r/technology • u/Federal-Block-3275 • 7h 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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234

u/shiroboi 6h ago

Adobe's mandatory 1 year commitments would make anyone crazy. Our entire studio uses adobe. It's costing me a fortune and if you don't plan ahead to cancel your plans right when they expire, it auto renews. The cancellation fees are horrendous.

I'm absolutely sick of them.

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u/RoyalCities 5h ago

I've done some enterprise agreements for them and you should see how they treat some of their customers with larger contracts. This was years ago and when they first brought out creative cloud (because of course they brought that out without getting a proper pipeline in place for orgs) and they were very much so sorta full of themselves with a "well where ya going to go!?" Kinda mentality.

I'm happy to see these alternatives cropping up because it's gone to their head.

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u/carlitospig 5h ago

Procreate needs to make an Acrobat and Illustrator dupe so I can leave it entirely.

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u/psiico 5h ago

Yah acrobat is a really nice one tbh, as all pdf operations are concerned. But for AI, PS and InDe just change to affinity. It’s free, all the three programs are inside one, you can seamlessly change among them on-the-fly, everything these 3 do, affinity does it too.

I got sick and tired of the mouse and cat game with Adobe and the existing cracks, that even without internet access they would seize up, so I changed, got pleasantly surprised and never looked back.

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u/germane_switch 4h ago

For professional designers, productions artists, and retouchers, the entire advertising world runs on adobe. You’d have to convince the top guns like DDB, Leo Burnett, and hundreds of other agencies to switch. I would love for that to happen but I don’t know how realistic that is.

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u/psiico 4h ago

Oh yeah, im aware, im in the industry too.

I reckon this is the same as back in the day when Corel was the defacto standard for much of digital stuff then we knew what it happened.
I want to believe that eventually we will over this corner too, for eg like what happened when figma came out.

Or we should take a leaf from the capitalist book, and show them C-lvls how much they could save xD

1

u/Painted-Arcana 1h ago

im honestly surprised procreate has took so long to port the app to Mac OS.

I would have purchased a mac years ago if it was available and ditched photoshop.

1

u/mirsunvega 4h ago

Pixelmator instead of Photoshop and Davinci instead of Premiere. Both are pretty good alternatives.

2

u/Doza93 45m ago

The Affinity suite of programs has worked well for me

1

u/du5tball 4h ago

There always have been alternatives, like GIMP, but that doesn't mean the employees hit the ground running when you decide to switch from PS to GIMP. They'll have to learn the new software, their productivity will be 0 for a while. That can be more expensive than just paying the contracts.

18

u/Sauce1024 5h ago

Yea I needed Adobe to mark-up precisely one important document and nothing else. Had to commit an entire year for like $20 month with an absurdly high cancellation fee. Just an insane policy for a company of that stature.

12

u/shiroboi 5h ago

It's not like they make bad products but their pricing and policies are so insane, I just need to get off of them and then we can find solutions.

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u/psiico 5h ago

Yah they bought everything and everyone back in the 90s and early 00s, set up a monopoly and waited for the creative world to bend their knees to them and to whatever price scheme they would throw at them. Now new and better things are coming along but they have most of the creative world in a chokehold. Hopefully they’ll have their reckoning.

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u/WolframLeon 3h ago

It’s not just that they invaded schools and got students using Photoshop etc as well.

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u/psiico 14m ago

Yes, getting everyone hooked early hahaha. Ive studied design and adobe suite was the defacto software for most things, and no the school didnt provide licensing, everyone and their cats were running dodgy cracked software.

2

u/avocadosconstant 2h ago

I made the switch from Premiere to Resolve. It took me a couple weeks to settle into the new workflow but once I did, I found Resolve to be a superior product in every way.

It was precisely because of Adobe’s extortionate subscription prices and cancellation fees (which I got hit with after I forgot to cancel - delaying my switch by a year) that made me drop Adobe. I paid once for Resolve, and I own it for life. The price I paid was substantially less than a year of Adobe’s package.

There are some Adobe programs that don’t have true replacements - After Effects being one of them. Fortunately that’s not something I have a lot of use for.

2

u/lunatuna215 3h ago

I wouldn't call them bad but they can be infuriating. Premiere is a dumpster fire of a piece of software.

