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Jens Krebs

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  1. Like
    Jens Krebs reacted to Patrick Connor in Canva   
    I cannot allow this to stand. Gary Bates and Jim Bryce were both very long term employees in Sales and Development for well over 20 years long before they took on Director roles. They dedicated their careers to both the Serif Legacy range and the Affinity range. Please stop this
  2. Like
    Jens Krebs reacted to BofG in Canva   
    If Serif, sorry Canva, wants people to stop posting in this thread they can lock it or ban people.
    The backlash is valid, part of the balance sheet is "goodwill". We who have contributed here have contributed to that. It's ours to take away too. I'm not in favour of the few personal insults around here, but I am in favour of making the powers that be aware that this has eroded the goodwill.
  3. Like
    Jens Krebs reacted to jonnyblasticles in Canva   
    I think you're right that most people would but I don't think that it should stop people from voicing their opinions on a company or product that they've bought into that literally presented itself as an alternative the monopolistic Adobe-types. Nor do I think it's helpful or useful to the discourse. If we all had that attitude, these companies would walk all over us even more than they already do. You might like the taste of boots but the rest of us don't. 
     
  4. Like
    Jens Krebs reacted to monzo in Canva   
    Along with the unanswered guarantees for ‘lifetime’ V2 usage (being at the mercy of an authentication server, that will now be hosted by a totally different company), I wonder what the future for support will be like, if/when issues arise? Will we be thrown into the hellish hoop-jumping ‘Fortress Support’ systems these big corporates like to employ? Systems I’m forced to deal with on a weekly basis, seemingly designed on purpose to make customers give up in frustration? Will this forum still exist? Will the ‘community’ exist?
    New Canva account panel? Chaos when ownership of the Mac/iOS store accounts changes over and we have to reactivate the IAP’s?
    Where’s the reassurance? Aside from some non-binding PR-friendly ‘pledges’, where’s the details of how this is actually going to work, and affect ‘loyal customers’ over the next few years?
    That’s the thing. When I upgraded to V2 a few months ago I wasn’t just buying a piece of software, I was buying promises of upgrades and real support from a small company that cared about its customers, and listened to their feedback. Promises of ‘years of free upgrades’, and ‘we’ll never sell out’.
    Three months later, chaos. What a mess.
  5. Like
    Jens Krebs reacted to jonnyblasticles in Canva   
    Nicely said. Affinity presented itself not just as another design suite but as an answer to Adobes corporate ethos and monopoly. Knowing Canva, I don't think that its too much of a stretch to imagine Adobe simply acquiring them after just to shut down the competition or merging Affinity's features into its own products or Canva into something like XD or Figma
  6. Like
    Jens Krebs reacted to JGD in Canva   
    A couple of observations on the recent news, as a very special tester and the guy who suggested Serif bet the farm on Affinity at a time they were seemingly already doing it in secret (yes, remember that e-mail you got back in 2014, where I even quoted Churchill? That was me):
     
    • The video that was posted on the news page was not very reassuring, and any PR specialist will tell you that.
     
    • The pledge is all well and good, but it is not legally binding and, I take it, was not posted right away upon the announcement of the acquisition; and while the negotiations were done in two months and that does seem to be a very short time when it comes to these things, was it that difficult to have said pledge ready to go on day one? Another PR disaster, IMHO.
     
    • Canva doesn’t have the best reputation overall, as a tool, among professional designers; however, they do seem to be loaded with cash, and their explanation that there is not much of an overlap in functionality, but perhaps in target market (i.e., some Canva users may want and actually be able to graduate from it to Affinity, or use it as a more advanced editing tool for objects even if they stay largely within the confines of Canva, kind of like you can already do across Affinity apps, and Affinity users may benefit from collaborative tools, for sure), does make sense, and sure, there may be some synergies, and Canva might be able to undercut Adobe both in subscription price – because we all know a subscription is coming, let’s not fool ourselves – and flexibility – if it makes financial sense and they don’t get too greedy, yes, them offering perpetual or semi-perpetual (à la Typeface.app) licenses, for which Affinity is famous for, may remain a thing.
    And yes, we can’t be hypocrites and complain about Canva not valuing design as a professional pathway if they do indeed make good on their promises and start promoting their newly acquired serious tools and tutorials, which may lead people into making decent amateur design or even studying it at some level, and to Canva not just being part of the problem but also providing the solution. Heck, the files produced in Canva may even become better on a technical level if they move towards Serif tech at some point.
     
