jmwellborn

Guys, dont panic. Nothing has been decided yet. There will be changes for sure as with every merger/acquisition, but whether they will be good or bad for us Affinity users, time will tell and if it will get worse, you have enough time to move elsewhere. 

Nowhere.
Has Affinity 2.4.1 suddenly stopped working as of this morning?

I do support wholeheartedly your words. Thanks.
d.

Well, this could be good news.
Congratulations on obtaining the investment in Serif that Canva will provide. I hope Serif will continue to provide affordable professional quality software that is accessible to all. May Serif go from strength to strength and Affinity blossom into the fully amazing software that it will no doubt be.
I hope the pricing model will stay the same i.e. purchase and own your copy of the software and not rent it.
Good luck for the future.

@wVanDyck,
Wow, your experience is very very close to mine. For computer use I started with Aldus Pagemaker on a Mac+ then went to Ventura Publisher before Deneba Canvas back on Mac. That is excluding the Letter Press work followed by phototypesetting using Compugraphic equipment with its 6 bit instructions and data code punched into paper tape.
Seeing as I am here I will wish all of the Affinity team best wishes going forward. I am optimistic. But I would be remiss to not mention that I will bail on any subscription model.

Wow, so many assumptions, accusations and defections and the announcement isn't even 24 hours old! I know these things don't usually go well, some of my favorite programs got swallowed up never to be heard of again (even hardware, may Ensoniq rest in peace  ) which was a real bummer, but take a deep breath and give it a chance to play out.
V2 still works and does what it did yesterday before the announcement. It's still a good program. It could use some updates and meaningful bug fixes for sure, but nothing has changed since a week ago. We got exactly what we bought. I didn't buy V2 for what V3 might be, I bought it for the features in V2, and that is what I have and will always have. Maybe it will go subscription in the future, maybe it won't, we don't know. Enjoy what you have now, and move on to something else in the future if the situation changes. Complaining, insulting, insinuating, and condemning now isn't going to change anything, the deal is done.
And if they made a bunch of money in the deal, good for them! I have a nice piece of non-Adobe software for a relatively inexpensive price, and they can take a nice vacation with their family and maybe pay down their mortgage a little. A win win. Making a profit is kinda the point of making and selling products after all.
Now about fixing those bugs....how 'bout it guys....  

From the day I first discovered Affinity, I have been overwhelmed by the old-fashioned courtesy, dedication, and professionalism of the entire organization. Even when tempted by some occasional unpleasantness from the outside, honor and decency have always prevailed. It was a shock to read of this acquisition/merger today, but I for one, am going to trust Ash and his wonderful team.  They have not failed us yet, and I don’t think they will going forward.  Affinity is their creation — they surely don’t want to spoil it!   Hopefully Affinity will blossom while keeping its tradition for excellence.  Steve Jobs started Apple.  Apple has added laptops, iPads, iPhones, Apple TV, etc. without spoiling its brand either.
I wish everyone at Serif/Affinity the very best going forward and thank you for what I am sure will be many more years of happiness using the Affinity Suite. 

From the day I first discovered Affinity, I have been overwhelmed by the old-fashioned courtesy, dedication, and professionalism of the entire organization. Even when tempted by some occasional unpleasantness from the outside, honor and decency have always prevailed. It was a shock to read of this acquisition/merger today, but I for one, am going to trust Ash and his wonderful team.  They have not failed us yet, and I don’t think they will going forward.  Affinity is their creation — they surely don’t want to spoil it!   Hopefully Affinity will blossom while keeping its tradition for excellence.  Steve Jobs started Apple.  Apple has added laptops, iPads, iPhones, Apple TV, etc. without spoiling its brand either.
I wish everyone at Serif/Affinity the very best going forward and thank you for what I am sure will be many more years of happiness using the Affinity Suite. 

From the day I first discovered Affinity, I have been overwhelmed by the old-fashioned courtesy, dedication, and professionalism of the entire organization. Even when tempted by some occasional unpleasantness from the outside, honor and decency have always prevailed. It was a shock to read of this acquisition/merger today, but I for one, am going to trust Ash and his wonderful team.  They have not failed us yet, and I don’t think they will going forward.  Affinity is their creation — they surely don’t want to spoil it!   Hopefully Affinity will blossom while keeping its tradition for excellence.  Steve Jobs started Apple.  Apple has added laptops, iPads, iPhones, Apple TV, etc. without spoiling its brand either.
I wish everyone at Serif/Affinity the very best going forward and thank you for what I am sure will be many more years of happiness using the Affinity Suite. 

