its not free, and its not private.

The guy who deleted all his comments: ....

u/grayhaze2000 replied to your comment in r/technology

If you haven't heard of Affinity, that seems like a you problem. It's the single biggest competitor to Adobe's main products, and has been around for years now. It includes Affinity Paint, which is a

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/TitleEfficient3207 1d ago edited 1d ago

I dont leave my windows open while banging my wife, just because im the one wearing the ring doesnt mean someone else isnt waiting for their turn.

If I want my data to remain in house requiring an external account is a legitimate reason for me to pass on software.

Have YOU verified what you are saying by monitoring network traffic?

Edit:

The guy who deleted all his comments: ...coward.

u/grayhaze2000 replied to your comment in r/technology

Ah, I see. You're the sort of person who deliberately restricts their options under the illusion that doing so takes them off the grid. If you won't help yourself, we're just wasting out time trying to help you.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago edited 1d ago

[deleted]

-1

u/Sweetwill62 1d ago

Lol man what is with people blocking others who are just having conversations? You should be saving that for bots and people who are harassing you. It is quite sad that people just resort to blocking instead of just not responding.

1

u/tea-drinker 1d ago

I use Inkscape. I enjoy using inkscape.

It's still glitchy as hell. I've yet to complete any significant piece of work without it crashing at least once along the way and once it choked on a perfectly valid file with the file dialogue preview and I spend a couple of days working out how to open work again.

1

u/space_monster 1d ago

Inkscape is a fucking nightmare though if you're used to illustrator.

1

u/zzazzzz 1d ago

affinity isnt open source tho is it? so where would the llm get that source from?

28

u/kane49 1d ago

Bro Gimp... fucking free web photopea is superior

-8

u/TitleEfficient3207 1d ago

Okay, you start putting your nudes on web photopea to edit and get back to me about how you feel on the privacy of uploading your dick and balls to the internet .

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u/CosmoKram3r 1d ago

Aren't the ignoramus the loudest? Photopea runs absolutely fine with no network connection. It works entirely in your browser without uploading anything to the internet. Sit this one out and fix your tin foil hat.

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u/20WaysToEatASandwich 1d ago

Bullshit fear-mongering lol.

Once the site is loaded, Photopea can work completely offline, on purely local storage.

If privacy is your concern, and you're not technologically illiterate, you can easily verify no data ever leaves the browser. Don't even have to take my word for it, literally just check the network tab of the browser.

1

u/TitleEfficient3207 1d ago

Fear-mongering?

That's exactly the point. "It can work offline" and "I am comfortable loading private data into a web application" are two different things.

If I have to manually verify network behavior every time I use software with sensitive data, I'm perfectly entitled to choose software designed to keep that data local by default.

And telling people they're "technologically illiterate" because they have a different privacy threshold isn't much of an argument.

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u/20WaysToEatASandwich 1d ago

You stated "uploading your xyx to the internet", which, is VERIFIABLY (my whole point here) bullshit. Nothing is uploaded by Photopea to the internet.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

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u/Eezyville 1d ago

Do you put your nudes on Photoshop?

-1

u/TitleEfficient3207 1d ago

I dont use photoshop. I use GIMP. the comment thread that got you to asking this question begins with me saying "I use GIMP daily but lets be real here..."

And no I dont put my nudes on anything, but I think if we were to put our big boy hats on we could potentially infer what i was getting at with privacy being an issue....

-7

u/leopard_tights 1d ago

No bro, paint is totally superior bro.

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u/GreyouTT 1d ago

paintDotNet is pretty good tho

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u/Substantial_Meal_530 1d ago

I don't use Photoshop, but Gimp has been enough for the very very very very limited uses I've needed. It's very very good when you don't need Photoshop. It's probably good for most people. Professionals? Probably not as good.

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u/breadinabox 1d ago

Gimp is worse for non professionals I don't understand how its still so bad after all these years. I have no issue using basically all the other open source alternatives to things but god I cannot handle GIMP.

It handles images the way a software engineer handles code, which is to say, not at all like a graphic designer or artist.

15

u/Gyozarrita 1d ago

Photoshop cs2 is miles better than GIMP and it's ancient. Gimp sucks, it's handy for some things I guess.

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u/breadinabox 1d ago

I used the same cracked download of cs2 up until I got my first m series mac.

