US Sues Adobe Over Subscription Plan Disclosures (cnbc.com) 54
The U.S. government on Monday sued Adobe, accusing the maker of Photoshop and Acrobat of harming consumers by enrolling them in its most lucrative subscription plans without clearly disclosing important terms. From a report: In a complaint filed in the San Jose, California, federal court, the government said Adobe failed to adequately disclose hefty early termination fees, sometimes reaching hundreds of dollars, when customers sign up for "annual, paid monthly" subscription plans.
The government said Adobe hides important terms in fine print and behind textboxes and hyperlinks, clearly discloses the fees only when subscribers try to cancel, and makes canceling an onerous and complicated process.
The government said Adobe hides important terms in fine print and behind textboxes and hyperlinks, clearly discloses the fees only when subscribers try to cancel, and makes canceling an onerous and complicated process.
Adobe subscriptions are ridiculous (Score:2)
If you need anything from Adobe, you're stuck with a subscription for at least a year. There's no reason not to offer short-term plans.
Then there's the kitchen sink approach, where instead of getting just the application you need, you're overpaying because your subscription contains a gazillion applications.
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They really do offer monthly with no commitment. It's quite a bit higher and it's buried at checkout.
Re:Adobe subscriptions are ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
If you need anything from Adobe, you're stuck with a subscription for at least a year. There's no reason not to offer short-term plans.
Then there's the kitchen sink approach, where instead of getting just the application you need, you're overpaying because your subscription contains a gazillion applications.
I'm shocked that the company that lied to us about Lightroom continuing to be available for permanent licensing, that lied to us about it being a 64-bit application (because its copy protection isn't, at least on macOS, which is the only reason you can't still run it), that refused to continue perpetual licensing because they don't care at all about anybody who isn't a business customer, etc. would also have slimy licensing terms that violate federal laws. Shocked.
Well, not that shocked.
Adobe, as companies go, is IMO the absolute scum of the earth, and always has been. From the security nightmare that was Flash to the security nightmare that Acrobat Reader was for the longest time, Adobe has a long history of half-assed engineering, outrageous pricing, and general anti-consumer behavior.
There are alternatives that are very nearly as good for a tiny fraction of the cost, and ever since Adobe decided to be a**holes by dropping perpetual licensing, I have supported those companies with my dollars instead of Adobe, and encourage anyone who asks to do the same.
So I'm experiencing a great deal of schadenfreude at the idea of the DOJ going after Adobe. Couldn't happen to a nicer lying dirtbag company.
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I still maintain a laptop with old Mac OS just so I can run CS6. It's an excellent program -- and I own it outright. I refused to upgrade the day Adobe introduced subscription-only licenses, and I've never regretted it. I've watched them become increasingly scummy.
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I dropped Adobe like a hot rock myself when they went subscription only.
Just FYI if you want to "upgrade" from CS6...let me recommend the Affinity Tools [serif.com] set of applications.
Right now, they have EVERYTHING on sale for 50% I just saw...that's
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I'll second Affinity Tools! No annual "rent tax" and the tools are very good. And yes, they are fast. Highly recommended.
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ID 5.5 exports to IDML, which Affinity can import, which means if ID 5.5 has its plug pulled remotely my 10+ years of files aren't digital dust.
Eventually I'm hoping there'll be a Linux version o
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DaVinci Resolve is Crazy Good! It even runs on Linux! Odds are high the free version does all that you need. The studio version is still a deal at only $300/once-forever, although if you're thinking about buying it, first consider if you want to buy a fancy camera from Black Magic because if you do, Studio software is free so that's like a $300-off coupon on solid hardware.
Be impressed at what is possible by watching this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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I kept it running up until I moved to Apple Silicon and could no longer keep a virtual machine running. Since then, I just use Pixelmator Pro. It has enough Photoshop file compatibility to do most of what I need, and the company has shown solid evidence of not being scummy.
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So I'm experiencing a great deal of schadenfreude at the idea of the DOJ going after Adobe. Couldn't happen to a nicer lying dirtbag company.
Why experience schadenfreude? They will pay a fine, some executives will grumble about not getting a new yacht this year, and the same business practices will endure despite being slightly more circumspect in those practices.
There will be no "win" here except for whatever agency receives the money that will be extracted from them.
I told you so. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I told you so. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I told you so. (Score:5, Informative)
I kinda hate this thought. If you've ever used Photoshop for anything more than cropping images, the Gimp does not compare one bit. Lack of bit depth, spot color work, adjustment layers are non-fancy things that have been in Photoshop for 20+ years and are /still/ missing from Gimp.
Now, there are paid-for tools that are serious competitors for Photoshop -- like Afinity that are growing in popularity. And they don't require subscription to use either...
Re:I told you so. (Score:4, Informative)
I use Capture One for most of my photo manipulation needs. It's more of an alternative to Lightroom. My partner has a degree in graphic design, though, and was more or less educated entirely with Adobe applications, so I do see what she can doin those as well.