From the day I first discovered Affinity, I have been overwhelmed by the old-fashioned courtesy, dedication, and professionalism of the entire organization. Even when tempted by some occasional unpleasantness from the outside, honor and decency have always prevailed. It was a shock to read of this acquisition/merger today, but I for one, am going to trust Ash and his wonderful team.  They have not failed us yet, and I don’t think they will going forward.  Affinity is their creation — they surely don’t want to spoil it!   Hopefully Affinity will blossom while keeping its tradition for excellence.  Steve Jobs started Apple.  Apple has added laptops, iPads, iPhones, Apple TV, etc. without spoiling its brand either.
I wish everyone at Serif/Affinity the very best going forward and thank you for what I am sure will be many more years of happiness using the Affinity Suite. 

From the day I first discovered Affinity, I have been overwhelmed by the old-fashioned courtesy, dedication, and professionalism of the entire organization. Even when tempted by some occasional unpleasantness from the outside, honor and decency have always prevailed. It was a shock to read of this acquisition/merger today, but I for one, am going to trust Ash and his wonderful team.  They have not failed us yet, and I don’t think they will going forward.  Affinity is their creation — they surely don’t want to spoil it!   Hopefully Affinity will blossom while keeping its tradition for excellence.  Steve Jobs started Apple.  Apple has added laptops, iPads, iPhones, Apple TV, etc. without spoiling its brand either.
I wish everyone at Serif/Affinity the very best going forward and thank you for what I am sure will be many more years of happiness using the Affinity Suite. 

From the day I first discovered Affinity, I have been overwhelmed by the old-fashioned courtesy, dedication, and professionalism of the entire organization. Even when tempted by some occasional unpleasantness from the outside, honor and decency have always prevailed. It was a shock to read of this acquisition/merger today, but I for one, am going to trust Ash and his wonderful team.  They have not failed us yet, and I don’t think they will going forward.  Affinity is their creation — they surely don’t want to spoil it!   Hopefully Affinity will blossom while keeping its tradition for excellence.  Steve Jobs started Apple.  Apple has added laptops, iPads, iPhones, Apple TV, etc. without spoiling its brand either.
I wish everyone at Serif/Affinity the very best going forward and thank you for what I am sure will be many more years of happiness using the Affinity Suite. 

From the day I first discovered Affinity, I have been overwhelmed by the old-fashioned courtesy, dedication, and professionalism of the entire organization. Even when tempted by some occasional unpleasantness from the outside, honor and decency have always prevailed. It was a shock to read of this acquisition/merger today, but I for one, am going to trust Ash and his wonderful team.  They have not failed us yet, and I don’t think they will going forward.  Affinity is their creation — they surely don’t want to spoil it!   Hopefully Affinity will blossom while keeping its tradition for excellence.  Steve Jobs started Apple.  Apple has added laptops, iPads, iPhones, Apple TV, etc. without spoiling its brand either.
I wish everyone at Serif/Affinity the very best going forward and thank you for what I am sure will be many more years of happiness using the Affinity Suite. 

From the day I first discovered Affinity, I have been overwhelmed by the old-fashioned courtesy, dedication, and professionalism of the entire organization. Even when tempted by some occasional unpleasantness from the outside, honor and decency have always prevailed. It was a shock to read of this acquisition/merger today, but I for one, am going to trust Ash and his wonderful team.  They have not failed us yet, and I don’t think they will going forward.  Affinity is their creation — they surely don’t want to spoil it!   Hopefully Affinity will blossom while keeping its tradition for excellence.  Steve Jobs started Apple.  Apple has added laptops, iPads, iPhones, Apple TV, etc. without spoiling its brand either.
I wish everyone at Serif/Affinity the very best going forward and thank you for what I am sure will be many more years of happiness using the Affinity Suite. 

From the day I first discovered Affinity, I have been overwhelmed by the old-fashioned courtesy, dedication, and professionalism of the entire organization. Even when tempted by some occasional unpleasantness from the outside, honor and decency have always prevailed. It was a shock to read of this acquisition/merger today, but I for one, am going to trust Ash and his wonderful team.  They have not failed us yet, and I don’t think they will going forward.  Affinity is their creation — they surely don’t want to spoil it!   Hopefully Affinity will blossom while keeping its tradition for excellence.  Steve Jobs started Apple.  Apple has added laptops, iPads, iPhones, Apple TV, etc. without spoiling its brand either.
I wish everyone at Serif/Affinity the very best going forward and thank you for what I am sure will be many more years of happiness using the Affinity Suite. 

From the day I first discovered Affinity, I have been overwhelmed by the old-fashioned courtesy, dedication, and professionalism of the entire organization. Even when tempted by some occasional unpleasantness from the outside, honor and decency have always prevailed. It was a shock to read of this acquisition/merger today, but I for one, am going to trust Ash and his wonderful team.  They have not failed us yet, and I don’t think they will going forward.  Affinity is their creation — they surely don’t want to spoil it!   Hopefully Affinity will blossom while keeping its tradition for excellence.  Steve Jobs started Apple.  Apple has added laptops, iPads, iPhones, Apple TV, etc. without spoiling its brand either.
I wish everyone at Serif/Affinity the very best going forward and thank you for what I am sure will be many more years of happiness using the Affinity Suite. 

