JGD

I dunno ... after 6+ decades of dealing with vendors, businesses, people in general and everything else I've learned that more often than I'd like (in that context) pessimism is often realistic. And in the long run, less disappointing.

The cloud is important, yes. But IMO, for a user/market niche. For Canva's main current user profile (I think the whole point of the Affinity apps line added is to add a new niche, with many sub niches itself), it makes a lot of sense. They have all the gazillion of Canva's assets in the cloud, and light (very light) apps to do very basic things (what those users can really do), those can be all web apps, on a browser. For a bit higher end, you are handling heavy files for print with many layers, specially if it's raster work (like complex illustrations that happen not to be vector based, or not fully). Even overly complex (many nodes and objects) vector files could mean a problem (processing, etc). Even just in photography, editing large RAW files is a too heavy duty for both being a browser app (although being cloud based does not imply the need of a browser based app, I know) or access to disk through a whichever connection (weaker part being mostly in the client side), and then whatever is the state of the disc access in the cloud machines, or just CPU/GPU performance required, not so great in browser apps. So, the cloud's need and usefulness I guess it depends on the market niche. 

Not a single current Serif customer who invested actual money into the product is anywhere near that level of a pessimist. Goodwill had to also be exchanged to move one's business and craft to this platform and I have seen no evidence to the latter, that anyone came to Serif because they had the worst possible outlook as a client.
At best, this discussion only sways prospective customers. Serif already has our money and what happens with it has always been entirely up to them. If any user wants to take their V2 purchase and chuck it in the trash, start putting their eggs in another basket, they're not "grumpy"... they're speculating the best possible route to take their craft and have their own unique ideas as to what the future entails. This forum has always been preoccupied with airy speculation and this is nothing new. That is one major downside to being a Serif customer is the user is often left guessing as to the future and intended quality of their products.
This place is starting to sound like a cult. If a user questions at all the outcome of the acquisition, they are a dirty pessimist. NO person, Serif customer or not, current or near future, should ever be told they risk being an actual depressed individual for thinking differently. When we start getting into discussing people's mental health as if that was ever appropriate discussion for a debate regarding the future of a business, we have gone into something else entirely.

Yes, at the current level of Adobe's developments (and considering their cloud covers many more areas, as you say, so is never apples to apples) that is unthinkable, as Adobe is not "stopped". Unlike a lot of people say (angry with Adobe), Photoshop and the other apps do progress a lot, and the company last time I checked had 26.000 (surely more, now) souls working worldwide (versus the 90 people in Affinity, yet they have made a functional suite to do a lot of what three of the main Adobe apps do). Then also, even if Canva made of Affinity a "cloud" suite to compete at that level, investing giga loads of cash to become as capable, just for the existence of a similar alternative (but again! that's only in capabilities.. we must not forget implantation in companies, that's huge to fight against), then this sole possible choice would decrease the price of both, almost guaranteed.  That's true competition. But that would need such a titanic use of resources, while if instead, keeping Affinity how it is (even if not making a faster pace! just allowing its survival), slowly gaining terrain to Adobe in certain parcels, does seem a lot smarter, requiring a lot lower investment, yet actively grabbing more market. 