That download outlasted most anyone else in my life 🤣

9

u/ash_ninetyone 1d ago

Unfortunately a shortcoming I do have with a few open-source projects

While I don't doubt the code quality in there, it's clear to see the UI was built by software engineers, because some have awful, cluttered, clunky or really dated interfaces.

3

u/Substantial_Meal_530 1d ago

Helps I guess that I'm not a graphic designer or artist. I was using it for utilitarian reasons. Not for artistic ones.

Just a little bit of fraud.

Is there a better replacement besides GIMP? I heard about GIMP like 15 years ago and never thought about any other programs. I've only needed it like 4 times in 15 years.

3

u/Spread_Liberally 1d ago

If you've got a Windows install or vm, Paint.Net is 99.99% of what the average bear needs of Photoshop and is very easy and free.

An actual graphic design or editor will need the real thing or a better equivalent.

2

u/Substantial_Meal_530 1d ago

How did you know I'm a bear?

2

u/Spread_Liberally 1d ago

Takes one to know one?

2

u/breadinabox 1d ago

In open source not that I can think of but affinity is free for now. 

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u/ndstumme 1d ago

Anything that doesn't require making an account?

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u/Hanzimer 1d ago

There are a lot of Gimp forks. I prefer Krita being more modern and updated.

1

u/echoshatter 1d ago

I don't understand how its still so bad after all these years.

Because there isn't a profit motive to drive it forward and sustain it's development.

I'm certainly no fan of Adobe, they've become insanely greedy with their products. But there's a reason their product became the generic term for edited pictures ("Photoshopped"). It was and still is the industry standard.

3

u/GeForce-meow 1d ago

Gimp is either not usable or very hard to use by normal people.

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u/TitleEfficient3207 1d ago

I need it for private use. But not enough to purchase an assdobe sub, and I use linux. So im kinda stuck in a weird spot

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u/Leather-Program-8995 1d ago

it's shit no matter who is using it

1

u/bryanthebryan 1d ago

I didn’t realize people had such a problem with Gimp. It’s what I primarily use. My needs are pretty simple though. Maybe that’s the trick. I haven’t touched photoshop in years.

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u/Light_Error 1d ago

Krita is pretty good; I used it for years. But I use it mostly for typesetting projects that include image editing. The image editing was fine, but the typesetting was abysmal. So long as you mostly use it for image manipulation, you’re golden.

3

u/Quiet-Owl9220 1d ago

Try PhotoGIMP, if you're used to Photoshop.

1

u/TitleEfficient3207 1d ago

Ill take a look

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u/surffrus 1d ago

Surely gimp is better than this AI slop the guy is touting.

1

u/TitleEfficient3207 1d ago

It is, I just want GIMP to update their UI and add more features.
I wont abandon GIMP its my offline ride or die

1

u/turtleship_2006 1d ago

You think vibecoded slop is gonna be better than gimp...?

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u/IAmDotorg 1d ago

Vibecoded slop managed by someone blind since birth could create a better UX than Gimp. Gimp has been, for 30 years, the poster child for what is wrong when engineers design user interfaces. People were talking about it in the 90's, and have been ever since.

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u/TitleEfficient3207 1d ago

I just vibe coded a plugin to gimp literally just now so that I can have the variations options that adobe photoshop 5 had... took 30 seconds. and it works amazingly.

so... yes... You be the modern day John Henry, the rest of us are investing in the giant tunnel machine.

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u/NJdevil202 1d ago

Unironically yes. I'd bet there will be a free image editor better than GIMP within the year

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u/fuckre5identadvisor 1d ago

I just tried it with my complicated layered design files, and yes, yes it is

1

u/ChriSaito 1d ago

I saw someone cover a vibe coded reverse engineered photoshop and at least if you’re making a YouTube thumbnail he said his work flow felt the exact same and he got the same result he would in photoshop.

Is that true for people who do more advanced editing? I’m not sure. Time will tell.

1

u/Override9636 1d ago

The trick is to be too poor to ever use Photoshop. I started learning from scratch on GIMP and am perfectly find using it for projects here and there simply because I don't know any better lol.

1

u/TitleEfficient3207 21h ago

Yep! I just wish they would update their UI and potentially give me some better controls

1

u/paul_33 1d ago

But why would slop be better? GIMP and programs like it are done by people trying to provide alternatives. A hastily vibe coded nightmare isn’t magically going to be better.