    • Canva also has bad reputation when it comes to AI, and while we don’t expect them to drop it, we may give it the benefit of the doubt out of necessity. Expect, however, thorough sifting of EULAs, and maybe even lawsuits if user creations are ever mined for content.
     
    • We’ve been burned in the past, and none of this is very surprising, only sad. In hindsight, it’s patently obvious that Serif was lacking the resources to keep up with Adobe after their seemingly vertiginous pace during the early years.
     
    • The promises of missing features being added to V2 are all well and good, but in a sense, they are a bit too good; some of us suspect the team is just trying to wrap it up, and that indeed V3 is shaping up to be a very boring cash-grab, or mostly Canva-focused (because that integration will surely take time and can only really start now, if it does become a thing), and us losing access one day to V2 activations is also a concerning prospect (the indefinite maintenance of activation servers for as long as Canva exists as a corporate entity, and maybe even some properly laid out exit strategy in case it goes belly up, should be part of the pledge itself, spelled out in writing or even added to the very EULAs, and become legally binding, between Canva and us, the customers).
     
    • Until all these fears are well and properly assuaged, I – and, I suspect, many others – won’t even bother with giving suggestions for my pet features on the betas, the topmost – variable font support – having been the first one mentioned in said video and on the pledge. Why should I, if Adobe already offers it in such stable form, and me having to switch back to CC may become a reality? Not until V3 rolls around as a truly groundbreaking, perpetually-licensed set of apps, and especially not now when Affinity devs are loaded with cash and could and should hire proper testers and pay for proper focus groups, instead of relying on community efforts.
    You see, you had a tacit, unwritten agreement with your testers, in that we knew you were, staying with the Churchillian metaphor, the strapped-for-cash underdogs that were fighting the good fight, and with this acquisition you obviously lost a lot of that goodwill and the tiny bit that remains is now on probation, if not on thin ice. With Canva being just the lesser and more affordable and flexible of two evils – at least for the time being –, we’re now just your customers, not your fighting buddies, sorry.
    That is not to say that you won’t keep fighting, but you’ll also have to do so to get at least our basic confidence back (not just to get new switchers from Adobe, which I still hope you do as long as you’re not trapping them into a technological dead end), and you won’t get unbridled word-of-mouth from us anymore because obviously we will warn our colleagues, students, etc. of all the corporate shenanigan and technical caveats (i.e. Affinity, in its free educational/non-profit version, is nice to learn just in case it turns into an alternative standard, but not safe enough to bet an entire portfolio on it lest it’s canned or something, and definitely even less of a safe option in its commercial incarnation for the same reason, and I hope Canva realizes this and doesn’t nix perpetual licenses based on understandably skewed sales numbers). V2.x, and especially V3 and beyond will be crucial in that regard.
     