I think Davinci Resolve Studio is generally superior to Premiere, and I use it all the time. It even runs on Linux. But Premiere and Lightroom both have some AI-related tools that absolutely give me pause to reconsider my choices. Premiere can cut together talking head videos where videos from two different cameras show different people speaking in the same conversation. That's insanely useful for news or documentary video. Lightroom has reached a point where users can mask an object, have AI automatically remove it and then apply that edit to a stack of dozens of photos. I watched my partner edit a rag left out on a stage from some concert photos. It took her about 10 clicks plus maybe two minutes of processing time instead of tediously creating temp files from Lightroom to move into photoshop to edit one at a time. Those are legitimate quality of life improvements for someone doing editing tasks, even if you don't much care for generative AI in general.
I hate Adobe as an organization, but it's hard to argue about recent improvements in the various parts of Creative Suite.
Re:I told you so. (Score:5, Informative)
>Lack of bit depth
Improved bit depth support has been added in 2.10 (2018), up to 32 bits per channel.
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Affinity Photo (as well as Designer and Publisher) are amazing tools...and as I posted earlier, they whole suite...for Mac + Windows + iPad is on sale for license = $82.99 [serif.com].....hard deal to pass up, and NO rental.
Re:I told you so. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: I told you so. (Score:4, Insightful)
That's half of it. They also didn't even try to do layer effects until recently. Those are one of Photoshop's most killer features.
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For personal use there are lot's and lot's of tools but the options really tighten up when you are running a business that heavily relies on said tools. The current company and my last one both had creative departments that did 2D and 3D video graphics work and the Adobe CC subscription includes really a lot of tools for the $60/mo per seat businesses pay for it. It's a good value if these tools make you money, especially in relative terms, a single seat of Maya buys you like 4 or 5 CC seats.
I do agree wi
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I prefer Inkscape. Sometimes even over Gimp.
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I use the gimp on windows 10 so beh
Re:I told you so. (Score:4, Insightful)
I installed Gimp on my wife's computer when she wanted to do some photo editing. The interface was so crappy that she gave up after an hour or so of frustration. The application was obviously powerful, but if users can't figure it out then it's not much use.
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If the user can't figure it out, the user isn't very knowledgeable about what they're doing in the first place. Which is fine, because Adobe always panders to the biggest morons, which clearly has worked.
Isn't this the equivalent of "you're holding it wrong"?
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Almost, but only if there actually were an actual correct way to "hold it" to begin with. It's closer to someone going bowling and never figuring out that their fingers go in the holes.
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Nope, she was trying to learn how to do it. She found the Microsoft photo editor and used that. It was a better alternative for her.
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This is a shitty argument, and you're a shitty person, calling someone you don't even know a moron here. You know literally nothing about their level of familiarity with the subject matter.
GIMP of today has a shittier interface than Photoshop of 30 years ago, literally. User interface matters. You don't think so, try cutting some paper while holding scissors in the wrong hand. Try digging a ditch with a shovel with a six inch handle. Or for that matter, try stuff that a novice can do in minutes in Photoshop
Photoshop and Acrobat alternatives (Score:5, Informative)
These applications have been mature for 20+ years now. If Adobe will only rent them now, and charge ridiculous fees for termination, it's well past time to dump Adobe.
Most people don't need all of the bells and whistles which come with the full versions of Photoshop and Acrobat. To save a bunch of money and actually own a license in many cases, see:
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And do not forget that these alternatives do not give the company the right to access creators’ content and use it freely [cybernews.com].
Re:Photoshop and Acrobat alternatives (Score:5, Interesting)
For starters change requires learning, and for most people, that's scary, because since they know software X, they are productive, and they feel good about themselves. Learning requires one to accept they don't know "everything". For a lot of people that's a deep blow to their ego, to move from being an expert to being a student. So , for psychological reasons, Adobe will profit greatly from their captive audience. Creating dependency is highly profitable and really the main purpose of software now
I love it however, that someone will likely show up here, and defend the increase in cost, the lock in, and the data/privacy rape, as not just acceptable but likely desirable. I'll get the popcorn. This should be fun.
Re:Photoshop and Acrobat alternatives (Score:4, Interesting)
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The new additions in features in photoshop that leverage gen AI is quite insane though. And that is a recent addition to photoshop.
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I still use Photoshop v5.5 for most of my work. It's 25 years old, never needs an Internet connection, and still does all the basics. The only real problems I have is that it will crash if you try to read a PNG file with an embedded color profile, and it can't read WebP. I use Irfanview to convert those images into something I can use.
I've tried many times to move on to something else, but all the new stuff is usually riddled with DRM, so I just use what I have. It works.
FYI (Score:2)
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Or you can find products from companies that are not hostile toward their own users. It is beyond time to just skip over Adobe products.
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I don't photoshop at all. But is Photoshop Elements exactly the same tool as the current online subscription photoshop? (I don't know, it is a real question)
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photoshop elements is sold in a package with a photo and video cataloger and is aimed at the market of people, mainly hobbists and enthusiasts, who want to catalog their photos and then use photoshop element to make modifications.
so it's like the gym cancellation where they make (Score:2)
so it's like the gym cancellation where they make it hand and if you don't do all that they ask they just keep billing you.
more government waste (Score:1)
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Perhaps you should re-read the summary, and even (shudder) TFA. If you do that carefully, you'll learn what the actual complaint is.
