Have Affinity Just Been Adobed

[Ciaran77]

As an Affinity Serif user myself (you could say I'm a disciple of sorts), first and foremost, I tip my hat and congratulate the Affinity team for the outstanding work that they've done over the last decade or so with the release of the Affinity Apps. Bravo.

Back in the day, with the release of Affinity’s products, it was a breath of fresh air to finally see a company standing up for the little guys (aspiring and amateur designers, small design agencies, poor students, etc.), protecting and keeping us away from the claws of the money-hoarding, creatively bankrupt septic tank known as Adobe. It’s clear that Adobe wanted to monopolize the entire digital creative environment, making it ONLY available to the rich or those willing (but really forced) into possibly bankrupting themselves in order to use their overloaded, bloated products/services to make any sort of liveable wage. 

With the worldwide explosion of A.I. and its adaption and implementation into every facet of society, right down to creative thinking and its processes that are used to bring imagination into reality, it will require more and more money to be pumped into Affinity Serif and their wannabe globalist corporation in Canva, to help them keep up with their creative competitor in the form of the creative anti-Christ of Adobe. 

With the obvious implementation of A.I. into future Affinity products to keep those products relevant and competitive within the creative apps/platform market, this will require more 'Data Centers and Servers' to be built and upgraded over time by Canva/Affinity, as the substantial amounts of energy needed to operate the servers and significant volumes of water needed to cool them will only increase over time, meaning that Canva/Affinity will need a steady supply of cash, which will require more and more outside investors who will want to make sure they are getting a good return. Steady supply of money + good return = subscription plans. If it works for Adobe, they will argue, why not us? 

With the acquisition of Affinity Serif by Canva, short-term this will elevate Affinity products (in the eyes of the current customers) with new and exciting addons to the Affinity products, but long-term, I think Affinity have buried their company, for when Canva insists on the need for some sort of subscription plan, to keep everything a float and everyone (investors) happy, I can see lots of your current Affinity customers jumping ship to the likes of free open source platforms like GIMP and Blender. Regardless of the initial promises that Canva has made, everybody can see that the writing is already on the wall. Just give it five years (if the Russians and Americans haven’t already nuked us into oblivion by then) and all the great work that the Affinity team has done, all the great will and backing from the little guys that’s Affinity has stood up for, will be undone, but at least they'll be able to hide behind Canva and point the finger at them when the time comes. 

 

[Twolane]

I'm sorry, but I don't think it will take as long as 5 years. To recoup the amount of money Canva spent on this "deal", times are gonna have to change Real.Soon.Now.

I don't care about AI. If I wanted to use it, there are plenty of places to find it.

I currently have a replacement for Publisher. Although it's clunky and difficult to use, I'll pick it up.

Fortunately, I never converted all of my Publisher files to V2. Today I downloaded the v1 suite. Good luck to the rest of you who need to work with this stuff.

[Ciaran77]

@Twolane   

The English/British are world pioneers in technological innovation. They either invent something or reinvent something else to function better, which often goes on to change the world, as they've done throughout the decades. Look back through history at the inventions they have introduced, from the 'Electric Light Bulb' to the 'Telephone,' 'Radio,' 'Motor car,' 'Jet propulsion,' 'The submarine,' and 'Harrier jump jet.' However, the British have developed a very bad habit of wanting to sell off their prized possessions to foreign investors instead of holding onto them and elevating them to boost their own UK economy’s standing within the global markets by creating more jobs within the UK. For example, why did Affinity not speculate to accumulate and expand the company by working on more products? Why, as soon as Canva landed at the door with a 12 pack and a bag of spliffs, did Affinity let them in? 

I first purchased my Affinity products four years ago because it was just too good of a deal to pass up at the prices they were being sold at. I was blown away by Photo, Designer, and Publisher. When they increased the price slightly, I didn’t mind paying that little bit extra because the product being delivered was outstanding (still cheaper than Adobe). Each application had everything that I needed, to do what I wanted to do, without being an overblown, machine-heavy product to use. But I knew it wasn’t going to last; it was just too good to be true. I even told an Affinity Facebook group at the time that the brains behind Affinity would sell up as soon as the first big offer came in. This wasn’t about the English developing a worldwide popular product to rival Adobe; it was always about the money, and it appears that we as customers were led up the garden path to boost the reputation of the Affinity products to attract a buyer.

Think about it. As each version of Photo, Designer, and Publisher was released, it was always small, tiny changes that were made or something added in that most people didn’t care for; it was never anything major. On these forums, Affinity users were crying out for a vector tool to rival Adobe's Image Trace tool but never got it, being continually panned off. If Affinity were serious about their products and their future, serious about holding onto to Affinity as Primarily English based company, with products/services that gave Adobe the two-fingered salute with their rising popularity, why did they never speculate to accumulate? Why didn't they borrow the money to acquire 'Inkscape' technology to create their own 'Image Trace' tool? Users also asked if Affinity would create their "After Effects" application. Why wasn’t the money found to hire more engineers to work on a product like that if they were really serious about the long-term future of the company being kept in English hands? It was always about the money. Now that the mask is off, I wouldn’t be surprised if Canva makes the decision very soon that us small designers will have to remortgage our own houses just to use Affinity. But the Affinity owners can hide behind Canva as the ship sinks. For this cost-of-living crisis won't end anytime soon, and if Canva thinks that us plebs can afford their subscription plans to help Affinity pay for the extra water cooler fans to stabilise their severs, with all that new A.I Data flowing back and forth, it will be adios amigos, bye bye to Affinity, they'll be shocked when everyone bails on them heading straight for GIMP.

[When_Subscription]

If by Adobed, you mean providing fast, stable, feature rich industry standard apps, then the answer is no. If you're referring to screwing their customers over and likely heading toward a heavily cloud-based subscription mode, I would lean to yes on that one.

[Ciaran77]

@When_Subscription

 

1:  "If by Adobe, you mean providing fast, stable, feature rich industry standard apps, then the answer is no" - I agree, Image trace seemed to big of a task to produce
2: "If you're referring to screwing their customers over and likely heading toward a heavily cloud-based subscription mode, I would lean to yes on that one." - I agree   

Todays press release statement was very telling:

"If we do offer a subscription, it will only ever be as an option alongside the perpetual model, for those who prefer it" - So basically, a subscription model is coming and this is how it will work: 

(a): Perpetual model for those who prefer it - This is code for, right pleps, now that we are ultra rich and most of the future trajectory responsibility has been taken out of our hands by Canva, we pledge to you, yes you, you working class s&"m, that you will still be able to purchase 'Photo', Designer' and 'Publisher' but it will not be as feature rich, you'll have some access to a few useless tools that won’t really changed your workflow in the slightest but thanks for being a good dog and rolling over for us with your money

(b): If we do offer a subscription, it will only ever be as an option alongside the perpetual model - We want to hoard as much money as we can just like Adobe, this is the future model that we want implemented for the novelty of using our premium versions of 'Photo', Designer' and 'Publisher', which will be jam packed with feature rich tools to excelerate your workflow, again, Canva is our shield to hide behind, blame them not us if you font agree.... CAUSE WE'RE ARE LOOOOOOADED, LOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAADDDDDDDDDDDS OF MONEY 

 

[dannyg9]

Sad day to witness an amazing and thoughtful software company (who'd believe that in one sentence!), submit and essentially die. Everything from this point forward changes. Call me crazy, but I saw it happen to QuarkXpress. I saw it happen to InDesign/Adobe when they enforced subscriptions. What in the pie-in-the-sky would make one think that anything will be different about this merger?