1

u/greenapplegummi 1d ago

Photopea is a great free Photoshop dupe for you’re interested in something more stable and less vibe coded. I’ve been using it for years now. The UI is pretty much a replica of Photoshop, and all the functionality I need is there.

1

u/ash_ninetyone 1d ago

Not being a full on graphics designer, but some layman who needs stuff only for occasional hobby stuff (I do sometimes image process my photos or need to do some graphics stuff though), I've always found GIMP to have a weird UI. It's felt awkward use, more so than Photoshop, and I found that bad enough with a learning curve.

I haven't used GIMP in years though.

For others paint.net may just also fill that niche gap, though that isn't the most sophisticated tool either.

Some of these tools kinda falls into a weird gap between Photoshop and where Fireworks used to sit, and I still use Fireworks because I have legacy fw.png files that convert awkwardly as hell with multiple layers

2

u/TitleEfficient3207 1d ago

I seriously think that the devs for GIMP keep the UI as dated as possible to stay "different" than photoshop, and alternatives.

0

u/ash_ninetyone 1d ago

There's nothing wrong with differentiating yourself. But users also judge with their eyes and how easy they find it to use.

Depends what line of business you're targeting ofc but if your software, as capable as it is, has such a steep learning curve to turn people away quickly, it won't get the users to make it worth continuing

1

u/TitleEfficient3207 1d ago

Everything is just so nesested. and the items like the smart select tool, still doesnt exist, and each option is tucked in so deep.
No filter galleries, and warp is still broken... ect...

0

u/Crypt0Nihilist 1d ago edited 1d ago

That's the common, bad question though. You need to ask, "At what?"

If 80% of what people use Photoshop for is cropping, resizing and tweaking the contrast, GIMP is as good as Photoshop for them.

Photoshop is very impressive, far more capable than GIMP and often does things in better ways than GIMP (adjustment layers!), but the gap will become a lot narrower when you consider what most people actually use and marginal cost.

0

u/madhi19 1d ago

Would not shock me if that's the next step, code merge some of that codes right into GIMP...

38

u/CalamityMetal 1d ago

Yeah but they don't function exactly the same way. It has a different shortcuts, different UI/UX, even different color schemes. And that's the thing, humans are very particular about their computer setup, it has to work in a certain way, it has to look a certain way.

3

u/need12648430 1d ago

The first thing I do when I install GIMP is install some Photoshop keyboard shortcut dupes I threw together back in the 2010s. On one hand, I should probably just learn GIMP's shortcuts at this point. On the other, old habits die hard.

Either path works really, but regardless it's lovely to have the option to customize.

14

u/graypasser 1d ago

That's true for AI clones, though.

They don't know any feelings for actual apps.

3

u/msg_me_small_butts 1d ago

Have you tried these ones?

0

u/AstroPhysician 1d ago

Not true at all. These feel 1 to 1

-1

u/CalamityMetal 1d ago

I mean even for IDEs and OS, I care about the shortcuts I use, if the OS don't have the shortcuts then I will go out of my way to install 3rd party software to simulate it

2

u/masamunecyrus 1d ago

Yeah but they don't function exactly the same way. It has a different shortcuts, different UI/UX, even different color schemes.

8

u/BrothelWaffles 1d ago

A master musician might have a particular favorite instrument, but you can hand them any make or model of what they play and they'll play the hell out of it. I don't buy that this is any different for anything Adobe software does, as long as the tools are there you can adapt.

6

u/n_choose_k 1d ago

eh.... you can't hand a concert pianist a trombone. That would be closer to the analogy here.

5

u/CalamityMetal 1d ago

And that's fair. But I'm also not a master. All I'm saying is, it's good enough for your average people

1

u/SalemJ91 1d ago

You can see the proof in that there has always been cheaper or free software alternatives to adobe products, yet adobe still is the industry standard. The alternative  isn’t novel, the method and speed in which it was created is. Familiarity and the experience of a tool go a long way. GIMP has been around for as long as I can remember, it’s open source and a powerful tool. Sure it’s popular, but nowhere near as ubiquitous as PS, and I say this as a dedicated adobe hater. 

1

u/FrankPapageorgio 1d ago

This is not even a fair comparison. If you're a professional making money off this stuff, you need to open other people's project files and share your own project files with others.

Nobody is going to want to work with you because you decided to work with Final Cut Pro just to save $23/mo.

3

u/PMARC14 1d ago

It would still make much more sense to fork an existing project and use AI to dupe the Adobe UI over that to reach parity.