Thanks for the message - hopefully a step in the right direction :-).
Personally, I have been waiting for a similar step for a long time. It must be clear to everyone that such a small company with such few resources has a very difficult time in the current competition, and that new AI-type technologies are realistically unattainable for such a small team without the support of a stronger partner.
p.s. it was to be expected that such a load of mud would appear here in response to your statement, so don't let it put you off - thanks for your work.

You know, not everyone is such a fighter as you, to calmly decide the fate of the company and its employees, and then go to sleep well.

Fun game: pretend you don’t know what this announcement is, then mute the audio and watch this guy closely. What would you guess he’s telling you?
 
He’s lost his job? The family dog’s died? Bad news about grandma, but we’ll remember the good times? The project is going to be past deadline, in fact he’s not even started it, but you can’t have a refund because he’s spent the money already?
The body language is fascinating to watch (is that guilt, sorrow? Why are his eyes red - has he been crying? Why is he so evasive?), and it’s all the antithesis of ‘quite an exciting day’.

To me, that's a given. FreeHand will come to many's mind. 
Best regards! 

I am NOT a professional. I never "studied" design. I am an amateur and learned a few things on my own. I use Affinity to do what I like. Some self publishing with Publisher. Some minor graphics work with Designer. Some photo touch-ups with Photo. I bought into the Affinity Suite, and would continue to buy into the suite based on 1 thing.... NO Subscriptions. The company was providing me the user wonderful tools to do what I enjoy doing.
 
This news is the worst thing I could have heard today. I am such a fan of Affinity. I loved the feel of the company. I loved the independence of the company. Now this is all gone. I have moved all of my projects (minor in comparison to some) into this suite of tools, based on the promise of "No Subscriptions". I have convinced others to purchase these tools, so that we could work together. And today, with this AWFUL news, the run with Affinity ends. Version 2 will still be available in perpetuity (until your computer doesn't work and v2 no longer works with the new operating systems). But version 3 will be subscription, and then we the users will pay for a garbage service with minor updates and very little push forward. "Oh look at what we've done in this month's update.... we finally fixed the kerning of the letters in the Edit menu that didn't look quite right." I've seen it with Adobe, I've seen it with Sibelius, and now I am seeing it with Affinity. What a shame. I feel I have been duped. I feel I have been betrayed. And I feel like I will be on the hunt for another Publisher type app, another Designer type app, and another Photo type app.
 
I just went to look at the Canva website. I felt even more disappointed and betrayed seeing their website, and even more worried about the developers at Affinity. The first thing it asks for without doing anything is to sign up for their subscription. Words cannot express how sad and frustrated I feel about this terrible decision.

I am honestly not happy with this announcement. As others have said before, these kind of announcements and promises have been done before and it always ended up as a subscription service in the end and customers lost their ability to purchase perpetual licenses.
I gave Affinity Photo a chance in 2017 while looking for an alternative to Adobe Cloud. It was great and I also learned to appreciate Designer and Publisher over the years. But let's be clear, the major reason for choosing Affinity over other companies was and is the perpetual license. I am absolutely willing to pay for an application and support its developers and to be honest Affinity was always on the cheap side of things for me. I would have purchased the program for 2-3x the amount as well. But I want to own the software and decide on my own if and when I'll upgrade to a new major version and pay again.
I am giving you the benefit of the doubt and sincerely hope you will keep your promise to keep perpetual licenses.
 

I'm mixed on this. Canva was a surprising partner announcement, it's not the professional partner i would expect Affinity to connect with. I wouldn't associate Canva with professional software. BUT if it's simply Canva wanting to put it's name on professional software and dumping tons of money at the Affinity team with the hopes that Ash and the crew will still stay true to their values, that might be a good thing. I would love to see a few more advanced, hard to code tools come to the suite such as vector tracing and AI upscaling. 

As for the subtle hints that future versions wouldn't follow the old buy once forever philosophy, honestly i wouldn't mind paying for an Affinity subscription if it was fairly priced, this software has helped me make a whole side business of selling stock illustrations, and I've always thought it was a little under priced for the power it offers. 

I got my fingers crossed, but I'm keeping realistic expectations. 

Looking here https://www.kaleido.ai/ makes me think this is a wait and see situation and it may not be all doom and gloom. I do hope affinity won't change their name and adopt the, to put it politely, awful Canva logo.

This is interesting though. I didn't know that. Given that 5 years later, those platforms still work as expected within Affinity, this gives somewhat confidence that Serif knew what they were doing when accepting the offer. Unless it was "an offer Serif couldn't refuse"…