Canva has bought Affinity.

Just a quick, off the cuff video about what might happen with this acquisition.

[@Nostradamus21b]

I see the future: - Canva Designer. - Canva Photo, - Canva Publisher. Subscription model (a bit cheaper than Adobe though). Bye Affinity Welcome to InkScape, Gimp and Scribus.

[@emilie1977]

inkscape, gimp e scribus hanno bisogno di soldi e investimenti. Non si riesce a copiare il modello Blender?

[@DesignGenie-cv1cn]

I love they combining there platforms

[@rockman9h02m]

@@emilie1977inkscapes been quite decent all in all, gimp is meh, scribus needs all the help it can get imo

[@softwarelivre2389]

And PenPot

[@manylearn744]

I have high hopes for Penpot, it’s not there yet, but it all looks very promising and the momentum is there

[@Nebarus]

Old owners will soon leave to "Pursue new opportunities outside the company", 1/3 of the employees will be fired to "optimize" and "refocus", v2 will be "obsolete" within 6 month and v3 will be a subscription closely matching Adobe...

[@manylearn744]

I doubt subscriptions will happen that soon, but they will be coming. 100% a change of senior team is a given, it'll be around 2 years or when Canva IPOs (Also around 2 years) and they can cash out. For the next year at least it'll probably be business as usual with the start of Canva integration work in Affinity apps. In the meantime, Canva will probably install their own CFO and the marketing team will probably be gone pretty soon too.

[@dakara4877]

Not going to happen. Canva wants to take on Adobe in the Enterprise. They will be adding resources to Affinity. Not taking resources away.

[@KrunchyJD]

What you fail to see, is that most people, if they are honest think adobe is better. The reason people, including myself is affinity is because it is not subscription. If it becomes subscription people will leave on mass and just use Adobe.. People hate the subscription model. If Affinity go down that path people will just use Adobe..

[@abstruselouche]

I switched to Affinity because, as you said, it's non-subscription, but I do prefer Adobe. Even the scaled down PhotoShop Elements has some better features, like brushes, that I'd have to try to create in Affinity, and don't get me started on the Affinity gradient tool. I freaking hate it. If I create something with a gradient in PSE and then open it in Affinity Photo, it doesn't carry over, doesn't look the same. It's frustrating. I recently bought Publisher, and like it, so I can't compare it to InDesign.

[@manylearn744]

I don’t actually comment on software preference directly in the video, apart from stating at one point that I don’t like Affinity Photo (because I don’t like Affinity Photo).* And no, not everyone _only_ use Affinity because of the lack of subscription, but a *lot* of people do. Though if they do eventually switch to a subscription only model there would be little reason to use their tools at all. I say all of these things in the video. Just a friendly note - starting a comment with “What you fail to see” is somewhat condescending. You wouldn’t do it in real life(unless you are not listening to the person you are conversing with), and I believe you should speak to people in comment sections the way you would IRL. I’m old fashioned like that. *Affinity Designer in a lot of ways, especially in the core tooling and performance of the application, is superior to Illustrator, it’s a more pleasant tool to live with every day IMO, despite missing some features from illustrator. Back when Illustrator/Designer were my main daily tools, I’d use Affinity for about 80% and Illustrator when I needed specific features. I think a straight up “better/worse” is an oversimplification in the case of Designer. Photo, as I stated earlier, is just photoshop but worse and I have never gotten on with it. Nowadays I still keep it around and will open it to do very basic things, but if I’m doing any real image editing, I’ll do it in either fusion or photoshop still. I have no opinion on Publisher, as I’ve barely used it. Mercifully I’ve not worked on print/layout in about a decade now.

[@VynZography]

The problem I have with Adobe is that £20 a month for a professional photogrpaher is WAY too cheap and £20 a month for someone like me who uses it once every 2 months to edit one photo for personal use is WAY too expensive.

[@manylearn744]

I entirely agree.

[@abstruselouche]

So true. If you're just doing some basic editing, have you looked into using PhotoShop Elements? It's a scaled down version of PhotoShop, but it can do quite a bit. I've been installing versions on my Macs for decades, even with Affinity installed. It's a one-time purchase, ($99 US). I usually upgrade when I buy a new computer, so about 8 to 10 years. The interface is ugly utilitarian, but it has some nice brushes Affinity doesn't, and the gradients are better. Adobe is kind of sneaky and has it buried on their website.

[@samdavepollard]

have you tried Photopea?

[@DrStrangelovePhD]

Affinity bought by a subscription-based fluffware house. It's a damn shame. I won't be handing them another dime.

[@steverrobbins10]

The biggest problem with subscription models is that suddenly my business becomes dependent on -their- product roadmap decisions, their activation servers, and so on. If they decide to discontinue the product line, my product stops working and my legacy documents are suddenly inaccessible. I've had this happen before, even though the subscription software still ran perfectly fine. Then suddenly I had no way to access all my old files. Furthermore, subscription models give the company no incentive to develop new features. Why bother? Subscription revenues are guaranteed since users need to access their legacy documents. I prefer to treat software like a tool. Sell me a hammer than works. If you come out with a better hammer, I'll buy it if it's a good value. But saying that software developers have an unusual need for smooth revenues is nothing new. ALL businesses have a need for smooth revenues. That's what drives innovation and progress -- the need to develop new, useful, value-added products that satisfy real market needs.