I'm not surprised that there are over 31 pages of comments on this topic. The bottom line is that many users are used to their software suppliers manipulating/misleading them. This is NOT to say that Affinity is, but clearly previous uncertainty from other software sources breeds uncertainty.  The most I can do is recount my own experiences and what lead me to adopt Affinity Apps a few years back.
Originally I used PaintShop Pro as my main graphics editor, but that was back in the 2000s and most of what i did was altering photographs and making maps. PSP had a number of interesting features, such as using Python as a scripting languages; being able to rearrange your entire UI, and a vector drawing system that coexisted with the bitmap stuff. I used PSP for a long time (and recently came back to it as a "backup" app to be able to access over a 1000 images in PSP format). But when I started making webcomics I discovered Macromedia Fireworks. It was really good for making webcomics. I started with drawing on paper and scanning those in via PSP, but I'd use FW to do the layouts and place images into a page, adding text boxes, speech balloons and other special effects in FW. And then Fireworks was acquired by Adobe. 😔
I started making webcomics via screenshots from virtual worlds (most Second life) and I bought a copy of CS6 with Fireworks in it. that was handy as well because I started doing a Masters in Fine Arts and my university had Adobe apps on every terminal! It was their preferred software. As part of that I created a graphic novel of 126 pages. Honestly though, I hated drawing in Photoshop, and Illustrator's UI aggravated me endlessly. After reviewing the software available and discarding GIMP (with an UI almost as bad as Ai), and even simple programs like Paint Tool Sai (great fun to use but it was extremely hard to scale the images created) I chose Clip Studio Paint to draw  those pages, and formatted them in InDesign. Not exactly perfect but it worked. Couldn't use FW to do this as it was too vast a project for it, and after Adobe started the subscription model they killed Fireworks (re-imagined no doubt in a subscription app).
But I'm on a fixed income, on disability for years, and a subscriptions are problematic. I might be able to afford just one, but like streaming services, the more software firms that use that model, the harder it is to to afford them. I can save up and make single purchases, but subscriptions not so much (the only subscription I have is Disney+ basic, and that's for Doctor Who)The deal breaker came when I found that to use (and update) my CS6 apps I had to join "the cloud". I started looking for proper replacements for the Adobe stuff, and for Fireworks as well. I rejected half a dozen apps before settling on Affinity. I had replacements for Photoshop in Photo, Illustrator (and Fireworks) in Designer, and InDesign with Publisher.  I like these apps. Not because they're "better", but because they're fair easier for someone with visual impairments to use, and not only that, but (like Paint Tool Sai) they're FUN to use, especially the v2 apps. Designer is like Fireworks on steroids!
So I'm not keen on on any requirement to subscribe to other services (even a free subscription like the Canva Basic) to use. I still use CSP from time to time (using 3D figures to create poses, importing photos to line drawing, et cetera) but they have a Clip Studio service which you need to use for registration of the apps but that's bearable because you DON'T have to use it to to run CSP if you don't want to. The sort of options I'd like to see after the acquisition would be perhaps, something similar to that used by CSP (which evolved over time). That is, you can buy outright current version of apps; you can update the license (for a smaller fee) of older versions of the apps you have a license to, and you can just use them on a subscription basis if you want. But force me to have a subscription (even a free one) in order to use my apps, then I walk and look for alternatives. I did it before with Adobe, and used old versions of the their apps until I found alternatives, and I can do it again.


Hopefully it won't come from that. I'm optimistic in that I think Affinity and Canva will keep their word on this, but I understand the skepticism that users have on this, when other software developers have "changed the deal" (like Darth Vader in Empire Strikes Back) on them .
Please, please, be the exception, and we'll keep using the apps, and supporting them as well. 

We share a very similar background. PSP (Win 3.11 era) was my very first photo editor and was where I began tinkering with editing/creating whole new bitmaps of graphics and tweaking screenshots. When I was really young, I was learning to work our new scanner for my family who bought one for more utilitarian purposes. My grandmother gave me a check. I put it on the highest setting because "more numbers better obviously" and waited about 30 minutes before a Publisher's Clearing House sized check appeared on our monitor. It was huge, but it was still amazing to see something like that become feasible. Anyway, I didn't get a tablet until much later, but that did begin my creative journey digitally.

I'm also a CSP user and I'm happy with the middle ground they chose with their economic model. It's understandable that developing a product can take lots of money (who would've thought?). I'm frankly surprised Serif didn't adjust their model over time, raise prices, etc as the V1 cycle was quite long. I'd would've been happy to pay more for increased stability, more features as long as the quality was still progressing upwards. I'm actually fine even if this whole time an acquisition or at least the possibility of selling was in the back of their minds. Some companies can only get so far on their own and it's more admirable to admit they don't have the resources to do so alone and choosing a buyer who is more likely to take the product the intended direction is reasonable. Many companies change hands multiple times before finding the right team. So that part is not unusual.