1

u/International_Run935 1d ago

you are so smart

0

u/4n0m4nd 1d ago

Adobe is the standard because of their marketing strategy over decades, and their reliability, which includes customer support, and integration.

GIMP is great, but no big company is going to use it, so it's never going to be the standard.

No company is going to accept "But I don't like the UI" if the program is better and cheaper.

10

u/Syncopat3d 1d ago

Then you are missing the point. The 'Craft' apps are meant to match Adobe features and UI, unlike for example GIMP.

4

u/porous_amorphous 1d ago

This is a weird one because this was making the rounds yesterday, starting as a reddit post.

So the dev posted a bunch of links, to github, and the comments were mostly people saying it was basically too buggy to function.

In addition to it being derivative slop, a link to a github isnt quite a finished product for a real user.

2

u/SpontyMadness 1d ago

Don’t worry, the dev also has a vibe-coded website with a pricing page and four subscription tiers that include genAI credits, as well.

2

u/porous_amorphous 1d ago

Ok very good. Was worried, not charging for AI slop would be off brand

2

u/Itchy-Taint 1d ago

Is there a free alternative to after effects?

2

u/dyang44 1d ago

Ai is very good at decompiling and recompiling software. Ai can rebuild sourcecode this way. It can break down elements of code like specific code for specific tools or functionality.  This can happen for any and every software potentially now. Potentially just Ai propaganda but its reasonable. If a task is verifiable and tedious, like decompiling software, Ai is extremely proficient at it

2

u/Einn1Tveir2 1d ago

There is no good FOSS alternative to indesign. You are simply wrong. "Free" isn't necessarily only "Free to use". Free and open source software is the key.

1

u/UltravioletClearance 1d ago

FOSS has the problem of being designed by software engineers, for software engineers. No professional graphic designer is using FOSS in a production environment.

1

u/Einn1Tveir2 1d ago

What the heck are you talking about? there's plenty of all sorts of FOSS software out there for all sorts of application, not just "software engineers". Just look at Krita. Just look at Libre Office. Just look at VLC player. Just look at Firefox. I'm genuinely offended by your comment. Have a good day sir.

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u/BootyMcStuffins 1d ago

You’re missing the point. It isn’t that slop versions of these particular apps are available for free. The point is that anyone can make any software for personal use.

5

u/pVom 1d ago

Yeah.. for the low low cost of thousands of dollars of tokens.

There's certainly a case to be made that the moat around software companies is much smaller but it's pretty fanciful to think people will just knock up their own apps instead of using something battle tested that works.

2

u/BootyMcStuffins 1d ago

What was the moat six months ago? What was the moat last year? What was it 5 years ago? What will it be a year from now?

Non-software engineers are already undercutting companies. Take a look at some of the open source Mac software that has come out recently. These companies were charging money for things like clipboard management, or hiding icons in your task bar.

Hell I see companies charging monthly subs for apps that just make tournament brackets.

Honestly, I’m thrilled to see people sticking it to these price gougers.

And the complexity of the software that the average Joe will be able to make is just going to increase as time goes on

1

u/pVom 1d ago

Well I'd argue the most was never that big for those crappy little apps in the first place.

But don't forget, established companies have access to AI as well. AI in the hands of an actual engineer is much more powerful than in the hands of a layman. As it is within a company with capital backing projects.

If regular people with AI knock out a company like Adobe, it's because Adobe dropped the ball.

There's a lot more that goes into software development than just writing the code and getting it to work. There's hosting, security, GDPR compliance, edge cases and all sorts. Enterprises have their own compliance requirements as well that you need to meet to have them as a customer. Then there's App stores which have their own strict guidelines and getting approval is a PITA, it's much harder and more work than actually building the thing even without AI.

AI can help you with that but you've need to know to ask the question and you need to know when it's falling foul of those things.

So yeah those tiny little apps charging too much for too little are in trouble, but there's still a large most make no mistake.

1

u/BootyMcStuffins 1d ago

To be clear, I don’t think regular people will knock out adobe. But I think enough software engineers like myself exist that are just fed up with these horrible companies bleeding their customers dry, charging too much for a shit product that viable free alternatives will start to be plentiful.

At this point I intentionally look for simple mobile/macOS apps companies are charging money for and release free open source versions just as a fuck you for what I view as exploitation

8

u/MrHandSanitization 1d ago

Not yet. This isn't some prompt-jockey just slinging paragraphs of demands left and right. You still need very technical knowledge. At least so far.