[@federicosalvetti7703]

sucks so much i am sorry to have bought affinity last week

[@c.olaechea]

I'm happy with the purchase, even though I don't use all the suite. I bought it in Nov 22.

[@emnific]

if you are in the EU, and if you wish, you can ask for a full refund within 14 days

[@softwarelivre2389]

Inkscape will always be there for us, at least

[@WhiteWolfx22]

@@c.olaechea Yep im the same. Thought this meant better updates but looking at track record of canva... People don't like where this is going, and it discourages the purchase, buuut I guess i'll have to make do with current software till things go down hill...

[@lelagrangeeffectphysics4120]

@@c.olaecheaid call myself a "loyalist" having bought designer for 20 euros and upgrading to v2 full suite with a good discount... but this is just shiet i hope they dont break v2

[@henghistbluetooth7882]

I think the problem with subscriptions is that you end up with a highly manipulative sunk cost fallacy. There was a time when you could but the whole Adobe suite for £5-600. Then you had to buy it for that every year - and you already had the skills, portfolio and workflows in Adobe. Say what you will but imagine buying a car for £10,000 and then being told to get the latest model you had to buy the exact same car but it would cost £10,000 a month and you’d never own it. People dismissing sub models I tend to find either have s revenue stream that depends on using the software so its’ an expense they can claim for taxes, or the company they work for pays for it so they never see the Ed;ensue. For us mere mortals a 1,000% markup combined with a total lack of any form of ownership is usury, and combined with the risk that you build skills in something that can change in price at literally any time. This was the whole point to my buying the affinity suite. And my wife also buying it for her Mac. This has nothing to with service, improvements and so on. It is to do with the market expectations that you launch a firm, ramp up the stock price, jump and let the firm die.

[@manylearn744]

For hobbyist users, yes. Absolutely. It's not a good deal and actively predatory in some cases. Like Adobe attempting to charge exit fees for users wanting to cancel their subs. That's not fair. Though if you make your living with certain tools, it can be an acceptable cost as long as terms are fair. As I mention in the video, Adobe CC is actually cheaper than Creative Suite. CS Master collection used to be around £3,000 ( I just checked and CS6 was £2,600) and used to come out on average every 1-1.5 years. So quite a bit more than the ~£500 a year it is now. Although IIRC they had smaller Ilustrator/Photoshop bundles that were cheaper. Photoshop alone used to be £600-1000. This very much comes from the perspective of someone who makes a living using tools like this, and some software I use costs significantly more than Adobe. It doesn't mean they're not a horrible company though.

[@lamsmiley1944]

My brother just tried to cancel his Adobe subscription and they want a $500 exit fee. That’s the equivalent of five years of Canva Pro to cancel a subscription.

[@FlameForgedSoul]

Carpenters make a living using hammers nails and saws. They pay for those tools once, replacing as needed. Nothing they build suddenly becomes inaccessible to them if they don't spend a certain amount of money every month. Their tools don't refuse to work and a subtly accuse them of theft if their Internet is down. We could go on but you take our point, yes? Professional acceptance of Adobe's nonsense doesn't make it _acceptable._ ​@@manylearn744

[@manylearn744]

@@FlameForgedSoul The "replacement as needed" in this scenario are the upgrades you'd normally pay more for under the pre-subscription model, with the cost spread, in some ways it's the same thing. Plus in your analogy there's other ongoing costs for doing business beyond just replacement hammers. If you can afford it and have the need, then it is acceptable. That all being said, I don't like subscriptions. Would I rather perpetual licenses? Absolutely. But I also address some of the reasoning for the desire for subscription pricing in the video and the benefits to software development. That also being said, these benefits are not necessary for a company the size of Adobe. In their case, it's just greed. Also their business practices are horrible and especially unacceptable for hobbyists.

[@manylearn744]

Yeah, it's a really bad practice. I've always preferred the way companies like Jetbrains do it, you pay each year and if you stop paying, you keep the latest version. You get the release cadence of a subscription, but no lockout once you've stopped paying. Jetbrains even reduce the subsequent cost of the license each year, which is very awesome of them.

[@PASHKULI]

"None of that changes… today." Right… so it might change some other day and it will.

[@manylearn744]

It most likely will, yeah.

[@lethercreate]

Yes, it sucks big time.

[@aqualithmedia]

Thanks for your perspective on this. Handling this announcement is always gonna be treading on eggshells. Unfortunately many got cracked today. Let's see what the followup from Serif is.

[@brianwitter3271]

Agree with most points. Always thought the price was low, and development slow. We are in agreement on the the fact maintenance is fine. Price it fairly, have two tiers where once you make so much off the tools like 100k, you pay more. I don't agree with subscription at all. You stated the difference that maintenance is fair because the developers get a steadier stream of money, and the user doesn't have tools they've paid for yanked from them as soon as they stop paying. That's where I draw a hard line. I paid a small fortune over the years in maintenance fees to Autodesk, didn't love it, but I knew I could keep using what I paid for. When they went full sub, I was done with Autodesk. While I agree the way Autodesk handled things (and not just licensing) was worse than Adobe, Autodesk at least does offer tiered pricing, and if you are going to force subscription licensing at least offer a fair way to continue to all the users you've built your business with.

