Why not choose Adobe Creative Cloud in 2024?

Registration is too expensive

Adobe's pricing model is extremely expensive. Adobe's top, all-inclusive Creative Cloud plan costs $89.99/month ($1079.88/year) if billed monthly, $59.99/month ($719.88/year) on contract lasts one year or an annual upfront payment of $659.88/year ($54.99/month).

For a freelancer or creator making a profit, this may not be a huge expense. Conversely, for aspiring creatives who aren't making money from their work or aren't making enough to cover their costs, this can be extremely costly.

Adobe offers some individual software and smaller packages at a reduced cost, but for many creators, especially video creators, just Premiere Pro or just Photoshop and Lightroom isn't enough. Even though some people only regularly use a few Adobe software, they still have to pay to use the entire software suite.

Adobe has positioned itself as the industry standard for creative professionals, making it the most likely choice for artists, while also giving Adobe leverage to dictate pricing cut throat. In many cases, Adobe is only really valuable for professionals.

Although Adobe offers student discounts of up to 66% off, participants also often face scrutiny from Adobe.

Adobe uses predatory pricing methods

As mentioned, Adobe Creative Cloud costs $59.99/month if you sign a year-long contract. Although Adobe has been more public about early cancellation fees, it's difficult for most consumers to understand the details, exactly what they mean.

Read Adobe's cancellation terms, if you cancel your $59.99/month Adobe Creative Cloud plan 14 days or before the final monthly payment for that contract, you will be charged a 50% fee remaining of that contract.

For example, an annual plan costs less than $720/year. If you use it for 3 months, decide it's too expensive and want to cancel, that cancellation fee will be $720 minus $59.99 x 3 months, then split in half. Rounding up, it will cost you about $280 to cancel your Adobe subscription after 3 months of use. The cancellation fee is approximately 100 USD higher than the amount paid to use the service.

Many people wouldn't be so shy about the pricing model if Adobe were more clear about what it means. However, the company instead fooled most users into thinking they were paying a better monthly price, when it was a monthly price that came with less favorable conditions.

Many creators with limited funds may buy the 'less expensive' monthly option, end up wanting to cancel because it's too expensive, and then find out they have to pay a hefty cancellation fee. The US Department of Justice and FTC even sued Adobe over this type of pricing.

The clause gives Adobe too much ownership of user content

Adobe has faced controversy recently over its terms of service update, which said the company could 'view, access, or listen to your content through both automated and manual methods to improve Services'. our Services and Software and user experience' .

The company clarified its statements and revised some of the wording in its terms of use, stating that user content will not be used to train Firefly, Adobe's Generative AI tool. However, in other areas, Adobe does not do the same.

Adobe Stock is a service where photographers can upload high-quality stock photos and get paid when people use them. However, Adobe claims that they used Adobe Stock images to train Firefly.

AI features can add efficiency to creative workflows, but many in the creative field may not want their content to be used accidentally, especially considering the Terms of Service. Adobe's vague section on content rights. Therefore, many people may prefer to use software that offers better protection from AI.

Adobe is losing its position as an industry leader

For many creative tasks, Adobe has been the leading software solution. Few alternatives have full-featured equivalents to Adobe. However, as creative tasks are increasingly dispersed across more job roles, more user-friendly alternatives to Adobe, such as Canva, offer non-designers Designing powerful and easy tools, Snapseed for free mobile photo editing.

Furthermore, many alternatives to Adobe's software surpass it in certain tasks, such as DaVinci Resolve which offers many superior features to Premiere Pro, especially when it comes to grading and color correction. . Additionally, DaVinci Resolve offers a completely free version of the software, albeit with fewer features, which can also function as a free trial before paying $295 for the full release. enough.

Similarly, many browser-based alternatives to Illustrator are free, and Affinity offers many of the same features as Photoshop, Lightroom, and InDesign with similar user-friendliness but for a one-time purchase rather than must be exorbitant monthly payments.

Affinity, recently acquired by Canva, even offers a 6-month free trial for new users who want time to learn the software before committing to a fee. And since the controversy over Adobe's terms of use came to light, the company has slashed the base price for a one-time, lifetime license of the software by 50% through August 15, 2024.

For example, as a video creator who often edits photos and graphics, you can buy Affinity for $82.99 (on sale) and DaVinci Resolve for $295 to replace Photoshop, Lightroom, and Premiere Pro . For these two one-time purchases, you'll spend $377.99 on all the software needed to create content, while a year of Adobe without any discounts will cost you $659.88 (cheapest level). Best of all, many creators can use completely free alternatives to Adobe.

Adobe software is undeniably the best solution for many creative tasks. However, with exorbitant fees, predatory pricing models, unclear terms of service, and a growing number of alternatives, you probably shouldn't renew your subscription on next time.

Samuel Daniel

Update 25 July 2024