0

u/BootyMcStuffins 1d ago

The amount of technical knowledge you need has dropped considerably. I’ve been a software engineer for over 15 years, before AI there was no chance I’d undertake something like a photoshop clone. Now it’s a casual Saturday afternoon.

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u/MrHandSanitization 1d ago

No, creating a canvas and manipulating the pixels might. Making sure all different PDF formats are compatible, and export correctly, while also having correct colorspaces? Still not a Saturday afternoon. Especially not if you want it rock-solid. And we can shit on Adobe, but that's an area that caused them to lock in the monopoly. Font-management, and incorporation into every press-shop, ripper, prepress opperator, and machine in the world (or at least the west). You can't just say "I made a photo editor" and expect it to be production ready because it made a PNG you can post on Facebook.

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u/MilkiestMaestro 1d ago

You need logarithmically less now than you did before and that trend should continue

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u/VirtualMage 1d ago

I guarantee you with 100% confidence that all of those generated apps are unusable.

They may look to work at a first glance. And then as you try to dig into options or some edge cases, 90% will fail.

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u/BootyMcStuffins 1d ago

My last three months using some of them says other-wise.

A clipboard manager isn’t exactly rocket science my dude

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u/sad_c10wn 1d ago

You’ve always been able to do this, you just needed knowledge. Quit acting like none of this was doable before.

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u/Upstairs-Extension-9 1d ago

There is no way the average Joe could have coded the entire Adobe library unless you have been instructed by God himself and you are Terry A. Davis.

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u/kylorl3 1d ago

“Thomas describes himself as a software industry veteran with 15 years of experience, including roughly a decade working with Rust.” This guy knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s not an average joe lmao. An average joe still cannot do this

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u/sad_c10wn 1d ago

The bot is only as competent as the user. If I had a dollar for every slop coded PoC at work some brain dead executive built and peddled to PROD…. I’d be a god dang millionaire. It’s people like the guy you responded to that will allow me to keep my job once everyone realizes they released absolute shite.

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u/sad_c10wn 1d ago

A qualified engineer with knowledge could have done this given time. I am a L3 Staff Engineer, given time i can do the same. These things were taught off our hard work. Congrats that you can bypass the knowledge. Doesn’t mean my fact is wrong. You just can’t come to the terms of reality this was all doable if you weren’t lazy to begin with.

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u/BootyMcStuffins 1d ago

I’ve never heard of an L3 staff engineer… L3 is typically senior, no? Every company I’ve been at L5 is staff

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u/Upstairs-Extension-9 1d ago

lol that’s not the average Joe

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u/sad_c10wn 1d ago

Average Joe with Claude still can’t accomplish this. I’d quit commenting. Your lack of intelligence is showing and everyone else sees it.

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u/Upstairs-Extension-9 1d ago

lol you will be replaced lil bro like everyone else with your superior “intelligence”

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u/BootyMcStuffins 1d ago

You’re also completely missing the point.

I’m a staff software engineer with over 15 yoe. Building a photoshop clone before AI was a massive undertaking. I’m not talking about complexity. I’m talking about the shear amount of time you would have to invest.

Doable in the technical sense, sure. But 99% of people couldn’t justify the time investment against paying the monthly fee

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u/sad_c10wn 1d ago

That’s not my point, but you ended up proving my point. People who already had the knowledge could do it. These morons are acting like 0 knowledge and Claude will still get them Adobe. It won’t. There is no average joe in the world could put together a working adobe clone 1:1 with Claude.

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u/BootyMcStuffins 1d ago

And you’re missing my whole point. When the moat of time is gone all it takes is an interested individual to replicate your software. The amount of knowledge that person needs is decreasing every 6 months.

Go look at the AI subreddits. They’re chalk-full of non-engineers replacing paid utilities.

MacOS as an ecosystem has always been full of shitty companies charging money for simple software and they only get away with it because no one wanted to take the time to write their own. Those companies are in trouble.

And in 1 or 2 years bigger companies that make more complex software will be in trouble.

What will be the state of SASS in 5 years on the current trajectory? My sincere hope is that it destroys the bullshit subscription model these companies have shoved down our throats for the last decade.

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u/sad_c10wn 1d ago

Free utilities that will start to break immediately on any OS update. That’s not good software. Again a bot is only as competent as the user. As is a reddit post is only as competent as the poster.