    TL;DR: nice as all of you at Serif may be as people, unless Canva allows you to interact with the community as you always did, and treats the community according to its very special ethos and idiosyncrasies, you likely lost us all for good, and will see at best a cooling down period until we see you all make good on your pledges.
    It’s not vindictiveness, it’s just basic human behaviour; why would we, as old Macromedia users, old Creative Suite users, old Plus users, etc., keep blindly investing our time and mental energy in the development and improvement of this piece of software after having been so thoroughly burned, time and time again, by greedy corporate entities and technology transitions? My €0,02.
  7. Like
    Jens Krebs reacted to DarkClown in Canva   
    I've been following this topic now from the beginning on ... feeling seriously unhappy about the mutitude of personal vendettas going on here that distract from the core issues  (doing no good for this discussion).
    Why do we all (or at least most of us) post here? I presume to express our insecurity with regards to the future of Affinity products. Many people involved here driven by a long term involvement in the product development process. Many users being scared of significant price changes or pricing models (subscription). Many people aware of the experience from former take-overs of sw companies - and the results. And - having general moral company integrity in mind - not trusting pledges and promises, since most companies did not keep those and betrayed their customers.
    On the other hand, what do we try to achieve? Financiel decisions have been made. Affinity is no longer in the drivers seat. Marketing bullshit has been send out. Canva is aware of the lack of trust in them. Whinging around does not improve the situation! Lets ask Canva for commitment on their pledges. We will not change Canvas possible decision in the future to come up with a subscription model (what they announced already). We will not even be able to commit them on sticking to the promise to keep the perpetual license alive on a long term. Promises that have been broken in many other companies.
    But for now, we can still try to get a better V2.5 and V3.0. (I hope the promise will last at least that long). Seriously - I don't trust, I don't believe. But since this decision is not in our hands (money is sadly not based on moral integrity). We still have things to gain! - The "No" is for sure ... the "yes" is an option.

    And to make this clear: Serif: I'm very angry about you! You are jeopardizing the future of many creative people, since noone easily changes the design software like underware in the morning. To make it clear: giving up control just for the money! Just the opposite of the ideals you promoted for the last 10 years!
    I just seriously ask Canva to keep the pledges! Don't try to copy Adobe, the original is always the better choice.
    Cheers, Timo
  8. Like
    Jens Krebs reacted to Jon_TA in Canva   
    When Affinity Software starts dropping in quality and development begins to stop...I will immediately drop your apps and move to alternatives. I already have three dedicated apps in mind and bookmarked for me to access when your apps go to crap. I despise cheap and greedy money mongering short term gains that go completely against individual software sovereignty. Accepting that buyout offer, when just last year your entire company was making $22 million cash rich profits that went beyond paying all your staff (which I have no anger toward the non-founder staff)) and your fat executive checks just Screams Greed. I well understand gaslighting when it is being used. 
    Us common folk are not stupid and most certainly not ignorant about such corporate jackwagon behavior. The Canva founders have vulture capital wealth well beyond what is necessary to live a comfortable sane life. I am not anti-wealth, I am just fully against Obscene levels of wealth; particularly when such "money" is made without any regard for the financial wellbeing of the local artists I talked to where I currently live. I tried to get individual attention from Canva Staff and they deliberately blocked me and shoved me off into being on my own by denying me access to any staff members to talk to.

    That piss poor treatment, because I wasn't even a "major account", doesn't even qualify as "customer service". Congratulations, you just fed monster billionaires of a company with no decency for solo business owners/independents like me. At least my language is clean and not vulgar.
  9. Like
    Jens Krebs reacted to mogsie in Canva   
    People are suffering from shock. After moving to Affinity in good faith, there seems to be a possiblity that the software could suddenly become unusable if activation is cancelled. That makes us hostages. I don't like it. Bit Disappointed has pointed out that this happened with Capture One Express.
    If Affinity is genuine about at least continuing to honour existing perpetual licences, they should make it so the activation code is enough to activate the software without needing online activation. People would at least be sure then that Affinity 2.4 would continue to work for them.
  10. Haha
    Jens Krebs reacted to AffinityMakesMeSad in Canva   
    Best reply ever!
    We are now eagerly awaiting the answer what have changed since 25 of mars 2024?
    How come that we all of a sudden are important for Caffinity??
  11. Thanks
    Jens Krebs reacted to FIRCYK in ♦ Early Access ♦ KOLOR — The Graphic Designer’s Color Toolbox (Free)   
    Hey!
    I’m releasing a new product as free early access.
    In this version, the content may change, or I can add more goodies and release it as a free product in the future.
    The full paid version will be available soon. 
    Any feedback much appreciated!
     

