I’ve been a user of Adobe products for over a decade now… From After Effects and Premiere to Flash and Photoshop I’ve seen the products grow, morph, modify and silently been killed off *cough * cough, Director…
But now Adobe is playing with a new model. A subscription based model. It looks like dropping $4k for Creative Suite master Collection is something that Adobe will stick with for a while, but they’re creating quite the incentive to make their offering “pay as you go.”
And I think it’s a pretty good idea. It creates a predictable financial model, it makes the cost of entry less and it allows for products to be updated for frequently without the need to “purchase” an upgrade.
But, let’s examine one key elements above. Lower cost of entry.
I remember the first time I cracked open Adobe Photoshop. It was NOT an easy piece of software to get used to. It was complex and that was over 10 years ago! Today, the features are even deeper, but the same Photoshop elegance still exists. The functionality grows as you learn more. But that challenge is this. Trying to have inexpensive software which can be deployed across a larger user base might mean that Adobe may try to “simplify” the tool so that it’s easier to pick up for a novice.
Apple tried to do the similar thing with Final Cut Pro and while dropping the price, faced backlash from the community for making it simpler, but ultimately, less powerful.
I’m hoping that the Adobe suite of software doesn’t face the same path. I like my complex and equally powerful development tools!