Goodbye, Adobe
Five reasons I abandoned Adobe, after 25+ years working in the digital world and using most of the Adobe software stack.
Me
When people ask me what my main profession in the tech world is, I tend to simply tell I do pretty much 'everything'. Except developing.
I have worked with UX design for decades, leading hundreds of various website- and eCommerce-projects serving a millions of users in total. I have designed countless logos, posters, brochures, diplomas. I have 'manipulated' and optimized countless photos. Worked with tons of vector stuff, edited videos and what not. Heck, I have even made illustrations.
And up to a couple of years ago I used Adobe software for most of this.
Adobe Photoshop — when I first met Adobe
I cannot recall exactly when I first installed Adobe Photoshop but it was in the early 90s. I’ve always been an early adopter to mostly everything in tech, and recall I was playing around in Photoshop for a few years before most of my design friends also took the bold move from Paint Shop Pro and Corel Draw.
Adobe Illustrator and Adobe InDesign
Later I also got my hands on Adobe Illustrator, and made illustrations and brochures for companies and organizations using it, until I found that Adobe InDesign was a better fit for at least the brochures part.
Adobe Dreamweaver
After having “developed” websites using Notepad and other very uhm narrow editing tools, it was euphoric to encounter Macromedia Dreamweaver in the late 90s. Split panel of code and design in the same view! Omfg! As Adobe acquired Macromedia (and then also Dreamweaver) in the early 2000s I remember I still used it for a while after the rebrand.
Adobe Premiere and Adobe After Effects
I have spent a decent amount of time trying to conquer Adobe Premiere and Adobe After Effects (until I came across and immediately fell in love with one of my all-time best software experiences; DaVinci Resolve, which I use practically every day).
Adobe XD
As primarily being a “web guy” I obviously also tried out Adobe XD, and recall I found it to be the most positive surprise from Adobe since the day I fell off my chair when I got my hands on Adobe Dreamweaver long time before.
Adobe Acrobat
When Adobe introduced PDFs in the 90s, it was first fantastic to find a document format that also took into consideration graphics and vector.
I obviously wasn’t happy with their decision to enforce us all to have to buy Adobe Acrobat to simply work with PDF files, but most of that changed when they finally decided to make the PDF format more or less 100% open in 2008. Today anyone can make software to both edit and view PDFs without the need of paying any royalties to Adobe, if they comply with the PDF specifications from Adobe that is.
Adobe Flash and Adobe Flex
Although never developed in Flash or Flex myself, I have worked with full-time developers making “rich web applications” and fancy and often meaningless things in Flash. Naturally I have had my fair share of meltdown’s from compatibility issues and what not on implementing Flash on websites.
Adobe Commerce (Magento)
A few years ago Adobe acquired Magento Commerce, and soon after renamed it to Adobe Commerce Cloud. I am very familiar with Magento, being on of the first suppliers [worldwide] of the platform, and having run [and sold] a company with 40+ employees working full-time delivering e-commerce with Magento as the foundation.
To this day I still haven’t understood why Adobe acquired Magento, as the only synergy to the rest of their suite as I see it is the Adobe Stock service, to let anyone [who pays for their stock offering] “to easily search for- and add stock images to its e-commerce store”. But who on earth do eCommerce like that?
PS: I think I understand why the board decided to acquire Magento; to simply increase their cloud presence, which they have seen sky-rocketing their recurring income.
So, the 5 reasons I left Adobe
I can't recall exactly when it happened, but I think it was round 2013–2014 when Adobe announced they were moving over from the pay-once-use-until-you-desperately-need-the-latest-version and over to pay-us-forever-and-use-only-until-you-stop-paying that I felt this was going the wrong way.
A couple of years later my gut feeling proved me right, and I started abandoning the Adobe products one by one, with the below reasons part of all my exits.
1. I never needed ‘everything’
Adobe very soon after announcing going subscription-only, started to promote the Adobe Creative Cloud, where you literally got everything as part of the subscription.
“- Wow, can I get the full software-stack from Adobe for just $79 per month? Even Adobe Premiere?!”
“- Or, wait.. I don't need all that stuff! How do I cancel?”
“- Oh, I can't cancel it..? Wtf?!”
2. I never needed the latest version the next day it was shipped
One major advantage of a SaaS (Software as a Service) model is that you are always on the very latest version.
The issue for Adobe is that hardly any individual on our entire planet need the latest version of Photoshop with that new awesome feature immediately after it has been launched. Frankly, I can't recall any new 'important' feature I got (and used) with any of the latest Photoshop versions.
3. I didn't need all the one gazillion features
For years I both paid for- (yep) and used Microsoft Excel (before moving over to Google Sheets and LibreOffice). Or, I hardly used Excel. For the most I just tapped into it like most of us: to structure various content in rows and columns, and in some edge-cases to sum up some numbers, meaning I used just 1 percent of its offered features.
Same goes for the Adobe suite.
I might have used up to a two-digit percentage of the features offered in for example Dreamweaver back in the days, which I'd assume could be defined as 'a lot' of its offered features.
As for Photoshop? Maybe one percentile? At max. Adding motion to static images? Sure a cool thing, but I don’t need it.
Adobe should look towards how the Go team works in terms of actually trying to reduce the number of features.
4. I literally hated the ridiculous lock-in policy
When you want to cancel an Adobe subscription you are charged with an expensive pay-yourself-out-of-the-contract-fee, which has hit a lot of criticism lately.
Adobe, contract-fee to opt-out of a regular Software as a Service offer?
In 2021?
Come. On.This one is the worst. Definitely. A total killer.
And which simply confirmed by final decision to move away. For good.
Adobe seriously needs to shift the main focus over to the users, not the shareholders, or else there will be no users left for the shareholders.
I work a lot with developing and delivering all sorts of software myself, and fully understand that a cancel-fee could be needed if the supplier has had a significant cost in onboarding the customer. Which is not the case in the SaaS world, and especially not when it comes to Adobe software, where you purchase the license online and download the software yourself.
So, are there any alternatives to Adobe?
Oh yes. Internet has got you covered on this one as well.
Over the last decade lots of great products has been made to compete directly with Adobe .
Below are a few of the alternatives that have helped me move over from the dark side.
- Need quick and very flexible image editing? Try BeFunky (don't mind the name — their offering is actually superb) and other small online utilities like Remove.bg
- Need to sketch up and eventually design a website? Use Figma or Sketch
- Need to work with vector stuff? Use the alternatives mentioned above
- Need to work with publisher stuff? Try Affinity or the free alternative Scribus
- Need to edit videos very professionally, at ease? Go with one of the best software packages out there; DaVinci Resolve. Heck, it's even free if you dont need those super-fancy effects!
- Need to edit and manage PDFs? Use PDF Expert
- Need stock images? Use Unsplash or Pixabay
- Need to draw illustrations? Get yourself a decent iPad Pro, an Apple Pen, and get the Procreate app
Need an alternative to any of the other Adobe products? Simply google “Adobe insert-name-of-adobe-product alternatives” and the internet should give you tons of great alternatives, most with no lock-in contract.
Add your recommended alternatives in the Comments field.
Disclaimer
I understand a few professions are best of with some Adobe products.
However, if I can get my jobs done perfectly fine without using any Adobe product for years, I am sure you can too :)