     
    Link:
    https://fircyk.gumroad.com/l/kolor
     

     
    More free resources:
    https://fircyk.gumroad.com/l/keyvisual
    https://fircyk.gumroad.com/l/sprint
    https://fircyk.gumroad.com/l/gridderfree
    https://fircyk.gumroad.com/l/dimensions
    https://fircyk.gumroad.com/l/logodesigntoolkitfree
    https://fircyk.gumroad.com/l/typescalefree
    https://fircyk.gumroad.com/l/moldfree
    https://fircyk.gumroad.com/l/fontslistfree
     
     

    Happy Designing!
     
  12. Like
    Jens Krebs got a reaction from PaolaB in Canva   
    Considering how many “funds” Canva has “raised” in the past few years and how many venture capital campanies are involved, I have a VERY bad feeling about this.
    The forced marketing speech (“joining the family”, yeah, sure) in the announcement doesn’t halp.
    I guess that it’s probably a good way for all Serif employees to get a nice retirement in 3 to 5 years, but it’s a buckshot in the face for me as a happy user and supporter of an independent company that makes professional software I use every day.
  13. Haha
    Jens Krebs reacted to Bit Disappointed in Canva   
  14. Like
    Jens Krebs reacted to Bit Disappointed in Canva   
    Exactly.
    It is non-binding, and it is deliberately formulated to be non-binding. I can guarantee that a business lawyer has reviewed it before publication. When you, before too long (18-36 months), receive an email about changed plans and terms, you might get three months' notice. Which terms will change, I will not speculate on, but the four pledges you can use for a silly and childishly naive hope. Nothing else. But it's a calm-the-masses PR strategy that works. Just look in this thread. You eat it up. The world is full of promises and extremely poor in fulfilled promises. Grow up.
    Example:
    Why is Capture One Express being deprecated?
    We're constantly working to improve our tools for you. And, to give you the best creative and collaborative experience, we need to focus on our main products. This means that starting January 30, 2024, Express will no longer be available.
    How is it possible for you to deactivate my perpetual license?
    For legal concerns, contact our legal team at legal@captureone.com for more in-depth answers.
    Can I run Capture One Express on an old computer?
    No, all Capture One Express license keys will be disabled and will not be valid, regardless of the hardware used.
  15. Like
    Jens Krebs got a reaction from Ruffian in Canva   
    A "Pledge" ist not a promise and "we are committed to" is very different from "we are going to" -- sorry, but while this is a nice gesture, I've heard this noncommittal language way to often (in recent years even from our gouvernment with their listening, their commitments and the famous "five pledges") to believe any of it.
    As I have spend a good amount of time of learning Affinity and moving all my work to it I'll stick with it for the time being. Worst case is that my version 2.4 stays as it is and I'll use it until I don't find a computer that runs it anymore.
    Given that Serif just got handed a large sack of money, I won't do any free beta testing from now on though, and only install further updates if they have something I need rather than looking forward to playing with a new toy and being happy about everything I discover.
    The software has hopped from "a journey I enjoy being part of" to "a tool I use to earn a living". My feeling towards Serif has shifted from "fan" and "advocate" to "user" respectively "customer" with a simple business relationship that can be cancelled the moment "the product doesn't meet expectations".
  16. Like
    Jens Krebs got a reaction from Cellobita in Canva   
    A "Pledge" ist not a promise and "we are committed to" is very different from "we are going to" -- sorry, but while this is a nice gesture, I've heard this noncommittal language way to often (in recent years even from our gouvernment with their listening, their commitments and the famous "five pledges") to believe any of it.
    As I have spend a good amount of time of learning Affinity and moving all my work to it I'll stick with it for the time being. Worst case is that my version 2.4 stays as it is and I'll use it until I don't find a computer that runs it anymore.
    Given that Serif just got handed a large sack of money, I won't do any free beta testing from now on though, and only install further updates if they have something I need rather than looking forward to playing with a new toy and being happy about everything I discover.
    The software has hopped from "a journey I enjoy being part of" to "a tool I use to earn a living". My feeling towards Serif has shifted from "fan" and "advocate" to "user" respectively "customer" with a simple business relationship that can be cancelled the moment "the product doesn't meet expectations".
  17. Like
    Jens Krebs reacted to jimh12345 in Canva   
    That's how I feel too.   
    Sorry if I sound like a cynic, or an aging know-it-all.   But I've been through Nikon Capture NX, PS Elements, and Exposure X7 before Affinity Photo.  They were all either abandoned or left on life support (Elements),  glowing "commitments" to the contrary.   I worked in the software business and I know what acquisitions typically mean, for both customers and employees. 
    I just read the email from Affinity (or Canva, we don't really know) with the big promises.  Nice, but I've heard it all before;  Affinity will end up becoming whatever some execs at Canva want it to be, period.  I'd feel a lot better if I saw the word "photography" in there, somewhere, but that's pretty clearly not an interest at Canva.    I wouldn't be surprised if "Affinity Photo" drops out of the branding, leaving just "Design".

