meh

yeah, valid point, and I do not regret buying it at all even though I've not used it much, in large parts because it was in my budget and because I'm happy to fund an adobe competitor out of spite. While I'm not able to stretch my budget as much as the true pros on here, but I'd pay about 3x the price (with expectation that it'd be updated for a few years, low-key supported for another few years like bug fixes, compatibility with OS updates and the like).

There's a demand there, and people willing to pay, and idk, I know this stuff is complex, but that potential is being left on the table. To take the blend tool as an example, if they put a crowdfund goal on the site and anyone who wanted could contribute to make that feature a priority, I bet it'd get funded. And everyone would get the feature and benefit, because people aren't paying in order to be the only ones to have access to it, they just want it to get developed, so it'd also drive purchases at the regular price. I see a real potential for an actually symbiotic relationship where the software users actually like the company, as opposed to adobe which at this point feels like living with a toxic ex because you have nowhere else to go and they know it. /rant

edit: that said, the CC shortcuts are so native to me at this point that it's a bit of a hurdle, le sigh, so i can't say if I'd fall off the learning curve..
 

Just popping in here for my yearly check on if I can ditch Illustrator already. Apparently not yet.

You raise a good point here- AD's affordability is surely one of it's big selling points. It was for me. Probably wouldn't have gotten it if it was more expensive. But there are big-league designers who make a lot of profit on the tool, and for them it could cost way, WAY more and still be worth it. I wish there was some way to meet those. Like hey, pay more and get the shiny new stuff like a 6 months before it rolls out to the rest of us, so it remains equal and not too fragmented, but those who would like to can contribute to development as long as they get assurances that certain features are being worked on. Everyone benefits. Idk, just thinking out loud. I really don't like the idea of splitting into elements-vs-full-version kind of thing, in part because I selfishly want to have the shiny stuff, but I think also because you want folks learning on all the features, and then if they make it big, they can decide to pitch in to help drive development faster. More communal, sort of? anyway, end of rant.

yeah, valid point, and I do not regret buying it at all even though I've not used it much, in large parts because it was in my budget and because I'm happy to fund an adobe competitor out of spite. While I'm not able to stretch my budget as much as the true pros on here, but I'd pay about 3x the price (with expectation that it'd be updated for a few years, low-key supported for another few years like bug fixes, compatibility with OS updates and the like).

There's a demand there, and people willing to pay, and idk, I know this stuff is complex, but that potential is being left on the table. To take the blend tool as an example, if they put a crowdfund goal on the site and anyone who wanted could contribute to make that feature a priority, I bet it'd get funded. And everyone would get the feature and benefit, because people aren't paying in order to be the only ones to have access to it, they just want it to get developed, so it'd also drive purchases at the regular price. I see a real potential for an actually symbiotic relationship where the software users actually like the company, as opposed to adobe which at this point feels like living with a toxic ex because you have nowhere else to go and they know it. /rant

edit: that said, the CC shortcuts are so native to me at this point that it's a bit of a hurdle, le sigh, so i can't say if I'd fall off the learning curve..