Canva

[Caius Nocturne]

3 hours 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

This is not something that you can guarantee us. The only people who can guarantee whether or not this continues to be a mission-led project are the people who own it. And in this case it is Canva and its investors. The investors of Canva (and soon the public investors as it eventually tries to IPO) want what any investor wants - money number go up. This will happen regardless of what any other stakeholder around this product (including us) would like.

This is a JPEG for PR, not a legal agreement. At best, this will be the case for a few years and this will absolutely change as soon as it becomes inconvenient for the people who are actually in control - the ones who own Canva. Big tech companies never turn the screws immediately.

I would also like to remind everybody in this forum that about a year and a half ago, Serif made a tweet saying that they would never sell. And yet the owners sold.

I would also like to inform people that subscriptions are just one way that tech companies can make a product worse. Affinity could remain a simple paid product and the investors will still try to bleed it dry, annoy and shake more change out of you another way. Or they could make too many stupid decisions trying to get more money out of it and destroy it in the process. One way or another, there is no way that this is a decision for the better for this product, because as in every business with shareholders, the money number has to go up.

[walt.farrell]

38 minutes ago, R.I.P. Affinity 26.03.2024 said:

I needed blend tool and erase tool so bad. And I guess we won't see them coming now until v3.

You may be right, of course, but Ash said there are a lot of improvements still coming in V2 (2.5 and beyond), so until they actually announce V3 we won't know for sure.

[Kiarian]

The Four Pledges have at least given me some hope Affinity users won't all be dumped like a bad habit. I can now watch Ivan Weiss's upcoming masterclass in peace. Well, that's if World War 3 doesn't kick off anytime soon.

[NewInBoston]

3 hours 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

Very uplifting news. Also, at least Affinity will never have cash flow issues, something that can be a very real obstacle for smaller software companies. 

[mehdy]

1 minute ago, walt.farrell said:

You may be right, of course, but Ash said there are a lot of improvements still coming in V2 (2.5 and beyond), so until they actually announce V3 we won't know for sure.

Thank you for clarifying this mr Walt, for me the V2.4.1 have everything I need if I need auto tracer I go with inkscape if I need RTL I go with leomoon so my expectations are low in this maters but to have V2 better thank run into V3 subscription.

I appreciate your comment,

[esto]

From a 'looking into a business strategy crystal ball' perspective, pledge 3 is interesting. If it gets carried out, it would suggest that Canva have plans to penetrate Adobe's market by offering the Affinity suite as a mature professional-standard competitor in schools and other training environments (as opposed to just pushing Canva as the main product). This could be healthy for Affinity, in that Canva may see a long-term benefit in keeping it alive and actively developed.

But as many have said, pledged (and predictions!) aren't worth an awful lot, so we'll just have to wait and see. Hope for the best, plan for that worst, and all that...

[bici]

3 hours ago, Bryan Rieger said:

Thank you @Ash for this commitment, both from Affinity and Canva - although I do wish this was released yesterday along with the acquisition announcement as it could have stemmed 20 odd pages of discussion, speculation, and anger.

I'd 'thank you' in the reactions, but sadly I have no more to give today (the forum won't let me).

Very happy to read this, and really looking forward to ePub (hopefully both fixed and reflowable) export!

same here. Thanks Affinity. Still waters run deep. 

[NewInBoston]

1 minute ago, esto said:

From a 'looking into a business strategy crystal ball' perspective, pledge 3 is interesting. If it gets carried out, it would suggest that Canva have plans to penetrate Adobe's market by offering the Affinity suite as a mature professional-standard competitor in schools and other training environments (as opposed to just pushing Canva as the main product). This could be healthy for Affinity, in that Canva may see a long-term benefit in keeping it alive and actively developed.

But as many have said, pledged (and predictions!) aren't worth an awful lot, so we'll just have to wait and see. Hope for the best, plan for that worst, and all that...

Agree. Affinity has little traction in mainstream professional application. I have yet to see a job requirement stating Affinity Suite. It's always Adobe. This needs to change and breaking into education is one way to remedy this. Also, there are so many different workflow improvements I can think of if Affinity is able to connect to Canva API.

