Re: Creative Cloud Pros

I had a project a project six months ago that required Photoshop.

(I used it for about a decade, then didn't have on-going needs, so I let my ownership lapse.)

Rather than plunking down hundreds for a program I use infrequently, I used Adobe's then nacient cloud "subscription" service.

It worked fine.

But I realized that like all other rental agreements, it only made actual economic sense if I was an infrequent user of the item being rented. A few short years of rental payments was the equivalent of buying it. And after 10 years (the term I used Photoshop for in the 1990s, the cost of rentals would have far, far outstripped the cost of purchase plus upgrades.

The vendor makes a whole lot more money over time - while saving a huge amount on the costs of production and distribution.

That's essentially the App store model. But in the app store, the prices are substantially low to address this new distribution reality. I believe that's a large part of why FCP-X is only $299. It's still wildly profitably at that price since the bulk of the distribution costs have vanished.

Eventually I simply bought Pixelmator via the App store which does about 75% of the core functions of PS but costs only 3 months the rental price - takes up less code space, is more modern, and loads and runs faster for me.

It's absolutely NOT as full featured, and certainly not as "standard" as PS. So there are plenty of arguments against this path. But the point is that "Apps in the cloud" are inarguably convenient - but I don't believe they represent a very good deal overall as subscriptions - only as a distribution medium.

YMMV.

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