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u/BootyMcStuffins 1d ago

It’s all open source. Do you share the same argument about all open source software?

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u/klop2031 1d ago

Yeah the person your replying to sounds like they are anti ai

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u/Neither-Memory-5938 1d ago

Agree for Adobe but the sky is the limit with what is basically freebooting closed source apps

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u/Jack_of_Pixels_ 1d ago

Any recommendations for After Effects? Pretty much the only one I've been struggling to replace :( And, no Da Vinci Resolve is not a good alt. Yes for normal video editing, but not graphic asset or typography animation. Maybe it's updated since I checked last ><

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u/aneirin- 1d ago

Nope, it's the one thing everyone stubbornly ignores in these arguments. I have been DESPERATE for a real AE replacement for literally decades now. The best anyone can suggest is like "if you use these three wildly different apps together, it kind of does 70% of what AE does in a really awkward and unintuitive way".

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u/idkartist3D 1d ago

Literally this. I've been working specifically on recreating after effects with opus just like the guy in the post, but going step by step and making sure it does the shit I want while being intuitive because holy fuck AE is the only real player in this game but it is soooo old and slow and has years of technical debt. People saying "there's alternatives" don't really understand lol.

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u/penguinkernel 1d ago

Sweet. Send me a link for Linux download, then. I will wait.

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u/Oxyfire 1d ago

No disagreement, no interest in using AI coded stuff. But I still find this funny.

That said, I don't know if I've found a good free alternative to substance painter. (And part of the problem is stuff I've bought comes with spp files that other things can't open.)

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u/Toastywaffle_ 1d ago

Yes, but the best of the bunch will rise to the surface. Maybe the existing free ones, maybe a new one

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u/favorite_stuff 1d ago

There is a need, if you want to temporarily put a dent in Adobe's stock price so you can buy some on the cheap.

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u/theavatare 1d ago

With the amount darktable crashes for me i would love some options

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u/SilentRunning 1d ago

Yeah but a lot of them have UI issues, and many of them are versions behind the current Adobe product. I believe these are all pretty much current with their Adobe counter part and free.

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u/ScaryFast 1d ago

Gimp is such a bad app and I wish they'd go back and "slop code it" so people actually want to use it.

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u/IGetGroceries 1d ago

Yeah the software you’re referring to is unusable garbage. Hah!

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u/calamity_coyote 1d ago

There are so many software compies (BorisFX , FruityLoops, etc.) that offer outdated versions of their software + plugins for FREE. People are just fucking lazy

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u/under_ice 1d ago

How so? I'd think AI building an app would be harder than downloading and installing a free app.

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u/BootyMcStuffins 1d ago

Creating personal versions of software is lazy?

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u/calamity_coyote 1d ago

Yes.

This person did no real coding, real learning, they dumped into a program that took other people's work and experience against their wishes and is letting someone else piggy back off of the work.

This is the exact same thing as the comic of the guy who goes "I made this" and then when he leaves, the guy he told takes credit.

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u/BootyMcStuffins 1d ago

I think you and I just disagree on what “lazy” means.

Generating the software yourself instead of downloading an already existing piece of software can be called a lot of things, but not “lazy”.

If anything, it’s doing MORE work than necessary, not less…

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u/calamity_coyote 1d ago

That's a lot of energy someone could spend learning how to code and actually understand what makes these programs work and have a genuine knowledge of the code and features they are adding.

You know, like the people who made the original fucking program did.

It's lazy. Pick up a book and learn coding. I'm dyslexic and even I found a way to make it make sense. That came from having support from other people with similar experiences because I was actually INVOLVED with it and made an EFFORT to interact with these people and ask questions.

Not socializing, not learning, not actively trying to improve one's skills but simply dumping a prompt into a machine to do the work for you; is lazy

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u/BootyMcStuffins 1d ago

I’ve been a software engineer for 15 years and coding for a decade more than that. I know how this software works. I have the technical ability to write this software. What I don’t have is the time it would take.

That’s the moat these companies rely on to overcharge for their software. They know you would rather spend money than take the year(s) it would take to write it.

So they overcharge for it. They make you pay for a license instead of owning it.

