Aging Violinist

I too received the "Four Pledges" email in response to my emailed queries that I mentioned here in a previous post yesterday. Like others, I don't see the pledge as any kind of real assurance -- I saved a copy of it just so that if/when they go back on that pledge, I can look at it with contempt and derision and say "See?!?" and share it widely among my fellow embittered and world-weary cynics. All we can do is to wait and see at this point and give them the benefit of the doubt. In the meantime, it would be very wise to start looking for and learning how to use alternatives just in case. But oh! what a joyful noise we can raise when roused, eh? ✊

I only see options to download V2 (presumably since that is what I have licensed). And would a V2 license even work with V1?

Right, I certainly hope they have a mechanism. Is there still even a place to download older versions (v1)? I'm a relatively new user to Affinity and only came on board with v2 (though I've quickly grown to like it very much, which only makes this situation all the more aggravating).

I certainly agree with you that if they did that, it would come dangerously close to a bait-and-switch and open them to massive lawsuits/class-actions. Now, I'm a photographer/musician, so when it comes to legal contracts and licenses and such, I am not within my area of expertise; my eyes glaze over and I respond with a hearty "Pfooey!". But... and I'll admit I didn't look into this yet, don't most licenses have a clause in them stating something to the effect of "We reserve the right to revoke this license at any time and basically for any reason, so sod off!"? Wouldn't that be their way out of any liability? At any rate, I emailed Serif/Canva support and asked specifically what assurance I have that I will be able to continue to activate and use my perpetual license "in perpetuity" in the event that I, for example, upgrade computers and need to reinstall. And specifically what will be my options when that authentication service inevitably disappears over the long term. I shall report back my findings to this thread.

I plan to do this same thing myself, but I am curious about one thing (since I've only ever installed Affinity Photo once): What happens if I need to reinstall at some point in the "Brave New Subscription-based World"? Will that license still be able to activate? What happens if (more likely when) the ability to activate old licenses is removed? From what I recall, it needs to authenticate to a serif server when installed, right?

I hate to make "me too" posts, but in cases like this, the more voices the better. Affinity Photo has been a great tool and I've come to really like it, but I won't hesitate to jump if it goes subscription. Subscription-based software only exists because so many just agree to it instead of saying "no way!", so they know they can get away with it. I would be happy to pay an upgrade fee for V3, but I would absolutely not agree to pay again and again and again to "rent" it; that just harms me financially. So I hope you're listening, Canva, but just based on experience, I doubt you care when those dollar signs are floating in front of you. I hope you do the right thing by your customers, but that's not usually how anything goes these days.

And another fellow time-traveler here echoing this sentiment. I just saw the news on the acquisition today. I won't hesitate to jump ship if they move to subscription. I'll use V2 until I no longer can, then switch to open source solutions. This subscription trend is harmful to most customers, and it's sad that so many will just go along with it instead of leaving. Canva knows this -- they know a great many (such as myself) will leave, but probably even more will stay (and pay... and pay again and again and again), so they don't care.