Canva

[lphilpot]

7 hours ago, Intuos5 said:

but I do fear Canva wanting to make a return on its investment is going to affect users. Even if the goal is to increase market share, price hikes are an important strategy in that business model.

That's the one fact that can be taken to the bank. NONE of this is primarily for the users' benefit. Yes, there may be beneficial side-effects along the way, but it's All About the Money. 100%. Canva -- and every other vendor out there -- will do whatever benefits their bottom line, regardless of what the users ultimately want or need. That's the ugly underbelly of the investor-owned / corporate business paradigm.

I.e., the wants of the one outweigh the needs of the many.

[Ruffian]

Serif won my support and loyalty because of their PagePlus software. In the early days, their customer support was outstanding and they truly cared what the customer had to say.  Recently the emails that went back and forth for support were practically useless.  

I still run a Windows 7 computer to use PagePlus and CS6.  I recently purchased all the Affinity products as we purchased new laptops with Windows 11...what a bummer to hear this news.

Like everyone else, if Affinity goes subscription we would rather pay Adobe unless some other new and upcoming program appears like the early Affinity Photo.  However as others have stated it is the principal and having another company hold our work hostage is not acceptable, so I guess we are now on the search for new software that doesn't require a subscription.

Doesn't matter what you say, going forward I will not be purchasing any other Affinity products...as it is we purchased the Universal license for all of the suite.  I also cannot in good conscience continue recommending Affinity as a one time purchase software.

Like everyone said, it is great for you guys and you can retire but you have done a huge disservice to all your users.

[mliving]

9 minutes ago, debraspicher said:

Let me guess... it'll be something about "future updates"...

Why do you have to wait a few days?

If they are such wonderful plans for current Affinity users why not share them in the original announcement?

Please. We're adults and by the sounds of things most Affinity users are ready to move on.

Enjoy the money, cause you ain't getting any more of mine.

[dvst]

10 minutes ago, Ash said:

Yes I do! Realise there seems to be a distinct lack of faith flying around here, but we'll be revealing more about our plans in the coming days and yes I'm sure you will all be pleased with what we have to say.

@Ash, I'm sure that all of us here would be glad to be proven wrong. Respectfully, the letter you wrote comes off dishonest and full of nonsense. That's why I'm here expressing disappointment, and from the looks of it many others had the same interpretation.

At the least, please do everything you can to protect our indefinite access to V2 because that is what we were promised at purchase. Offline activation for our current installers is only way you could guarantee this, and I've seen staff state in another thread that you will not be providing that.

How else could you assure us that we won't get screwed over when you have sold your authority to others? Having a 100% guarantee of what you already promised us should have been part of the deal. Personally, I didn't even know this would be an issue when I purchased V2, I just trusted your company and assumed this wouldn't be an issue.

If you took the time to read this, thank you, and I do hope you are sincere and not just performing phony damage control.

[Mflibble84]

I love Affinity, and I hope this works out, and that maybe we can get a Lightroom alternative made.

Just putting my post on record, as soon as I see any type of subscription for an affinity app, I’m out. 

[howdytom]

Serif decided to sell their soul to crappy Canva. A great product is dying.

[wVanDyck]

6 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Wow, your experience is very very close to mine.

Yes! There were exciting discoveries along the way.

Cheers!

[M-rivers]

9 minutes ago, ronnyb said:

Congrats on the acquisition @Ash! Hopefully the hardworking devs who built this amazing platform will also benefit from the financial gains surely gained by the shareholders.

Taking on Adobe certainly requires enormous resources, and I’m happy Serif found a synergistic partner and it wasn’t a competitor seeking to eliminate the competition as was Adobe’s modus operandi on its ruthless hijacking of the creative space with the purchase and elimination of so many superior competing products across many creative sectors in the 90s and since…

I think a dual model makes sense on many levels. Maintain the current perpetual license for independents, small shops, and the introduction of a subscription license for larger corporate environments where it makes more sense and is necessary for collaborative/cloud services. The subscription model will generate the funds for continued development of cutting edge features which can be integrated into the perpetual license version… lots of positive possibilities…

I like your positivity on the matter. While I can truly understand your stand on this, and even want to share in that sentiment, unfortunately, I've been around the block too many time to be a believer first, I need to see it before believing. My cynicism didn't come naturally. It was cultivated over many years by companies that under similar circumstances tried to convince outsiders of something that eventually turned out to be untrue. But by then, who cares - Right? I really hope that Ash is right. But I don't buy it. The reality is, once a company is bought, anything the acquired company says doesn't really carry any weight anymore. So unless deals were made prior to signing (which, if made, they always have an termination date) I don't take anything they say at face value.

