Canva

[Chills]

27 minutes ago, Ash said:

To followup on some of my comments yesterday, we are today enshrining our commitment to the Affinity community in 4 pledges made by the Affinity and Canva teams.

You can read about them here.

We do truly believe the coming together of Affinity and Canva is only going to be a good thing for our customers, staff and the development of our apps. We very much hope you will all continue to be with us on this journey.

All the best,

Ash

I would say it is a pity this wasn't posted yesterday, but of course Canva is based in Australia and 12 hours time different to Affinity.
It looks promising, and at least V2 will continue to work as it did last week.

[Ian Tompkins]

25 minutes ago, Ash said:

To followup on some of my comments yesterday, we are today enshrining our commitment to the Affinity community in 4 pledges made by the Affinity and Canva teams.

You can read about them here.

We do truly believe the coming together of Affinity and Canva is only going to be a good thing for our customers, staff and the development of our apps. We very much hope you will all continue to be with us on this journey.

All the best,

Ash

The clarity is much appreciated, but were these commitments codified in the terms of the sale in a way that has any legal weight?

If not, I’m sorry to say it won’t matter. Serif and Canva employees can truly believe in these ideals, but an investor owned corporation either private or public has no obligation to maintain them. As soon as they think they can get away with it, these commitments will be dropped to pursue more profitability for the shareholders. As I and many others have said already, we’ve seen it happen many times. This statement does very little to assuage those fears.

[Lionpride]

8 hours ago, When_Subscription said:

Being curious I thought I'd see what the Canva Pro offering is all about. So, on the main page I am presented with a trial button with the option to pay by the month for $19.99 AUD, yet once that start trial button is clicked, I'm immediately presented with a monthly cost of $39.99. A quick look online (Reddit etc) and it would appear Canva has done doubled their pricing at some point this year, and the pricing is currently "unintentionally" being misrepresented on the hook page. It's been like this for what looks to be a month or more. If that's how Canva does business, I want nothing to do with them.

On the bright side, I managed to reinstate my Adobe student (All Apps) subscription for under $30, that of which trumps anything both Canva and Affinity are currently offering combined. I now look forward to the speed and reliability of Illustrator, even though I will miss Designer's simplified UI.

Goodbye my fellow ex/Affinity supporters. It was fun while it lasted.

Exactly! how can we take their word, when they are so shady?

[Lionpride]

Spoiler

 

 

32 minutes ago, Ash said:

To followup on some of my comments yesterday, we are today enshrining our commitment to the Affinity community in 4 pledges made by the Affinity and Canva teams.

You can read about them here.

We do truly believe the coming together of Affinity and Canva is only going to be a good thing for our customers, staff and the development of our apps. We very much hope you will all continue to be with us on this journey.

All the best,

Ash

I really hope so, but i have my doubts as previously you also 'Pledged' and 'proclaimed' a lot of things and here we are selling your soul to the devil. I guess time will tell.

[AffinityMakesMeWonder]

1 hour ago, bures said:

This is a pretty brutal discussion. And the company is silent. This is quite telling.

The staff on the HQ in Nottingham can't say anything, they are just employed just like every one else just now...

Canva in Australia is deciding what to be said nowadays - so, move on, nothing more to see here...

[Pyanepsion]

😱This is very sad news. @Ash, you were always saying that you weren’t for sale, but this takeover by Canva is a dark moment. Didn’t you realize that users trusted you, and that they had left Adobe precisely on the promise of a lifetime purchase of an improved Adobe where we would only have to pay for upgrades?

The world of Canva has nothing in common with the Affinity suite, either in their applications or in their business model.

Affinity will therefore suffer the same fate as most of the companies acquired by Canva, not to mention what happened to QuarkXPress when it decided to change its business model from lifetime purchase to rental.

PS Recalling a fired CEO is an exception. The return of Sam Altman thanks to the support of partners and employees is just the exception that proves the rule. Sadly.

[AffntyXara]

32 minutes ago, Ash said:

To followup on some of my comments yesterday, we are today enshrining our commitment to the Affinity community in 4 pledges made by the Affinity and Canva teams.

You can read about them here.

We do truly believe the coming together of Affinity and Canva is only going to be a good thing for our customers, staff and the development of our apps. We very much hope you will all continue to be with us on this journey.

All the best,

Ash

The thing is people will most likely not trust any promises made today. Serif is not in charge of their own product anymore and things can change any day. Serif was always a company that people liked with very usable software ( I still think serif movieplus had one of the interfaces ever for a video editing program). Now that it's canva serif will either cease to exist at all or just be part of a huge company.

Per the announcement canva contacted you weeks ago yet 2 canva controlled stock photo libraries were added to affinity products much longer ago. To me this is another reason to be at least a bit suspicious about any announcements and promises.

[Insider]

4 minutes ago, Pyanepsion said:

QuarkXPress when it decided to change its business model from lifetime purchase to rental

It has still the option of lifetime purchase

[Pseudolus]

The vitriolic nature of the conversation in this thread is characteristic of a greater problem in the Affinity community. I just don't see how saying things with your full chest like "you sold your soul to the devil" and "I hate Serif!!!" and "Ashley is a crook!" is conducive to progress or getting your message across.