[AffinityMakesMeWonder]

4 minutes ago, NewInBoston said:

Very uplifting news. Also, at least Affinity will never have cash flow issues, something that can be a very real obstacle for smaller software companies. 

No, they haven't had ANY cash flow problem in Serif Ltd recently - this small company has made 45 million pounds (50m dollar) real profit last three years, so, that has not certainly been the problem...

[NewInBoston]

1 minute ago, AffinityMakesMeSad said:

No, they haven't had ANY cash flow problem in Serif Ltd recently - this small company has made 45 million pounds (50m dollar) real profit last three years, so, that has not certainly been the problem...

Key word: never.

[bici]

8 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

You may be right, of course, but Ash said there are a lot of improvements still coming in V2 (2.5 and beyond), so until they actually announce V3 we won't know for sure.

The Sun Also Rises. 

[Tia Lapis]

Yeah I see V3 announcement sometime in summer - big news: subscription only...

[000]

3 hours 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

 

A "Pledge" ist not a promise and "we are committed to" is very different from "we are going to" -- sorry, but while this is a nice gesture, I've heard this noncommittal language way to often (in recent years even from our gouvernment with their listening, their commitments and the famous "five pledges") to believe any of it.

As I have spend a good amount of time of learning Affinity and moving all my work to it I'll stick with it for the time being. Worst case is that my version 2.4 stays as it is and I'll use it until I don't find a computer that runs it anymore.

Given that Serif just got handed a large sack of money, I won't do any free beta testing from now on though, and only install further updates if they have something I need rather than looking forward to playing with a new toy and being happy about everything I discover.

The software has hopped from "a journey I enjoy being part of" to "a tool I use to earn a living". My feeling towards Serif has shifted from "fan" and "advocate" to "user" respectively "customer" with a simple business relationship that can be cancelled the moment "the product doesn't meet expectations".

[Flynnsworth]

1 hour ago, Flynnsworth said:

Please kindly share your purchase history with the group.

[000]

1 hour ago, AffinityMakesMeSad said:

Yeah, @Dystopia is just an Bot posting the same reply in several threads in here - the Moderators is smiling...

Good first use case for AI 🙂

[PaulieT]

Hello Ash,

I hope you and the staff of Affinity, made out well in the sell-out. I fear your customers will not!

After reading about the Canva takeover, I went to the Canva website to see their product offerings. I just tried a Canva product and it did not work correctly. Then I found, there was no way to contact Canva Customer Support to tell them of the problem with their product.

As you know, Affinity (Serif) has an email address that customers or potential customer can contact when they have a question or have an issue. Not so with Canva, they obviously don't care.

There was a way to contact Sales, so I tried that approach. After filling in all the information, and going through all the Captcha screens, I received a message saying there was an error in the submission. I tried again, with no luck.

This does not give me a good feeling about the future of Affinity products!  I refer you to Pledge Item 4 - How can you be "committed to listening and being led by the design community" if there is no way to contact Customer Support? 

Paul A. Teseny

 

[75th]

22 minutes ago, Jens Krebs said:

A "Pledge" ist not a promise and "we are committed to" is very different from "we are going to" -- sorry, but while this is a nice gesture, I've heard this noncommittal language

It's quite something to complain about the use of the word "committed" and then accuse the speaker of being "noncommittal". No, the pledges they made are not legally binding, but it is a good sign that Canva let them say it and put both their logos on it. They have opened themselves up to much more solid accusations of lying or malfeasance later if they go back on these pledges. It's not a binding contract, but it is worth something.

[debraspicher]

49 minutes ago, Jens Krebs said:

Given that Serif just got handed a large sack of money, I won't do any free beta testing from now on though, and only install further updates if they have something I need rather than looking forward to playing with a new toy and being happy about everything I discover.

Uh yeah, they're not getting anymore beta testing from me either. No more testing of any kind.

(Edit: In case it's not clear for any reason, that does not count for bug reports. I'm just no longer willing to help develop software by testing it, whether that's beta or post-beta. I expect polished software to a reasonable degree.)