[@manylearn744]

Autodesk are the literal worst.

[@DigitalArtGuru]

I don't believe their 4 Pledges. They will change everything in the next year or two. This type of situation never ends up well for the users. This is very bad news. Once they have subscriptions, it's downhill from there. I don't believe their promises. I have seen this before.

[@manylearn744]

Yeah, that's basically what I say in the follow video

[@RoySATX]

You only need look back to what happened to Sketchup and the promises made by Google when they sold it to know what is to come. This is a sad day.

[@heyitsme1618]

anyone who is above the age of 2 will note that in this weaselly communiqué the key word in "none of that changes today" is TODAY.

[@c.olaechea]

Thanks for your great views!

[@ObsidianLife]

Good video. And I’ve mostly been on the production side of things whether it was in post or software creation. It’s really frustrating to see how many people just do not get the financials of actually producing software, whether it’s a company or open source. People refuse to accept the idea that there are cost but they always expect the highest quality product. As much as I enjoy using affinity, I have to agree… The price was too low. It makes sense they had to get bought. I guess we’ll see where this all goes…

[@aaronwilson8698]

Canva just acquired their desktop version of their web based software. I don’t doubt that they will put their money behind them and produce good features. With that being said, I don’t see them staying with a single license purchase. It will be subscription based because they’ve already proved that THEIR current base is willing to pay for it.

[@RoySATX]

No. You only need look back to what happened to Sketchup and the promises made by Google when they sold it to know what is to come. This is a sad day. Canva is SAAS only, Affinity products will be SAAS from now on.

[@Dan-kb2oz]

You seemed to not think of the reverse or implications of your point re people not buying the next perpetual license version because the features don't wow them, and that being a reason why subscription system is better. What this basically means is that when people have signed up to pay you monthly regardless, you can just release any crap and get paid whether your updates are good or not. In fact you yourself admit that you chose not to purchase V2 because the updates weren't enough to you. Now with what you say about subscriptions, if Serif did that you'd have been signed up to have just bought it and now have it before knowing it wasn't worth it to you. I get that there's a possible Catch 22 here tho, as it could be argued that if there was a subscription the updates would've been faster and included more. Pros and Cons of both?

[@manylearn744]

Yeah, I didn’t say this explicitly. In my defence this was a morning video recorded off the cuff haha. But yeah, I agree with everything you’ve said here. In fact more often than not, subscription software engenders complacency in developers. My slightly more charitable take about subscriptions evening out revenue bumps is very much because most of my career I’ve worked with or for vendors of creative software. So I’ll be more sympathetic, I think I do mention that in the video though. Either way, yes. Subscription software can incentivise developers to do less, although sometimes they can also release better software more slowly due to being able to spend more time working up to features without the arbitrary deadline of a new paid release. It’s kind of a big topic.

[@Dan-kb2oz]

@@manylearn744 Agreed, I think there's possible pros and cons to both methods, as with most things in life. Although I'd argue the real problem is capitalism, but that's another topic, haha. Cheers.

[@counseloridealist]

Canva: A family, we've paid a billion dollars to help out the users. For one man, a stick is a crutch; for another, it's firewood.

[@a7xcss]

Corel buys Bibble ...remember..???? Today Bibble is no more, and its replacement AfterShot sucks... ...Déjà vu...

[@HarryPujols]

Remember Sketch? I was a fervent user of it until they went subscription. I will have to use Gimp, Inkscape with their horrible interfaces.

[@manylearn744]

You can still buy perpetual sketch licenses. If you’re after an open source sketch/figma like UI app, penpot exists.

[@biggestdummie]

I need to grab that V2 version asap then. This sucks. First Figma to Adobe and now this? wtf

[@manylearn744]

I don’t think anything materially changes anytime soon, also since this video Affinity have claimed various things about keeping the product perpetual and increasing release cadence. But that’s all something you should take with a grain of salt

[@heyitsme1618]

@@manylearn744 perpetual....at this time.* *subjecttochangeunderour5000pageEULAclickheretoreview

[@PatriciaChavers]

Already thinking of how yo leave Affinity. Canva is greedy.

[@kamaur01]

I'm not happy about it. I just bought the Affinity set since I'm switching careers.

[@klarion]

Subscriptions suck.

[@PeanutsandPopcorn]

Yeah, we’re just gonna have to disagree on 90% of the stuff that you just said. Wish you the best.

[@manylearn744]

I’m curious. Why is that?

[@PatriciaChavers]

I hate canva! Why, oh why!

[@nexuzinnovation-com]

Worst comes to worst, retain workable copy of perpetual license of Affinity products just in case Canva transit Affinity products to subscription based like Adobe.

[@manylearn744]

👆

[@SensibleChuckle]

Until MS decides to update Windows and it's not compatible.