Ash and Canva have made a statement about the biggest concern (the subscription model), and there's really all we can ask for. The die is cast, and we just have to wait to see what happens in the future. Hopefully, Canva doesn't pull the rug out from under us.

[Pyanepsion]

2 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

QuarkXPress has a perpetual licence if you want it.

No. Now, in practice, Quark only envisage subscription, offering an overpriced perpetual licence that will quickly become obsolete (after initially deleting it).

[monzo]

45 minutes ago, Ash said:

To followup on some of my comments yesterday, we are today enshrining our commitment to the Affinity community in 4 pledges made by the Affinity and Canva teams.

You can read about them here.

We do truly believe the coming together of Affinity and Canva is only going to be a good thing for our customers, staff and the development of our apps. We very much hope you will all continue to be with us on this journey.

All the best,

Ash

Quote

We very much hope you will all continue to be with us on this journey.

I am absolutely not a willing customer of Canva, which is why I chose to spend my money with Serif.

However, since I now have no say in the matter, some reassurance could be provided by removing the requirement to authorise new installations of V2 products online, and any additional online callbacks to be removed.

That would back up any pledges with real action and support, for those of us who have been loyal customers of Serif for many years, so we can continue to use our 'lifetime' products on new devices, and not be at the mercy of activation by a company we did not purchase our software from.

[Alexander Rutz]

2 minutes ago, monzo said:

However, since I now have no say in the matter, some reassurance could be provided by removing the requirement to authorise new installations of V2 products online, and any additional online callbacks to be removed.

☝🏻 This!

[AffinityMakesMeWonder]

1 hour ago, esto said:

As someone who's been strongly (though, I hope, fairly) critical in this chat, I'll say a positive word for Canva itself, given I'm using it right now 🤣

Having worked on various marcomms teams and projects over the years, Canva is a godsend for the kind of digital work that requires something to look good (or good enough), without the resource for professional-tier products. Many teams don't have the budget for a tool like Adobe or Affinity, much less the time and resource to trail team members up. Most professionals here will be so used to professional products that they may have forgotten just how intricate, fiddly and opaque these products can be for the untrained - I'm sure we've all seen the nightmares that can come to life when an untrained individual 'has a go in photoshop'!

If I look back on what tools digital and social teams were using a decade (or more) ago, the low entry bar, the cloud aspect, the easy team sharing, and the super quick workflows in Canva are genuinely really bloody useful - they've saved my teams countless hours, and I can only imagine how that scales for larger organisations. Get set up with a brand kit, get a professional to make you a few templates, and you've go untrained individuals able to make quality ('quality' in the sense of digital - it's awful for print!) imagery, videos and even animations, in hours or minutes. For the churn of the content factory that is the modern day world of marcomms, Canva is simply a very useful product.

Don't get me wrong though, it's not a professional tool, if the professional in question is a designer, photographer or artist. I regularly run into fairly simple use cases where I have to load up affinity to do the job, and there are all sorts of pains and niggles with the UI. But as a tool, it opens up a lot of possibilities for individuals and teams that just weren't options a decade ago.

You'll note that, while the commentary here and on socials on Affinity's channels is almost unanimous in its disappointment, Canva's channels are full of excitement and praise. For Canva, and Canva's users, this makes a lot of sense, should fill some of the gaps in Canva's UI, and so on.

It sucks to see specific products become watered down - many have felt the pain of Apple's continued under servicing of the pro market, for instance - and I'm no less saddened by the eventual loss of what Affinity is. I get why proper designers and visual professionals may hate Canva and what it represents. But I guess I'm just saying it's a tool like any other, and one that's used professionally to a high-enough standard.

Yet another Canva/Serif employee praising the affair between Canva and Serif...

Now account opened yesterday just after the dystopic announcement from Ashley...

No one here (true members) will ever trust something said from Canva och Serif HQ - everything is just plain capitalism and we customer thought we were a tight Affinity family, but that was just a role-play from Ashley and his friends...

[Pumpkinwaffle]

Glad to see this pledge being made. It's a step in the right direction.
I have to say I am quite surprised that nobody thought such announcement would generate backlash. How was this pledge not included in the acquisition announcement? The wording regarding the future and pricing model was suspiciously vague in the FAQ.

Given all that I understand that most are quite upset, and I still feel somewhat doubtful about all this. A png pledge is nice but there's no accountability to it in the end. I really hope this won't the turn out like story we've seen happen so many times, despite all the alarm bells ringing.

The affinity apps are absolutely amazing, the design is intuitive and ergonomic, I would truly hate to see all this go to waste. The userbase is built on the quality of the product, and its user first approach to monetisation. I hope Canva understood that because if it happens to change I don't think many will remain loyal to affinity.
I wish you all the best, stay awesome.

[Teddy Ursadorable]

51 minutes ago, Ash said:

To followup on some of my comments yesterday, we are today enshrining our commitment to the Affinity community in 4 pledges made by the Affinity and Canva teams.

You can read about them here.

I hope that this is true, however most everyone here has likely heard the same promises from every other merger they've been involved with, and then found it backtracked on shortly thereafter when the promise became inconvenient or not profitable enough. 