    I'll keep using Affinity Photo for now but have already started looking at alternatives that are in active development and aimed at photographers.
  18. Like
    Jens Krebs reacted to debraspicher in Canva   
    Uh yeah, they're not getting anymore beta testing from me either. No more testing of any kind.
    (Edit: In case it's not clear for any reason, that does not count for bug reports. I'm just no longer willing to help develop software by testing it, whether that's beta or post-beta. I expect polished software to a reasonable degree.)

    They can afford a whole warehouse of testers now. There's years worth of goodwill in this forum alone that still hasn't been reciprocated.
    It is really inconvenient to change platforms, especially for major projects. On one hand, I'll have refreshed on my other toolset(s) and be looking at other options. Adobe has aged terribly, imo. It really should be easy to compete with the right polish but Serif's team has had a terrible track record with bugs and leaving features unfinished, so I'm not optimistic whatever "pledge" gets written in that the quality won't continue to slip. That pledge can go away at anytime.


    Only thing I like so far is that this is very much sounding anti-Adobe. That should please anyone, customer or not.
  19. Like
    Jens Krebs got a reaction from RichardGB in Canva   
    Considering how many “funds” Canva has “raised” in the past few years and how many venture capital campanies are involved, I have a VERY bad feeling about this.
    The forced marketing speech (“joining the family”, yeah, sure) in the announcement doesn’t halp.
    I guess that it’s probably a good way for all Serif employees to get a nice retirement in 3 to 5 years, but it’s a buckshot in the face for me as a happy user and supporter of an independent company that makes professional software I use every day.
  20. Like
    Jens Krebs got a reaction from lashman in Canva   
    A "Pledge" ist not a promise and "we are committed to" is very different from "we are going to" -- sorry, but while this is a nice gesture, I've heard this noncommittal language way to often (in recent years even from our gouvernment with their listening, their commitments and the famous "five pledges") to believe any of it.
    As I have spend a good amount of time of learning Affinity and moving all my work to it I'll stick with it for the time being. Worst case is that my version 2.4 stays as it is and I'll use it until I don't find a computer that runs it anymore.
    Given that Serif just got handed a large sack of money, I won't do any free beta testing from now on though, and only install further updates if they have something I need rather than looking forward to playing with a new toy and being happy about everything I discover.
    The software has hopped from "a journey I enjoy being part of" to "a tool I use to earn a living". My feeling towards Serif has shifted from "fan" and "advocate" to "user" respectively "customer" with a simple business relationship that can be cancelled the moment "the product doesn't meet expectations".
  21. Like
    Jens Krebs reacted to PaulieT in Canva   
    Hello Ash,
    I hope you and the staff of Affinity, made out well in the sell-out. I fear your customers will not!
    After reading about the Canva takeover, I went to the Canva website to see their product offerings. I just tried a Canva product and it did not work correctly. Then I found, there was no way to contact Canva Customer Support to tell them of the problem with their product.
    As you know, Affinity (Serif) has an email address that customers or potential customer can contact when they have a question or have an issue. Not so with Canva, they obviously don't care.
    There was a way to contact Sales, so I tried that approach. After filling in all the information, and going through all the Captcha screens, I received a message saying there was an error in the submission. I tried again, with no luck.
    This does not give me a good feeling about the future of Affinity products!  I refer you to Pledge Item 4 - How can you be "committed to listening and being led by the design community" if there is no way to contact Customer Support? 
    Paul A. Teseny
     
