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Well now, this is interesting. What do you guys think?

For the Adobe Creative Suite (which has been an array of their professional editing software like Premiere Pro, After Effects, Photoshop and Auditions since the early 2000s), they've recently switched to a membership plan for their new "Creative Cloud" program. For $50/month, you get unlimited access to EVERYTHING - Premiere Pro, Photoshop, After Effects, ALL of it, completely unlimited, with 20GBs of Cloud Storage for your project files.

The price for previous versions of Creative Suite usually ranged anywhere from $1200 to well above $2000, depending on what you needed. Then, whenever a new version was released, you had to pay upgrade prices which were almost always around $800-$1000. So within two years, if a person needed to stay up-to-date for their post production workflow, it wasn't uncommon to spend over $3000 on the software alone. Maybe even higher, depending on how many licenses they needed!

However, after two full years with the Creative Cloud membership plan, a person will only have paid $1200 in total for access to EVERYTHING, and there will never be upgrade costs since you can choose to automatically update the apps you have installed - so really, it starts to become a pretty convincing bargain for someone just looking to get their feet wet with professional grade software! To see how little the cost truly is, compare it with your cell phone plan. Then you'll just be even more upset with your carrier.

But, there is a rather huge downside to all of this - you're just renting the software, and will never be able to completely "own" it, unless you buy previous versions of Creative Suite. I think you can still purchase full licenses, but it's EXPENSIVE - almost $1000 for each individual application. Crazy! And again, when newer versions are released you would have to spend WAY more than it's worth to upgrade.

I feel this introduces an entirely new concept to software, one that I sort of disagree with, but that I agree makes sense in the long run for software developers. By building the software to be subscription-based, they can continue to pull in more and more revenue, which is good for them AND us because they can more easily afford the ability to slap more advanced features in. I have Premiere Pro installed right now and I LOVE it - it's just the free trial but it can already do way more than any other editor I've ever used. I can only imagine how much further they can take it!

It's also good for us because it means that independent filmmakers really have a great chance to use professional grade software with very little cost! Indie blockbusters now stand more of a chance!

As good as that all sounds, I disagree with the whole notion of it. You should be able to own your software, and not have to rent it every month! But like I said, I agree that it makes sense in the long run, and will actually be thousands of dollars cheaper too, even if you don't use the applications often enough to justify the $50/month.

But what makes more sense - spending WAY more right away in order to be able to own it and breaking your bank, and then possibly facing the same problem of not using it enough to justify the expense, or "renting" it for way, way less and then just accepting the fact that if you leave the membership you lose the software after 30 days?

Games have been doing this model for YEARS - World of Warcraft is the prime example of that. There may be free versions of these types of games, but they're limited. So why can't the world of creative software pursue that same business model?

As much as I hate to admit it, I think Adobe might be on to something. I really don't want to like it, but it's enticing, especially since I'm on a tight budget for video work!

So again, what do you think? Personally, I really dig the idea. Like I said above, Premiere Pro is AWESOME. I've never used a better NLE in my life (granted I haven't used a lot, but over Sony Vegas and Final Cut Pro it's really awesome)!

As a user of their software since the 90s; and an avid user of Photoshop, Illustrator & Dreamweaver, my thought is that the subscription aspect is good for people wanting to get familiar with there tools for a year or so, you know; so that they may advance their skill set before stepping into the work place; it makes their product range more accessible to the majority.

But again, along with what you were saying; the lump sum fee is ridiculous. They are not quite a monopoly are they! There are other creative solutions, thanks to their heavy price tags, other groups and corporations have room to give us more options; so I do not understand how their pricing is supposed to benefit them.

The world is getting smarter; in other words you do not need any of their tools to bring together any form of creative media via internet, print or television. But many of us are attached to them because we feel at home in their interfaces, but that will change in future.

I feel sorry for people with limited internet access or who may have more important monthly subscriptions to pay to keep their perhaps online presence presentable. I could be wrong, but an average young games developer isn't going to have the resources to afford their solutions be it by subscription or lump sum, unless they have rich parents or a full time job.

At least it is good for the development and research; in line with your comments, the increased revenue leads to better software.

As said, people are getting smarter; they are realizing they do not need Adobe; look what is happening with Flash, the mobile market leaders have abandoned it, and its online usage is decreasing with the establishment of HTML5. Limited mobile phone support is why products like AppGameKit thrive, it is an Android-iOs-Windows-Linux-HTML-Google world; no where in between those delimiters lies an Adobe technology; and yet, they feel their superior price tags are justified.

True, it definitely is another bill a person has to modify their budget for. But you would have to do the same for buying it full-out, wouldn't you?

Unfortunately, since I'm on a Mac for editing video, my options are pretty much restricted to Avid, Adobe and Final Cut. Final Cut Pro X is a disaster (pretty much), and Avid is simply way too expensive to even really consider. Adobe has a unique idea and approach to this that could really, really work for some people, but really suck for others.

Like you said, not everyone can afford internet to run these apps, and most production houses won't even connect their machines to the web for various reasons. But the average Joe doesn't work in a production house, so this could REALLY benefit him!

For businesses, I'll bet they'll stick with Avid. Avid is a REALLY nice system, but it's overpriced and stupidly complicated. I tried the demo and couldn't even figure out how to import media. I had to watch a video, and when I did finally figure out how to import media, editing it was obnoxious - why don't Avid believe in showing waveforms on audio tracks, or frames on the video clips?