I've spent over 25yrs working for software companies and have been around long enough to experience many acquisitions. Point being... every time there was an acquisition, the product line changed - it either disappears or changed direction to the detriment of it's user base and business unit of the acquired. Meanwhile, all along the department heads spent countless hours, days, and weeks denying rumors of changes to the product line or it's internal structure. So being an optimist and having a positive outlook doesn't cut it for me. I'm a realist.

While your thoughts on dual pricing models might seem like a reasonable alternative to users not benefiting from a subscription model, you can't forget that this is a merger primarily of financial interest, not so much what is good for the user base. They might certainly consider different models, possibly even dual pricing models, but ultimately it's what generates the most value (ah-the hell with it, Money - what generates the most money). And if that means foregoing a perpetual pricing model, so be it. 

How many time must you get punched before you start to realize that it hurts. And when you see the signs that a punch is coming, should you duck or believe it's not really going happen? Like I said, I didn't choose to be a cynic, I was made into one. But... I hope you're right. In echoing Ash's words - "Yes, I do!"

Right now Adobe must be laughing their asses off. So much for an alternative.

 

[iconoclast]

Does this Canva-Cooperation really mean that Affinity will turn to a subscription model? I think, in that case I would turn my back to Affinity. That would be very disappointing for me, because I started using Affinity apps only some years ago, even invested in some add-ons, and was hoping that they would be my reliable design tools for the next years. It's to early for me to change again. But anyway, subscription is not an option for me. Hope my concerns are baseless.

[Senjaz]

1 hour ago, GenewalDesign said:

Any person stumbling upon this topic would get the impression that Affinity has just switched to a premium subscription starting today with no turning back, otherwise the staff will come to your place, uninstall everything, and raid your fridge while they're at it.

I can't think of a single example where a small dev was acquired by a big one, such as has happened here, where the big dev didn't screw existing users and fans within months of the deal being signed.

The play book is so clear that is why we're all being so vocal about it here. Maybe some suit in Australia will get the message and offer reasonably priced perpetual licenses in addition to the subscription option we all know is coming. That's the best possible outcome we can hope for. I'll keep using Affinity as long as that is the case.

When a corporation is willing to throw that amount of money at you, it's very hard to say no. There are few that could honestly say they wouldn't take the money.

We are all expecting this to follow the pattern:

• Tell everyone this is great news for the business and customers (but mostly the owners wallets)
• Reassure users: Nothing is changing (yet). There are no plans to screw our existing customers (it will take us at least a week to write those plans)
• Offer a crippled version of the product under the old terms, to get the full new version a subscription plan is required.
• Our customers overwhelmingly didn't like paying for our crippled option, so we're cancelling it.

The sad fact is that as soon as the deal is signed any assurances the original owners were given about the direction the company will take are worthless.

With almost equal frequency we see founders leave their acquired companies to set up a new studio again to regain creative freedom.

One of the other things I love about Affinity as it is now is that the suite is optimised for all the platforms it exists on. It uses Apple's modern APIs to get good performance and a good UI. Only small devs which are passionate about their product do this sort of thing. Big ones always prioritise as big a shared code base as possible to minimise effort and maximise profit. The result is a product that isn't the best it can be on any of the platforms it exists on.

[mliving]

Inkscape (all platforms including Mac Intel and Apple Silicon)

Scribus (most platforms including newer Mac Intel and Apple Silicon)

GIMP (All platforms including Mac Intel and Apple Silicon)

Krita (All platforms including Mac Intel and Apple Silicon)

We all have choices. You can choose to spend your money in shareholder/VC driven company or you can invest your money in Open Source.