  22. Thanks
    Jens Krebs got a reaction from Bit Disappointed in Canva   
    A "Pledge" ist not a promise and "we are committed to" is very different from "we are going to" -- sorry, but while this is a nice gesture, I've heard this noncommittal language way to often (in recent years even from our gouvernment with their listening, their commitments and the famous "five pledges") to believe any of it.
    As I have spend a good amount of time of learning Affinity and moving all my work to it I'll stick with it for the time being. Worst case is that my version 2.4 stays as it is and I'll use it until I don't find a computer that runs it anymore.
    Given that Serif just got handed a large sack of money, I won't do any free beta testing from now on though, and only install further updates if they have something I need rather than looking forward to playing with a new toy and being happy about everything I discover.
    The software has hopped from "a journey I enjoy being part of" to "a tool I use to earn a living". My feeling towards Serif has shifted from "fan" and "advocate" to "user" respectively "customer" with a simple business relationship that can be cancelled the moment "the product doesn't meet expectations".
  23. Like
    Jens Krebs reacted to AffinityMakesMeSad in Canva   
    No, they haven't had ANY cash flow problem in Serif Ltd recently - this small company has made 45 million pounds (50m dollar) real profit last three years, so, that has not certainly been the problem...
  24. Thanks
    Jens Krebs got a reaction from debraspicher in Canva   
    A "Pledge" ist not a promise and "we are committed to" is very different from "we are going to" -- sorry, but while this is a nice gesture, I've heard this noncommittal language way to often (in recent years even from our gouvernment with their listening, their commitments and the famous "five pledges") to believe any of it.
    As I have spend a good amount of time of learning Affinity and moving all my work to it I'll stick with it for the time being. Worst case is that my version 2.4 stays as it is and I'll use it until I don't find a computer that runs it anymore.
    Given that Serif just got handed a large sack of money, I won't do any free beta testing from now on though, and only install further updates if they have something I need rather than looking forward to playing with a new toy and being happy about everything I discover.
    The software has hopped from "a journey I enjoy being part of" to "a tool I use to earn a living". My feeling towards Serif has shifted from "fan" and "advocate" to "user" respectively "customer" with a simple business relationship that can be cancelled the moment "the product doesn't meet expectations".
  25. Like
    Jens Krebs reacted to Pan Athen in Canva   
    I'll be straight with this. I've been too many years in the creative media to hear this and not feel alarmed. Using a product means that we build our pipeline and our archival with projects based on proprietary formats, which then become useless (or very expensive in time to convert) if we need to switch to another toolset. The affinity platform uses a closed proprietary format, so the amount of licenses sold is already definining this power of holding clients that Canva might have seen as a prospective market to tap into. Apart from the nice words about how we all want to make a better world, your products are still tools that are used in production and this is important to have in mind.
    My fear is that Canva will try to sneak in subscriptions one way or another and this seems to be the case if you read between the lines of the four pledges email that we got recently.
    I don't want the pricing model to change. If AI features are introduced, they should not be part of a subscription cloud service, but offered to run on my computer as part of the perpetual license model like they do in DaVinci Resolve.
    The fifth pledge that I would like to see is: "Affinity will always run on your desktop. We will never make this a SaaS platform by introducing AI or other cloud services in the desktop editor." If you need to run something heavy on processing then you should offer a cloud SaaS solution but also leave the option for any users that want to run the same tools using their own computer power. DaVinci Resolve does that. Adobe doesn't, and this is why I don't use their tools.
    Other than that, I really wish that this is a good choice for Serif and that the future will be bright for them and for us using their platform. If not, alternatives will always be there in a free market and I can keep my current version forever or until it's not compatible with my OS anymore.
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