Affinity Future

[PaoloT]

On 8/16/2022 at 7:44 PM, Winsome said:

Serif has probably found a sweet spot in the market that Adobe and co. are not interested in (the little fish)

Since I'm being pestered with Adobe advertising on FB, I've got the curiosity to investigate about who are the FB members liking it. I don't know if it is just an Italian thing, but I found a huge percentage of people you wouldn't even think could be able to turn a computer on.  Or even understand what a computer could be used for, for the matter.

I've also explored some user groups associated with Adobe, and have discovered a large community of people mostly making logos or flyers for local shops. Not at all "big fishes", but young independent creatives who need Adobe products just to be justified as professionals. Owning Adobe products is both sort of a tax for the job, and a way to feel themselves part of the pro community. Despite the fact that they could save a big part of their earning by using the Affinity Suite.

Adobe FB ads are clearly targeting to a new species of users. There a series with puppies, where nearly all the comments are from people not even knowing what Adobe is, but liking the puppies. Other series, with incredibly raw graphic works, seem to appeal to a new category of creatives that has a different idea of "good taste" than the former generation. Here, again, I guess we are not talking about "big fishes".

Adobe is probably trying to get the "small fishes" market, by creating a sense of community. The "big fishes" market is oversaturated and declining fast, so they need some replacement, and they need it fast.

Paolo

 

[Winsome]

2 hours ago, PaoloT said:

Adobe FB ads are clearly targeting to a new species of users. There a series with puppies, where nearly all the comments are from people not even knowing what Adobe is, but liking the puppies. Other series, with incredibly raw graphic works, seem to appeal to a new category of creatives that has a different idea of "good taste" than the former generation. Here, again, I guess we are not talking about "big fishes".

Adobe is probably trying to get the "small fishes" market, by creating a sense of community. The "big fishes" market is oversaturated and declining fast, so they need some replacement, and they need it fast.

Paolo

Yes, they have targeted these new users but I don't think it's because the market is completely saturated at the fat end. 

I think it's because they need to brand themselves in the younger segment, where the type of creative is different than 20 and 40 years ago, and you get creative with a lot of creative apps to choose from. They need to brand themselves among the young so that everyone in the workforce at all times perceives Adobe as the premium product. It's a classic problem for products and brands as old as Adobe's that new competitors emerge with a fresh and youthful impression.

So it's about marketing your products as something other than desktop and mouse, but funky features with modern devices and drawing devices. It's a fairly traditional and unexciting ad, so I'm a bit dubious about its impact. What you have to remember is that a lot of these young people you see in the ads will pretty much be able to get student discounts or get it for free during their education. That goes for my kids. I don't actually have to buy licenses for them. It's not necessarily a group that Adobe particularly profits from as youngsters, but will certainly profit from later.

I actually wondered about these ads at first, because I couldn't link the full subscription price to these young people. Maybe it was the photographer subscription, which is actually priced reasonably, that was being advertised with I thought. I still can't link them to real sales and profits and feel convinced.

And I think this is only the first phase in the battle for new generations of creatives. The next step is much more AI and much more complex algorithms that make a lot of manual work redundant. This is where Adobe has been going for a long, long time, and Serif uses old principles and algorithms in their products. The algorithms in Affinity are mundane compared to Adobe's and Corel's etc. and have been for a long time, and I expect the contrast to be greater in the future.

Affinity is available to anyone for a humble and extremely reasonable price. That's the argument that may sell to quite a large part of the market. If small fish ever become more important to Adobe, then I think they will use much more aggressive approaches than today, and far more on the app front than we've seen. And Adobe would probably have already acquired Procreate or companies that actually put research into drawing algorithms.

[000]

Is Serif pulling the "Apple thing" here?

[JET_Affinity]

"To speed up with new releses I was thinking that we need to pay more..."

Warning: Old guy rant.

No, no, no. 2D Bezier-based drawing is not rocket science anymore. The old-guard companies like Adobe and Corel that were established in the mid-80s hey-day of GUI computing are clinging to an outdated pricing model. Far too many users are too willing to succumb to the most customer-abusive scheme ever devised (software 'rental').

Serif and others have already proved that neither outrageous prices nor subscription schemes are necessary for solid profit and growth. That's empowering game-changing competition. That's free enterprise. That's progress. That's the very revolution this software segment has needed for far too long. Support them. Don't invite them to adopt the same pricing and licensing strategies of monoliths that think it's their birthright to forever dominate an industry.

And sheesh! I wish everyone would stop whining about every new program not being the tit-for-tat mirror image of the single old-school application to which he or she happens to be most habituated.

I've been doing this stuff for a living for well over four decades, and can still make a list of never-addressed complaints about any of the old programs. And guess what: I was making that living long before any of them had mesh grads or cheesy instant-gratification distortion envelopes that make a mess out of a typeface's painstakingly developed design principles. Most of those old programs still can't 'understand' a basic trig function keyed into a value field. Affinity can.

I'm not saying just be satisfied with the status quo. By all means, continue to request well-thought-out improvements. That's also progress. But try to be more innovative about it than just forever cursing a $50 program for not  being a clone of (gag me) Adobe Illustrator. And meanwhile, learn to use the capabilities of the tools you have to their fullest. Don't try to tell me that professional and profitable work 'can't be done' in Affinity. That's utter nonsense.

My Kawasaki W800 can't do everything the (good riddance) KTM 790 it replaced. But I find it far more enjoyable while it gets me wherever I need to go.

JET

[Mithferion]

3 minutes ago, JET_Affinity said:

And sheesh! I wish everyone would stop whining about every new program not being the tit-for-tat mirror image of the single old-school application to which he or she happens to be most habituated.

It's more like: "I want my own needs to be addressed first and then everything else". 

5 minutes ago, JET_Affinity said:

By all means, continue to request well-thought-out improvements.

I've tried some of those requests, but it's true that sometimes we don't get to chat or have a conversation with the developers.

Best regards!

[Mithferion]

6 minutes ago, JET_Affinity said:

cheesy instant-gratification distortion envelopes that make a mess out of a typeface's

They can make a mess of somewhat complex shapes even... I once tried to see if the rumors about it's capabilities were real (in a recent version) and... they weren't.

Best regards!

[JET_Affinity]

27 minutes ago, Mithferion said:

I've tried some of those requests, but it's true that sometimes we don't get to chat or have a conversation with the developers.

Best regards!

I've hung out on the 'big four' user forums for decades, practically never seeing a response from a developer.

When this product and its forums started, it enjoyed the most refreshingly direct customer-to-developer access I have ever seen in this market segment. Affinity developers certainly don't need me to speak for them, but I strongly suspect that the current absence of that interaction is not entirely unrelated to the ceaseless repetitive and unproductive 'threats' of too many whiny users effectively looking a gift horse in the mouth.

In an engineering department where I used to work as a technical illustrator there was a sign on the wall that read "In the course of every design project a point is reached at which it becomes necessary to shoot the engineers and begin production."

The same principle no doubt also applies to rude users (and yeah, I've been one of those in other user forums, too).

I expect version 2 is also not going to be perfect, but is still going to be great.

JET

 

[Mithferion]

2 minutes ago, JET_Affinity said:

In an engineering department where I used to work as a technical illustrator there was a sign on the wall that read "In the course of every design project a point is reached at which it becomes necessary to shoot the engineers and begin production."

In my field of work, it's often said that the end of the day is the exact/best point to start working (because the rest of it is just meeting after meeting after meeting...).

So, yes, if some conversations are not fruitful there is no point in having them.

Best regards!