Sure the features may not match your current expectations but I doubt 90% of Affinity users ever used 60% of the features (that is if they worked as advertised)

Start migrating now. Pick a small project you've already completed and redo it with Open Source offerings. You may be surprised.

Best of luck to all!

My software journey: Ventura Publisher (Xerox GEM), Photo Publisher, Corel DRAW, Corel Ventura, Inkscape, Scribus, Adobe CS, Affinity Suite...

[Chills]

8 minutes ago, M-rivers said:

Right now Adobe must be laughing their asses off.

!00% agree.  A credible professional alternative to Adobe in this space seems to have committed suicide by linking with an amateur focused company.

[OldSubSailor]

8 hours ago, Ash said:

availability of our apps

That's because they will not be YOUR apps will they?  1 Billion has actually taken them away from you anytime they want then. 

[Teddy Ursadorable]

11 minutes ago, M-rivers said:

Right now Adobe must be laughing their asses off. So much for an alternative.

Adobe has nothing to be proud of.  They took a single pay product, and turned it into a subscription.  And then there was the whole Pantone fiasco where they were threatening users who tried to remain on an older version of Illustrator that still had the old Pantone libraries.

They are pro-corporation, and anti-consumer.

[OldSubSailor]

2 minutes ago, Chills said:

!00% agree.  A credible professional alternative to Adobe in this space seems to have committed suicide by linking with an amateur focused company.

Alas. I use DXO, so I most likely will have to go back to Adobe for something to use with it. 

[Bryan Rieger]

Just now, Chills said:

!00% agree.  A credible professional alternative to Adobe in this space seems to have committed suicide by linking with an amateur focused company.

They're probably much more concerned with the massive marketshare Canva already has in the casual user/consumer/prosumer/business space that Adobe is desperate to gain a toe-hold in with products such as Adobe Express and Premiere Rush. The Affinity Suite (if managed correctly) might begin to eat into Adobe's professional line if Canva can successfully tie it into their existing product(s) as a tool for professional designers, agencies, etc to collaborate with clients using the Canva platform.

We'll see… but I won't hold my breath.

[Caius Nocturne]

In addition to my previous post, I would like to congratulate the management and owners of Serif for making a fool out of me for vocally promoting this product to others all these years and taking the time to submit bug reports to try to make this better. I guess I was only lining your pockets by doing that, huh?

[Teddy Ursadorable]

6 minutes ago, mliving said:

Inkscape (all platforms including Mac Intel and Apple Silicon)

Scribus (most platforms including newer Mac Intel and Apple Silicon)

GIMP (All platforms including Mac Intel and Apple Silicon)

Krita (All platforms including Mac Intel and Apple Silicon)

Of the above open source projects, only Krita has a usable UI.  Krita aways had a sluggish interface on non-KDE based interfaces.  I just switched back to MacOS and haven't tried it on Apple Silicon yet.  I will have to try that tonight, in the event I need to replace my graphics design software yet again.

[iconoclast]

8 minutes ago, mliving said:

Inkscape (all platforms including Mac Intel and Apple Silicon)

Scribus (most platforms including newer Mac Intel and Apple Silicon)

GIMP (All platforms including Mac Intel and Apple Silicon)

Krita (All platforms including Mac Intel and Apple Silicon)

We all have choices. You can choose to spend your money in shareholder/VC driven company or you can invest your money in Open Source.

Sure the features may not match your current expectations but I doubt 90% of Affinity users ever used 60% of the features (that is if they worked as advertised)

Start migrating now. Pick a small project you've already completed and redo it with Open Source offerings. You may be surprised.

Best of luck to all!

My software journey: Ventura Publisher (Xerox GEM), Photo Publisher, Corel DRAW, Corel Ventura, Inkscape, Scribus, Adobe CS, Affinity Suite...