The subscription part is more worrisome, for people who are sub-averse (I'm very much "it depends"). Whatever is written today, the future may very well prove difficult and plans may have to change. This was true pre-acquisition. However, looking around at other alternatives (some of which I'm trialing), there are still many options that offer perpetual license. Some are on the expensive side, but they do exist... they just may be a bit more niche? So I think that, despite whatever may come, Affinity won't be the only game in town to compete with that model. Anyway between their declared aspiration for becoming the "anti-Adobe" and the pressure from a rise in competition/technology advances from all corners, Canva has a major incentive to keep the perpetual, imo. Does that it mean it can't change in 5 years? Nobody can know. But it's an increasingly competitive market and with this acquisition, I think there were will be more incentives to make sure that there always remain options... so I think it can only mean a good thing, at the end of the day.

That's what you get when taking things too seriously.
You've completely misunderstood my words. It is because I fully realize how limited our lives are and that planning only goes so far, that I live each day to the fullest I can. That I enjoy every little moment, every experience, every encounter (that includes negative ones). Anyone who knows me in my real life knows me for my unbridled optimism.
And I look at the universe and the world with that same hope and optimism; and awe as if I were still a child. We don't know what we don't know. As conscious beings we are but an infinitesimal part of the whole that is the universe, a part that coalesces like a tiny vortex in a river that appears and seamlessly merges back in a infinitesimal moment, yet we still fill it through our uniqueness and influence the next moments, even if we exist but for that short moment.
Being aware of this interconnection and fragility liberates one to a tremendous freedom. The world is wonderful and existence fragile. If more people would fully realize this, humanity wouldn't make such as mess.
Anyhoo... Back to our regular programming 🙂
Only the future will tell us how this Canva story will unfold for Affinity. As I said, I hope for the best, and expect the worst.
Affinity's continued development falls outside my tiny sphere of influence. I've purchased V1 and V2, and will purchase V3 hopefully (see what I did there?).

If it is known as such in some places it certainly must be seen in them as a very odd cult, considering the tone of so many posts & whole topics are allowed to express very negative or derogatory thoughts about the apps.

“can save up and make single purchases, but subscriptions not so much”
This is me, too, especially when I was free-lancing and income was very variable.  It is also a principle to own what I buy, not pay rent endlessly, as much as possible.

That is one of the more encouraging things I have heard.  IDK that Adobe buying Canva could have survived antitrust, but it is a risk better avoided.

Thanks for this analysis; as a USAmerican, the background on the Australian economic situation is of interest.  I did not realize that Canva had bought both Pixabay and Pexels (I do remember Pixabay no longer being searchable through Affinity, that might have been the reason for the change), and I have been using both along with Openverse.  I do feel that I have seen more ads than before, but they are both good image sources for me.  I also noted a post that mentioned Canva buying Flourish, a program of which I was unaware and looks interesting.  They have certainly been on a buying spree!

Yes, it would, but since you’re still running those applications on your older machines you at least have an easy route to the retrieval of your product keys (as explained in the linked thread).
If you need installer downloads for any of the products that were available for download via the CommunityPlus support site until Serif closed it, please contact me either by PM here or by email to serif[at]punster[dot]me and I’ll see if I can help.