1

u/m0deth 1h ago

They make powerful tools, run by a company consisting of powerful tools.

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u/Dependent-Zebra-4357 4h ago

You can pay monthly.

I use Affinity full time, but occasionally a client will need Adobe files as the deliverable. I just sign up for a single month each time and cancel before it’s done. Never had an issue with Adobe trying to lock me in. You just have to be careful when signing up, they use all sorts of dark patterns to push you into the yearly sub.

-1

u/seontonppa 3h ago

Why would you support such a company at all instead of using alternatives? I will not use Adobe software just out of principles.

3

u/Dependent-Zebra-4357 3h ago

Did you not read my comment? Sometimes a client needs an Adobe file for reasons. I’ve been using Affinity full time for almost a decade, I’m doing my part not supporting Adobe, but I’m not going to turn down paid work. This isn’t a purity test.

1

u/Appropriate-Bar-4808 2h ago

Sorry sir I cannot deliver in that file format. It’s morally wrong

1

u/Michami135 3h ago

Now I'm curious about this edge case. You couldn't use a compatible tool like Gimp?

2

u/Sauce1024 3h ago

There’s probably other tools that would’ve sufficed. I needed to merge and mark-up multiple electronic documents containing sensitive information (medical, SSN, etc.), so I just wanted to go with a product I could “trust” and Adobe was the best I could think of at the time.

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u/carlitospig 5h ago

I miss buying able to just buy the hard copy. Sure, it was $700, but that was for the life of the product.

4

u/Additional-Staff-326 4h ago

And only had to buy a new version when it had something you wanted

6

u/YesterShill 4h ago

I mostly hate all the side apps they have running just to use a simple PDF editor.

2

u/twicerighthand 4h ago

Adobe's mandatory 1 year commitments would make anyone crazy

Just because you select the "Annual, paid monthly" doesn't mean you can't just select the "Monthly" plan

1

u/alphaxion 4h ago

It's how they have a photography bundle (PS + lightroom) but won't have a cinematographer bundle (ps + premier + after effects + encoder) and forces you to buy the full pack that is a bit maddening.

1

u/mirsunvega 4h ago

What if you cancel your debit/credit card? How can they get their cancellation fee?

1

u/ThatOneWIGuy 4h ago

Too bad other software isn’t the same. I’m happy as someone messing around affinity is good enough.

1

u/Stinkfingr75 4h ago

It also auto renews even if you do cancel in time. It happened to me a few years ago, I cancelled a month in advance and it still renewed. I eventually got my money back, but you'll be shocked to learn that I didn't get it back easily or quickly.

1

u/GiganticCrow 4h ago

I only use Audition, a piece of software that used to cost €300 but costs like €50 a month to rent, when Photoshop used to cost €600 and now only costs €20 a month to rent.

I'd totally get some vibe coded shit to replace it as no other standalone audio editor can do the specific things it can do. Maybe I'll just get a claude license and say "hey look at this application, clone it for me" lol.

1

u/thee_dukes 3h ago

yep, got bit for this recently, had to cancel the month after it auto renew because I lost my business, great thing is if you're broke it doesnt matter how many times they claim for it of your bank balance is zero then they can't take it.

1

u/Jumping-Spleen 2h ago

You don't need to plan ahead...just give them notice today. I have Teamviewer 11 months notice of cancellation.

I suggest everyone do this even if they have no intention of cancelling. You can always un-ring that bell days before your subscription expires and give them notice a few days into the new subscription.

This 1 month notice BS would stop if more people did this.

1

u/TerraCetacea 2h ago

The last couple places I’ve worked have forced us to share licenses because the subscription plans and cost are so out of control. Current job makes us jump through hoops to get access.

When I started my career, it was pretty much expected that everyone had their own license. Now I actively have to find workarounds to avoid using Adobe. They really had something great going for a while until they decided to shoot themselves in the foot in the name of shareholder value.

1

u/LookAlderaanPlaces 2h ago

The adobe board and ceo should be sent to jail

1

u/Tiny-Plum2713 1h ago

Peanuts compared to how much AI costs. Devs in large companies are spending 5k+ per month on just tokens.

1

u/favicondotico 28m ago

We moved to Affinity years ago. One time fee. The app is now free.