There is concern that after the first 12 months, Adobe would jack up the prices of membership plans. This is super likely to happen, but in their FAQ they explicitly say that if the price does go up after the first 12 months, they will give you the option to cancel. Then you can decide to go with other software, or try to convince them to let you keep it at $50/month. I don't think they'll raise the prices for at least a couple of years though, it would be really dumb for them to try. Even if they do, I don't see it going past $75/month for everything unless they really want to screw everyone over.

Yeah, I am not the most experienced video editor, so I couldn't tell the difference between those tools; my opinion was biased with texturing, graphic design and web design. I've done a few wedding videos in the past with Premiere; but that's all I can do with it lol.

I'm a bit of an After Effects fan as well.

I might consider making the most of this subscription offer while it lasts; and blitz through tutorials for a year or so.

But even with a cancel option, you would be pretty unpleased to have to change your plans to adapt to any Adobe price raise decision midway through a project.

In London you could easily blow £30 on a meal, the average spare cash for a common young worker or student is going to be between £200-£500 after the rent is paid. About £70-100 for public transport use, and perhaps £100 for the bills if not driving. I am paying £25 per month for my website and £20 for my mobile phone; which is an ancient Samsung Galaxy 1; this would be more for someone with an iPhone 5 or Galaxy S4. So even a £30-£40 subscription can be difficult for a common person like me to justify; I might actually prefer to spend that money on Lynda.com and make do with older or open source solutions. I've not even mentioned hardware and internet access costs.

It will also be interesting to see what will happen if their competitors end up providing a subscription option too.

I imagine eventually, most professional software will be subscription based. I'm sure a lot of people (myself included) will be kind of upset with that.

As stated before though, since I'm on a Mac I pretty much have no choice but to go with Avid, Adobe or Final Cut Pro. FCPX could be a good option, but it's SOOO different from previous NLEs. I like having tracks to edit in, it keeps things organized! Avid is just clunky, and really expensive. That pretty much leaves me with Adobe!

It's a good thing I like their suite of software!

$600 a year to rent software? What's to stop you from canceling after 1 month after getting all the software? Is it a new special license that expires once a month and needs renewed? Is it web-based applications? (in which case I wouldn't even bother)


I looked at the site. So its $50/mo for the annual plan or $75/mo on a monthly basis canceling at any time.

There's a free 30 day trial. I'm trying to find how much the whole suite costs, but I can't seem to find any pricing except this monthly crap. They've completely switched over to this pricing scheme? I do not like it.

It validates the license keys every 30 days, that's how they can charge you the money every month.

You can't buy the current version of the software as Creative Suite anymore, but you can still buy CS6 from them, they're still selling it but you won't get any updates at all beyond what's already available.

I'm using the free trial, and so far I'm finding I actually quite like it. I've played around with Premiere and SpeedGrade and they're both pretty fast! Next on my list is Photoshop.

Like I said in my original post, when you break down the pricing, you come out WAY ahead as opposed to buying CS6 straight out, and since you get all of the updates as they happen with no extra cost, you end up super ahead after two years (provided it stays at $50/month, which may go up but we'll see!).

I guess we'll see how successful it is after its first year, it's only been available since June 17th so there's not been a lot of time to get reviews in there.

I have a feeling their validation will be cracked quickly. What if you have no internet at the end of the month?

What updates are you referring to? You talking about upgrades? Cause other than that, I've never needed to update photoshop. And paying $600 for photoshop is way cheaper for the many years I'll use it before I'd feel any significant changes entice me to upgrade anyway. Frankly, the last I upgraded was only because it didn't work with newer Windows.

AFAIK it already has. But nobody believes this is about piracy do they?

Oh yeah, I'm sure it's been cracked. I don't think the license keys actually change every month, I think it just checks through your internet connection that it's still "valid" (probably by seeing if you've paid for the month) and then it's just business as usual!

I think this can actually be pretty effective against piracy too. Instead of having to pay $2000 up front for Creative Suite, it's only $50/month with commitment, or $75/month for the ability to cancel and rejoin anytime. Much easier on your wallet!

It was confirmed to be cracked on day one of release. I'm for having a choice between renting and perpetual. Renting only isn't in my interest at all.

I'd rather not rent anything! I am happy to pay outright to own software I can keep for a good number of years and know it is mine even if I don't have the money in the future.

I use trials to test the software and if it does what I need and works well, I will stick with it until I have a very good reason to change.

Renting the software is just not an option I am interesting in I guess I will be staying with CS6 for the next few years then.

I'm using Premiere and After effects CS6, but still on Photoshop CS5. I have no intention of upgrading on this new plan, and it's a stupid idea to do it now with more emerging competition like Hitfilm than ever.

I wish Adobe would be educated in £ and $ and the difference...

$46 does not equate to £46 [same goes with $4500 and £4500 is Adobe just stupid? I think Flash answered that...]

On the question of Buy to Have compared to this subscription service, I dislike subscription services, and frankly I would like to be using this software on an permanent offline rig... [Well Adobe Premiere/AE for certain]

I don't mind renting software, as long as I can pick and choose when I rent it. It charges you for 6 months after 30 days. It's only $15 a month for teachers so I might use try this out and see how it goes

Holy cow, I'm glad you caught that!

That pretty much just ruined it for me... Seriously, if I'm gonna spend that much up front, I might as well just stick with Final Cut Pro X. I guess that's what I'm gonna do!

And one day I'll upgrade to Avid, since Adobe seem to be genuine money-grabbers at this point...

I thought this was obvious when they continued to push the use of Flash...

^

Actually, Final Cut Pro X sucks so bad, I'm still pretty willing to go with Adobe's new system. Or, does someone have an old version of Creative Suite Production Premium they'd be willing to part with? Like CS4 or CS 5?