Actions speak louder than words, and your customers will be watching.

[Patrick Connor]

29 minutes ago, AffinityMakesMeSad said:

NO. They are in shock - almost all of them, but a few golden members of the dev-team has been paid to keep the mouth shut...

We are not, we are all very excited about what has been said and the future for Affinity. This thread is about your response not ours. As an employee of 24 years I am personally very pleased about what Ash has announced and the Affinity and Canva pledge.

https://affinity.serif.com/press/newsroom/affinity-and-canva-pledge/

[Bit Disappointed]

56 minutes ago, Ash said:

To followup on some of my comments yesterday, we are today enshrining our commitment to the Affinity community in 4 pledges made by the Affinity and Canva teams.

You can read about them here.

We do truly believe the coming together of Affinity and Canva is only going to be a good thing for our customers, staff and the development of our apps. We very much hope you will all continue to be with us on this journey.

All the best,

Ash

STOP! Customers, do not be easily calmed like a group of gullible children. This is non-committal damage control in the wake of an amateurish launch of bad news. The "four promises from the teams" are COMPLETELY useless guarantees without a timeframe and with the greatest possible vulnerability to changes. Just imagine if Canva experiences a few lean years or if the IPO fails, then you should not count on such promises here. That's what they're trying to soothe your anger with, which also affects Canva's reputation and valuation, but it has no legal value and there are no guarantees. As soon as Canva encounters turbulence, such non-binding promises will expire. It has all been seen before, it has all happened before. The situation and uncertainty are the same today as they were yesterday. The world is dynamic and changing, and that promise will age like fresh food.

[AffinityMakesMeWonder]

1 hour ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Why? The software works as it is. As has been mentioned numerous times in these forums, we buy licences for the software as it is and not for features which may be coming at some unknown point along the road. If the apps do what I want now, why do I need an alternative? The apps have never done everything I want, but that is no reason to ditch them for alternatives which also have their own limitations.

But what happens if Canva HQ decide to shut down the registration server?

If you need to reinstall Affinity Suite efter a crash or setting up a new Mac och PC, you can't take your serial number and put in, it must be validated thru the online server?!

[Mithferion]

1 hour ago, Ash said:

You can read about them here.

Hi, Ash.

As promised yesterday, I will share if this sounds good to me, and it sounds OK. Here is why:

• Pledge 1: The perpetual Licensing model is what attracted people in the first place, but I feel like if some kind of subscription appears, it will be seen as a Red Flag if offered from you. If Canva is the one adding the Affinity Suite with their current Pricing Plans, well, that'd be seen like an addition. Still, I've read some comments that the Canva Team has changed pricing policies and this will still keep us watching closely.

• Pledge 2: Keeping Affinity as it is also key: installed locally with no need of being connected to the Internet (except when activating the Product). Now, regarding the development and the speed in which new versions are delivered: we will see if more money brings that but I'm not sure that we'll see Features coming twice as fast or double of them in the same period of 3 moths (roughly) when new releases come out, as an example. 

• Pledge 3: I like this one. Hope it works great

• Pledge 4: This is a complex one, because as you know, people have been really vocal about demanding Features in the forums, so there are features (as the one you mention on Pledge 2) that you are aware that people want for yesterday. I will take y time to fill the form you provided as well.

We'll see if these pledges even last in the coming years.

Best regards!

[Insider]

11 minutes ago, Pyanepsion said:

No. Now, in practice, Quark only envisage subscription, offering an overpriced perpetual licence that will quickly become obsolete (after initially deleting it).

I reinstalled QuarkXPress last week on a new SSD and activated my perpetual licence without any problem. 

[AffntyXara]

1 minute ago, Patrick Connor said:

We are not, we are all very excited about what has been said and the future for Affinity. This thread is about your response not ours. As an employee of 24 years I am personally very pleased about what Ash has announced and the Affinity and Canva pledge.

https://affinity.serif.com/press/newsroom/affinity-and-canva-pledge/

That's a bit naive isn't it? No matter how well the Serif team is/was Canva now controls Serif and decisions are made based on profitability. And obviously subscription models look more attractive to investors. Most likely scenario is that Serif will be talked about in the way as people are talking aboout macromedia nowadays.

[VectorWhiz]

https://communicats.blogspot.com/2024/03/canva-acquires-affinity-suit-programs.html

[esto]

1 minute ago, AffinityMakesMeSad said:

Yet another Canva/Serif employee praising the affair between Canva and Serif...

Now account opened yesterday just after the dystopic announcement from Ashley...

Ha! Have you had a look at my other comments here?!

[Pšenda]

1 minute ago, LondonSquirrel said:

There is no need to repeat it all again here.

But panic spreads most easily through constant repetition of half-truths, assumptions and hypotheses 🙂

[Teddy Ursadorable]

Other than forking out a boatload of cash and/or stocks, what makes Canva so worthy to incentivize Serif customers to suddenly trust them?

Up until yesterday, I've never even heard of Canva in any context of the graphics world.

We're being told that this is a good thing, and clearly people consider this doubtful at best.