Well, I like all of those apps and use all of them for years, but they are unfortunately all a bit limited in important matters. E.G. GIMP and Inkscape don't support CMYK. And GIMP has no Adjustment Layers, so no non-destructive editing. And especially Scribus - even it has some fine Gimmicks -  isn't really a serious alternative to Publisher or InDesign. I often suffered using it. Not to be misunderstood, I'm a fan of Open Source, but unfortunately all these apps are not on the current state like Affinity or Adobe apps and no substitutes to them. But Krita is a very cool painting app. But not good enough for image editing.

[henryanthony]

NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[mliving]

1 hour ago, Duskstalker said:

my struggle with affinity aswell. working with affinity for print is infuriating sometimes. paths and strokes glitch out on export quite often and need to be handled in a very specific way that doesnt offend the affinity pdf export and CMYK is still rendered to display via srgb, displaying wrong colors for CMYK. ive reported on this several times and nothing ever changed.

on the other hand i think affinity is more comfortable to work with, even tho that means my work is very hard to share with other graphic artists. i tolerated the shortcomings because affinity was not a subscription. im sticking to affinity as long as its viable, but i already feel the noose of the adobe subscription at my neck. when i have to pay a subscription, i might as well go back to adobe.

I agree COMPLETELY!

[Chills]

7 minutes ago, OldSubSailor said:

Alas. I use DXO, so I most likely will have to go back to Adobe for something to use with it. 

Likewise. DxO is good, I have used it for years, but I am looking at ON1 as a Lightroom replacement.  I was hoping Affinity would do a DAM but the news today seems to make that unlikely.  That is unlikely for anything professional and or a perpetual licence.

[mliving]

2 hours ago, thedzko said:

I can, in all honesty, see something good coming out of this, as anybody could, even though I despise what this company stands for in terms of cheap-looking/unoptimized software products and their opportunistic and crappy AI tools. As demonstrated by the possibility of integrating Canva's cloud services now:

1. So maybe you guys could use those to create an Affinity-focussed Fonts subscription service, as an alternative to Adobe Fonts without the need of worrying about the costs of contracts, infrastructure and more, which would end-up reflecting in the prices of your software if it is not well managed.
2. And similarly, some Collaboration Tools which could extrapolate the use of the .aff[design, pub, photo] file format.

In the case of the "rushing to V3", we can see something reasonable in not wanting to rush to V3 in order to stay afloat, but I'm not sure if the outcome of not wanting to "bother" your users for a product that could deserve that pricing model every 4–5 years is worth selling yourselves to this uninspiring company whose work have been the same as the one Adobe is moving forward to: we want to be THE ultimate designer that small businesses should depend on.

But, at the same time, not much good can be expected from such a company when we take our blinders off...

Canva's work and philosophy so far has been the antithesis of your achieved goals so far, even if you guys consider that they align, because what you all been showing to all of us is far from just the "creativity for all" mentality.

More like crappy templates for all! Canva's just a huge online and shitty clipart service for non-designers. Canva is delusional if they think they are going to seriously compete with Adobe.

[Bad_Wolf]

Besides using all three Serif apps, I have a Canva Pro subscription which also benefit the Serif apps. I use Canva mainly to convert WEBp files coming from Dall-E (AI) into png. Subscription for Canva Pro is 11 euro/monthly, which is not too bad for the services which are delivered.

The advantage for this union is that Serif will have more funding to develop faster, implement more functionality and be serious competition for Adobe.I use all three Serif apps, and I have a Canva Pro subscription that also benefits the Serif apps. I use Canva mainly to convert WEBp files coming from Dall-E (AI) into PNG. The Canva Pro subscription is 11 euro/monthly, which is not too bad for the services. Even eventually the Affinity suite will go into a subscription model, I am sure the price will be affordable. You don't need a subscription to use Canva, you can do a lot without the pro functions.

So lets look forward to the future and just enjoy our Affinity Applications.  I am sure over a few years, many Affinity users will still be satisfied users!

Don't give up! Don't miss the boat of the future!

Chris

[DonC123]

It is so sad when a vision driven company, sells out to the investor driven companies. Won't be long until the vision is lost and it is only about how much investors make. Investors don't care about who they leave drowning in their wake. RIP Affinity....