Hi SrPx,
Canva was started in Perth (the capital of Western Australia) and is now headquartered in Sydney, Australia – depending on the day either the largest or second-largest city in the country. An aside – Sydney not Sidney.
The Australian Financial Review is Australia's business paper of record. The article reflects our tightening regulatory landscape around acquisitions – currently there are major debates about market concentration in several industries and sectors – particularly supermarkets.
While never say never, it would have to be a dramatic black swan moment for Adobe to take control of Canva. The Review takes the attitude that this is bad for start-ups that just want to be bought by big tech as an exit strategy – which for us as users of Affinity software is a source of comfort.
I agree with you and other comments that Canva's acquisition provides near total protection from an Adobe buy-and-kill Affinity move. It is one concern that was off my list immediately.
Mike

Exactly. I'll take realism -- even if it superficially looks pessimistic at times -- rather than rose-colored glasses. I don't like surprises. My ultimate advantage over many here is that I'm not making my living with Affinity. I feel for those who are in an uncomfortable (to say the least) situation at the moment. The principles and fallout still apply to me, just not as potentially painful nor disruptive.
And again, I hope it all works out, but I'll have to see it with my own four eyes. 🙂 

Hi Andy,
I think some of those commenting in this thread don't appreciate that this is a challenging time for all involved – including the Serif people. Kudos for keeping this forum open.
Having made two quite disastrous production software choices in the last decade I really wanted to get a deeper understand of the situation. I'm gun shy, and don't want to make a third bad decision – stay and eventually lose access to production files or abandon software that is going to improve and expand – particularly into fixed format ePub.
My post was a summary of thoughts to date. I wasn't sure it would contribute to the debate – it goes on a bit. In the end I felt some of the local knowledge might be helpful to others.
Having though more overnight, and read recent responses including from NewInBoston, RC–R and SrPx – I'm feeling one degree more confident that this might all work out okay.
Mike

I'm curious... One of our Australian forum members, MikeV, discards this possibility, due to Canva's HQ happening to be in Sydney, Australia, and how Australian regulators are tending to deal with this sort of thing there :

" Adobe takeover
One of the concerns raised in this thread is the potential for Adobe to buy Canva – given the mood and direction of Australian competition regulators I think this is so unlikely that it does not figure in my calculations. "   

After  what has happened with Figma (Adobe tried to acquire it recently), apparently this is not such an automatic thing to expect, these days. There are some articles about it : 
https://www.afr.com/technology/no-one-can-buy-canva-now-other-start-ups-beware-20231220-p5esr8
Edit: Ouch, sorry. It seems that article is partially behind a paywall...  I could read it completely, but it seems for some reason it only shows up full when searching some stuff in Google, not accessing it directly... (I am not familiar with that site, BTW). But one of  the key points of it is that Australian companies have it pretty hard to do such operation now, due to regulation (what MikeV described).

What I am finding more in Google goes more in the lines of several sources expecting more of a competition from Canva against Adobe, grabbing more market from Adobe in the low, to low-mid end. Obviously Adobe will keep non challenged in the very high end, not just as its apps are immensely more advanced and professional, but -almost more important- because many industries (not only the game and film industries) have their pipelines, workflows, custom solutions, trained teams, tightly tied to Adobe. But a huge pie of the market is the low end (175 millions of users in Canva is no small thing) and part of a bit higher tier.

Even more the case when our skills are less and less needed (and I can't understand why people don't realize that this is the biggest danger for artists, designers, photographers, etc, but not just from Canva, but any apps with full AI art and design generation, like MidJourney , Dall-E, etc), so, the low end users can finally do a lot of work without our services (in Canva, and similar solutions), and then, the "pie" that canva can grab is significantly bigger than what it was the potential Canva's user base before. WAY more the case if they start implementing Affinity's tech inside Canva solutions (to an extent... I don't see a lot of their user base getting super technical! It's not that profile), and also keeping the branch of Affinity's standalone suite. As in, I think it aspires to way more  than the social media graphics and fast stuff for marketing people and small business owners saving bucks on designers and artists that it was its market till now. This challenges a large chunk of Adobe's user base. And from what I am digging out there, it seems I was not the only one suspecting that Canva's thing is not to be bought, but to compete with the giant, as at this point, well, it's a giant itself and it has a lot to win.
I am not saying this to challenge your opinion. I am genuinely curious about all this matter, and I might be wrong, as I'm just barely reading about these things now, pretty ignorant in finances stuff, and English is not my first language, but seems to be there quite a bunch of articles supporting this theory and right now I am not finding anything suggesting the possibility of an Adobe--> Canva buyout. But who knows.
 

