quietrob opened this issue on May 10, 2015 · 21 posts
false1 posted Fri, 15 May 2015 at 2:50 PM
Hi Rob, hope you're doing well. People often try to dissuade folks from signing on to CC because they don't want Adobe to set a precedent for subscription software. I tend to feel the same. I'm seeing Adobe's single app pricing at $29 per month. Once you're done with the discount you either pay full price or trash whatever work you've done, the time you've spent learning the software, and the money you've spent. I think the subscription can make sense for certain situations: you earn money off your work and can write it off on your taxes, you're a software instructor and need to have the latest version for instance. I think the impetus for Adobe's subscription was to capture the "deadbeats" who were happy with older versions of the softwares and refused to upgrade on Adobe's schedule.
Latest features are great but I've yet to bother learning many of the new features in CS6 (upgraded from 5.5). After 20 years in the design business I'm of the opinion that the software between my ears is more important than what's on the computer. Now if Adobe had upgrades for that I'd be all in, lol. Also from an old guys perspective, it's hard to know what curves life might throw at you. I never imagined finances could be tighter in my later years (house, kids, aging parents, etc) than when I was a young buck. $10 a month may not sound like much, $30 a month may seem doable but that's in addition to cable, and Spotify, and Office, and Audible and Daz Platinum, and whatever 3d program you need to replace Hexagon once it finally crashes and burns, and the stuff you never considered that will go subscription as well. Get with Adobe's program and you will be paying them throughout your working life, on their timetable, forever. Even if some wise guy creates an awesome open source graphic app (not Gimp apparently), you keep paying Adobe or lose access to you files.
I think Adobe still offers standalone CS6 educationally. Do you know anyone in college? Can you get by with an older version off ebay or elsewhere? Your choice, but I feel like I'm saving money everyday that I continue to use my owned copy of CS6.
________________________________