They can afford a whole warehouse of testers now. There's years worth of goodwill in this forum alone that still hasn't been reciprocated.

49 minutes ago, Jens Krebs said:

As I have spend a good amount of time of learning Affinity and moving all my work to it I'll stick with it for the time being.

It is really inconvenient to change platforms, especially for major projects. On one hand, I'll have refreshed on my other toolset(s) and be looking at other options. Adobe has aged terribly, imo. It really should be easy to compete with the right polish but Serif's team has had a terrible track record with bugs and leaving features unfinished, so I'm not optimistic whatever "pledge" gets written in that the quality won't continue to slip. That pledge can go away at anytime.


Only thing I like so far is that this is very much sounding anti-Adobe. That should please anyone, customer or not.

[jimh12345]

3 hours ago, Bit Disappointed said:

Now you cling like shipwrecked people to an airy pledge, the thinnest hope you could possibly cling to. And why did it suddenly appear the day after? It's pure damage control you're uncritically swallowing.

That's how I feel too.   

Sorry if I sound like a cynic, or an aging know-it-all.   But I've been through Nikon Capture NX, PS Elements, and Exposure X7 before Affinity Photo.  They were all either abandoned or left on life support (Elements),  glowing "commitments" to the contrary.   I worked in the software business and I know what acquisitions typically mean, for both customers and employees. 

I just read the email from Affinity (or Canva, we don't really know) with the big promises.  Nice, but I've heard it all before;  Affinity will end up becoming whatever some execs at Canva want it to be, period.  I'd feel a lot better if I saw the word "photography" in there, somewhere, but that's pretty clearly not an interest at Canva.    I wouldn't be surprised if "Affinity Photo" drops out of the branding, leaving just "Design".

I'll keep using Affinity Photo for now but have already started looking at alternatives that are in active development and aimed at photographers.

[benhughes89]

29 minutes ago, Jens Krebs said:

The software has hopped from "a journey I enjoy being part of" to "a tool I use to earn a living". My feeling towards Serif has shifted from "fan" and "advocate" to "user" respectively "customer" with a simple business relationship that can be cancelled the moment "the product doesn't meet expectations".

I would say exactly the same. 👍

[pixelstuff]

50 minutes ago, Duskstalker said:

there is. canva is a company that runs a subscription based cloud service. canva is going to be publicly traded soon, that means canvas actions are going to be hypercapitalistic, because their only goal is to increase value to their shareholders, which mostly boils down to predatory monetization and absorbing competition with the goal of ultimately becoming a monopoly. adobe is mostly there.

canva will integrate the "pro tools" from affinity into their cloud service. this is why they bought affinity. they didnt want a desktop app to maintain, they want to merge affinity tools with their cloud. because this is their business model.

the affinity suite remaining a standalone desktop app on a perpetual license is fierce competition for canva at that point. when they are done merging affinity into their cloud they will of course shut down the desktop versions of affinity to force people into their cloud business. its quite simple really. and the pledges by former serif - now canva - employees are just that. 

It is doubtful that Canva will want to do away with the desktop apps.

No doubt they want to connect the desktop app to their cloud services, but they almost certainly want the benefits gained from having actual desktop apps. Professional users (like those using Adobe's software) want local running apps. If Canva wants to break into the professional design space they need the same kind of thing. They wouldn't buy Affinity software and then do away with their primary feature.

As far as subscription models, Canva has to realize they just bought a company that built probably its entire audience from people not wanting the Adobe subscription system. Keeping the perpetual model would be a good way to continue differentiating themselves from Adobe and convincing those customers to jump ship. Unless Canva one day becomes bigger than Adobe, I doubt they would ever become subscription only.

[debraspicher]

Just now, LondonSquirrel said:

There will always be issues that users uncover which testers didn't. It's no use complaining afterwards that "this should have been found". 

You're confusing testing with bug reports. Please stop.

[debraspicher]

Just now, LondonSquirrel said:

I'm not confusing anything. An issue not found in testing that is found by a user is a bug. Please stop splitting hairs. 

Just stop.