Not sure what point you're insinuating by this. Did you see my first post?
I’ve been an affinity Customer since very early on in the version one days. The original acquisition statement was the first time I felt I really needed to speak up, which lead me to join here, and the second pledge statement was just as significant that I needed to respond again.
I certainly hope that I won’t need to be back again.

Just for laughs 🤣
 

I hope there's a hidden message in all this from Canva. Despite the extreme negativity, this forum continues public visibility. I hope that means Canva is willing to give customer complaints due attention.
If Canva hasn't gotten the word about how subscriptions would impact their market, they are completely hopeless.

This will end up exactly like SketchUp : https://blog.sketchup.com/article/same-sketchup-you-love-a-new-way-to-buy
:>>

TLDR; Nobody seems convinced by the hostage email. It's now a case of wait see judge. 

A big thumbs up to affinity for pledging to offer perpetual licenses at reasonable prices. It's pleasing that they are aware of customer concerns.
 
Especially the perpetual licenses at a reasonable price part. Corel and Quark offer perpetual licenses, but they aren't reasonable. You still need a yearly maintenance subscription to use a lot of features or get upgrade pricing.  Their perpetual licenses are really designed to push people into subscription. 
 
Does the Affinity Pledges make me feel better about this buy out? No. Bottom line: Canva answers to investors. And investors love subscriptions. Down the road, I could see Canva rebranding Affinity as the "Canva Pro" range to get around the pledge for perpetual licenses.
 
I really wish Serif could have done their own IPO to remain independent. Or had been purchased by someone like Microsoft who have a (fairly) good (modern) track record for offering fairly priced perpetual licenses. I am happy that the Affinity team got the financial success they deserved. But I'm deeply heartbroken that my favorite app suite is in the hands of a company whose bread and butter is subscription. 

I noticed that many people write about the fighting with maintaining old programs. They write about compatibility modes, about old systems and even about dedicated machines not maintained for decades!
I wonder why nobody uses virtualization? Personally, I have Linux as the main system, but all older programs, as well as Affinity, I run on VMware Workstation, losing capacity maybe 5%. And as the main computer has a strong processor with 24 cores and a lot of RAM, in practice I completely do not feel a slowdown.
But the advantage is that such a virtual is portable to a new computer (it's just a few files!) and ready to run immediately. In addition the system, in this virtual machine, can be cut off from the Internet, without anti-virus and updates: fast, clean and safe. It maintains communication with the local network and resources, e.g. with NAS. In this way, you can have any "frozen" application for any long time. Including, for example, the active AD 2.0 license, even when the servers are turned off.
I recommend!

Of course.
Serif and Canva have, before the last signatures were to be set, gone through weeks of formalities, consisting of page upon page of business law and general law. All of it obligatory, watertight, and binding. If not, it could have legal consequences, and it does have legal consequences and is binding in a serious way you wouldn't understand unless you've worked with law. I have. I do. All angles and scenarios are covered, all consequences for all parties are described. The boundaries set legally are crossed by no one, the obligations described, crossed by no one. Otherwise, there are consequences.
So, what did you, the customers, get? You customers, on the other hand, got four pledges that are as valuable as promises children make when they say they won't do something again. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. You've been given hot air with an expiration date whenever Canva sees fit, and as times change. Times change, you know that.
You even got these four promises after Serif and Canva realized that the customers were indeed not buying the unprofessional and unoriginal PR spin about the takeover. So, the next day, you got some promises as if you were children.
There you have Canva (and Serif too) - neither professional nor creative work has been exposed to you during this short acquisition. And it guarantees uncertainty in the near and distant future. Especially for you, the customers.
Don't be like children, people - pledges are WORTH NOTHING.

I assume that the period for keeping promises will be rather shorter than longer. Just a feeling.