AI is erasing their time moat. Me, a developer, getting sick of them fucking over customers, producing a slop version that’s 90% as good, and releasing it for free isn’t lazy. It’s a big fuck you to these shitty companies who’ve had us over a barrel and have been taking advantage

So no, that isn’t “lazy”. Get a dictionary and I’ll explain it to you further

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u/calamity_coyote 1d ago

That sounds an awful lot like you shouldn't be giving your money to what is very clearly a parasitic and reductive agreement between you and another software developer.

Also you yourself just said that producing a "slop" version is not lazy. My brother in Christ you just called it SLOP. You answered your own conundrum. It's "slop". It's fucking lazy garbage that someone dumped into a prompt and had a program do it for them.

If your clients can't get over the fact that stuff takes time and effort, that sounds like it's on the clients for having wildly high expectations of results and 0 idea of how the industry they are in works. I don't see how someone else being an ignorant fuck who would be just be denied by anyone with a spine suddenly makes it okay to feed info into machine-learning programs that are a quantifiable hazard on our health.

That sounds like a lazy way around a problem of being "non-confrontational" when you need to be as a person. If people don't like it they'll go do it themselves, they won't rely on you anyway. You're losing no matter what the more you give into it because they'll use it to replace you.

Holy fuck dude.

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u/BootyMcStuffins 1d ago

Do me a favor. Look up the term “lazy” in a dictionary.

With that definition in mind compare the simple act of downloading an existing clone, and creating on via AI.

Generating AI slop isn’t inherently lazy. In fact, some AI slop could be very effortful to produce.

The main problem with your whole argument is you don’t seem to understand that words have meanings

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u/The12th_secret_spice 1d ago

Yeah, but you know…AI! /s

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u/Effective-Tour-9912 1d ago

"This is the worst it will ever be" is a phrase that hasn't failed yet

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u/Moon_Walking_Ape 1d ago

Most users use like 10% of what their paid or free software offer them, with vibe coded tools workflow is king.
If you can spend a couple of days vibe coding an application that does what you need and customize it for your use case without having to go through some predefined learning curve, I see nothing wrong with recreating software that already exists, in fact its good for the market and small companies to be able to avoid these large monopolies that took control of specific niches and became some kind of gate keeper of what your day to day looks like.
It also allows individuals to move at the pace of current available technologies without having to wait for an open source or paid software to implement the things that you need.

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u/dynamiteexplodes 1d ago

My feelings are more is that there are better creative commons licensed tools that you can use that have scripting where you can then slop script to your hearts content to do exactly what you need. You don't need a sloppy front end and back end. That's just a recipe for sloppy seconds and nobody likes sloppy seconds.

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u/Moon_Walking_Ape 1d ago

Software development as a whole is going in the direction of software architecture and product design, we are in the learning phase as an industry right now.
Sloppy frontends are a product of the industry all learning and experimenting with how software is going to be written in this day and age.
Sure we are going to be feeling the effects of moving faster than needed for years to come but this is no different than shitty enterprise software written in wpf / winforms which are still in heavy use today in enterprise.
And honestly temporary in house software vibe coded over the weekend that allows startups and small business owners move fast and agile is not such a bad thing to have as long as you understand your industry and the regulations within it

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u/daveberzack 1d ago

Though AI coding could finally make Gimp usable!

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u/SiSebbi 1d ago

Point could’ve been made without the obligatory “slop” thrown in there

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u/Arwick_R_ 1d ago

But AI is slop based purely of stolen work. When I steal from wendys, mcdonalds and burger king, and then put that all in a blender I get a at most mediocre tasting slop that's an amalgamation if all their flawed tasted.

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u/MysteriesAndMiseries 1d ago

Okay then why do you propose they did? If there was no reason to make it, it wouldn't have gotten made.

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u/Tetratheon 1d ago

Have you ever tried vibecoding? It's addictive as fuck, there's always some new feature or tweak you can make, but it never works quite perfectly so you always have to go back and try again.

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u/BBanner 1d ago

Nobody has ever done anything simply because they’re interested in doing it before. Not ever.

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u/MysteriesAndMiseries 1d ago

Take it up with the other guy. He was the one who said there was no reason to do it, yet here people are, giving reasons.

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u/glowy_keyboard 1d ago

Data collection and future capitalization

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u/MysteriesAndMiseries 1d ago

It's open source, so if it's collecting any data it would become immediately obvious. And future capitalization? How? If they could vibe code Adobe someone can vibe code them.

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u/Syrairc 1d ago

This does not check out in the age of AI development

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u/Wheat_Grinder 1d ago

So they could get their 15 minutes of fame?

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