[NBG]

On 3/26/2024 at 9:08 AM, Ash said:

In Canva, we’ve found a kindred spirit who can help us take Affinity to new levels. Their extra resources will mean we can deliver much more, much faster. Beyond that, we can forge new horizons for Affinity products, opening up a world of possibilities which previously would never have been achievable

We need Affinity Video!

But not the Affinity suite flooded with "Canva" design assets or something like Dreamweaver...

 

[Johannes]

I like how the teams are doubling down together now. 😮‍💨

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

ANNOUNCEMENT 

27 March 2024 

The Affinity and Canva Pledge 

By the Affinity and Canva Teams. 

As we step into our shared future, we are committing to four pledges that we’re excited to share with the current and future Affinity community. 

 

Earlier this week we shared the news that Affinity had been acquired by Canva. As the dust settles on the announcement, we wanted to share more about our future together and our commitment to the Affinity community. 

Since our inception, both of our companies have shared the same mission and vision. We were both founded with the belief that design shouldn’t be limited to those who can afford complex software. Our goal has been to make the highest quality design tools available to the largest number of people with fair, transparent and affordable pricing at our core. By joining forces, we’re looking forward to accelerating this shared vision. 

Above all, together, we’re committed to continuing and amplifying Affinity’s position as the highest-quality professional-grade design suite on the market, while continuing to empower millions of designers to unlock their creativity and achieve their goals. 

1. We are committed to fair, transparent and affordable pricing, including the perpetual licenses that have made Affinity special.

We share a commitment to making design fairer and more accessible. For Canva, this has meant making our core product available for free to millions of people across the globe, and for Affinity, this has meant a fairly priced perpetual license model. We know this model has been a key part of the Affinity offering and we are committed to continue to offer perpetual licenses in the future. 

If we do offer a subscription, it will only ever be as an option alongside the perpetual model, for those who prefer it. This fits with enabling Canva users to start adopting Affinity. It could also allow us to offer Affinity users a way to scale their workflows using Canva as a platform to share and collaborate on their Affinity assets, if they choose to. 

2. We will double down on expanding Affinity’s products through continued investment in Affinity as a standalone product suite.

We believe Affinity is the highest-quality professional-grade design suite on the market. It’s non-destructive, super fast, and easy to use. As such, we want to reassure you that it isn’t going anywhere. 

In fact, we’re committed to using our shared resources to continue expanding Affinity’s products through further investment in Affinity as a standalone product suite. We’re looking forward to accelerating the rollout of highly requested features such as variable font support, blend and width tools, auto object selection, multi-page spreads, ePub export and much more. 

These additions will further cement Affinity as the best advanced design suite on the market and will be released over the coming year as free updates to V2. 

3. We will provide Affinity free for schools & nonprofits (NFPs).

Canva, which has pledged 30% of its value as a company towards doing good in the world through its two-step plan, offers premium plans at no cost to schools and NFPs all over the world. More than 60 million students and teachers, plus 600,000 charities and registered nonprofits, benefit from this each month. 

We’re excited to extend this programme to include free access for schools and nonprofits to Designer, Photo and Publisher. These professional-grade tools will add enormous value to this free offering, helping millions of students to master the craft of design, and empowering mission driven organisations to amplify their voices and maximize their impact. 

We’ll share more details on this in the coming months, including what it means for our education and NFP customers that already use Affinity. 

4. We are committed to listening and being led by the design community at every step in this journey.

Affinity and Canva were both founded on the basis that their respective communities – of expert and non-expert designers – deserved better. The tools available were overly complex, overly priced, or both. We know designers deserve better. They deserve the highest quality tools to serve their needs and they deserve to be treated fairly. 

We also believe the design community also knows best what it needs. As such, we are committed to shaping our products based on your ideas, your feedback and your needs. To kick things off, we’d love to learn more about what you’d like to see as we embark on this next chapter of our journey. What would you like to see in Affinity? What features have you been dreaming of? What would you love to achieve? We’d love to hear from you. 

Thank you to everyone who has been an integral part of the journey so far. We’re excited for the future and can’t wait to see what we can build together. 

With gratitude and excitement, 

The Affinity and Canva Teams