Remember when Adobe Used to Sell Photoshop? (Score:2)
Funny how when you sell something of value, then people line up to buy it. When you just want to grab as much cash as you possibly can, and fool people into paying for more or need then your customers go away. If you stop selling software, don't expect to rent it for a limited time for real money, Its really not worth much at all if its perishable, and you never own it. Subscription services are always a raw deal because they inevitably charge everyone for more than they need or use, and have gotchas on
Re:Remember when Adobe Used to Sell Photoshop? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a deep industrywide problem that just running a profitable business is not enough. It has to be obscenely profitable to be what investors want in terms of returns. If an iota of perceived margin can be eked out, you aren't doing your job. And if customers rebel, that is not Important. It's titled 'churn' and no one is going to sacrifice an iota of margin to reduce churn.
Basically, profitable businesses commit suicide for financialization reasons, and words like 'enshitification' are coined to describe this suicide in other terms.
Class Action lawsuit by just the law firms of USA (Score:2)
They all have customer sensitive information created with Adobe products. They did not consent to any of this, and they have decades of data so converting to something else isn't an option.
Creative Suite 4 (Score:1)
Here's are the programs I use now instead of Adobe (Score:5, Informative)
https://affinity.serif.com/en-... [serif.com]
Before switching, I had used Photoshop as my primary graphic design and photo program since version 2.0, and most other Adobe products since the later nineties.
For the most part, Photo 2 and Designer do the job and their short cut keys are mostly the same as Adobe's products. The differences are there, but it didn't take long to learn their methods of achieving certain results. I'm very happy with these programs. My only fear is that Affinity is being bought out right now, but even if that happens the programs I have now work.
For the areas that Photoshop maybe stronger than Photo 2 is digital painting. But I have not tried Photo 2 yet, so can not compare. I've always used Painter(Fractal to Corel) over Photoshop, because for the longest time it has had a superior brush engine if you're a traditionally trained artist. I would use Photoshop when I needed to quickly achieve some desired look, especially for a UI element.
For pixel art, I use a program called Aseprite. I can create pixel art in Photo 2, but it's missing the keyboard control for easily duplicating pixels and moving them around like Photoshop and Aseprite:
https://store.steampowered.com... [steampowered.com]
For video work, I used mostly Aftereffects and some Premier, but now I use DaVinci Resolve. This program is fantastic and it's free:
https://www.blackmagicdesign.c... [blackmagicdesign.com]
Not having to install Adobe's cloud and not having to pay their subscription has been a big sigh of relief. I've had no problems getting the work I do done with these alternatives. The small learning curve to switch away has saved me lots of money and headache.
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My only fear is that Affinity is being bought out right now, but even if that happens the programs I have now work.
This thought occurred to me as well. However, I've got two reasons why there's a possibility that it the new owners are a bit less likely to go "Full Broadcom"...
1.) A huge part of Affinity's selling point is the fact that it *isn't* a subscription. If they turn it into a subscription, they'll lose 90% of their userbase overnight, and I do think that *enough* people over at Canva understand this.
1b.) Even if they were to go subscription, there's a de facto ceiling imposed upon how much they can charge. Adob
Adobe gave away a bunch of old versions (Score:5, Informative)
At one time, Adobe had a whole list of license codes on their web site for various old products. CS3, Acrobat Pro, etc. I fortunately saved that web page and downloaded all the installers in case I needed them some day. they will still run on Windows 10. If you search you can find some PDFs of these codes that Adobe themselves provided. And I'm sure the installers are archived somewhere as well.
Two things... (Score:4, Informative)
First, contrary to popular belief, there are no "real" alternatives to Adobe photography tools if you need them. Photoshop, Lightroom are pretty much alone in their class. For fairness, there are alternatives for their other products like Acrobat, or Premiere.
That being said, their "subscription" is pretty much predatory. They give you two options (simplifying): monthly subscription, or yearly subscription.
Normally it would be fine if they said:
"It is $25 per month, or $200 if you prepay for a year"
However they trick people by saying:
"It is $25 per month, or $17 monthly payments if you agree to a yearly plan"
And people of course choose the "cheaper" one assuming they can get out if they want (they can't) or stop the auto payment on time (they will forget). Ah, yes, forgot to mention, their "free trial" is tied to the yearly plan, no not the monthly. So if you forget to cancel on day 14, which they won't make it easy for you, you are now going to be charged the full price for a year.
This is not a good way to get customers like you. Yes, if you really need the tools (like I did after trying alternatives), buying the yearly is a good option. But I know what I am going into, many others don't.
Subscribe because cloud... (Score:2)
I get why companies love subscription models. ARR (not the pirate type) is great for planning your financials, credit ratings, and stock prices. If you offer something that ACTUALLY needs the cloud and has ongoing cost - that's acceptable. Dropbox needs to maintain infrastructure for all my porn...erm, pictures. Fine.
While Adobe did weasel some cloud garbage "AI" and storage options into the package along the way, but they're largely add-ons that aren't at all necessary. Photoshop can absolutely be a s