I've also seen enough big name tech companies fail over the years to know what that promise is worth. I've had salespeople straight-up promise me that X or Y software company is far too big to fail and will be around forever. I do think a lot of these firms are price gouging as well, but even if they weren't, it's just too much risk that something we depend on to do our work might be changed or even entirely discontinued if the business running it changes its mind or fails. Version control, and by extension plain text, are such powerful concepts that they end up splintering off programming from the trajectory the rest of the software industry is on.Īt least with Sketch the file format is well understood and you can keep using whatever version you end up with when your licence expires.įor me, this is the #1 issue with the recent trend for subscription models. Another fascinating angle here is that programming ends up side stepping all these trade-offs entirely, just because of version control (which is facilitated by plain text file formats), which solves both problems simultaneously (collaboration and offsite backups). For these users, dealing with the future of Figma is probably safer than them keeping track of their files themselves.ģ. E.g., picture users with no backup strategy, and all their files on one computer in their house. Even for the file-based apps, outside of expert users, it's actually probably preferable for most users to use a web-based app and take their risks with the company behind it, rather than keep track of those files themselves. Over time, there might be a divide with file-based apps for personal use on one side, and web apps for group use on the other (we're probably already here outside of some areas, like video editing and programming, where people still collaborate by editing files).Ģ. There are a few interesting take-aways that come from that observation:ġ. ![]() I agree 100% with this thought process, I have trouble understanding why people are willing to use a product that gives them so little control over their work.īecause of this, I've spent a lot of time reading about why people choose Figma, and the reasoning is simply that they value working together more efficiently more than they value data ownership. I really hope the company finds the right course correction that keeps the Affinity range affordable while sustainably funding development. My criticism isn’t entirely fair as Serif has also been occupied with launching Photo and Publisher during this time, but there’s no escaping the conclusion that Designer has stagnated. I don’t want to subscribe to Designer either, but there are other proven models: Look at Sketch, which has an optional, annual upgrade program, and has shipped vastly more functionality than Designer has in the same time period. I want to give Serif more money so they can bring Designer up to speed with Illustrator, as fifty dollars every 5+ years clearly doesn’t support the kind of development effort this requires. While it’s seen some valuable updates since then, the core promise of an Illustrator killer remains out of reach: Key features like blends, pattern brushes, distortion envelopes, and more have sat on the 1.x roadmap for years, and the marquee feature of 1.8, released a few weeks ago, was a years-in-the-making bugfix for the expand stroke feature. I paid a mere $50 for Affinity Designer half a decade ago. Rather than get greedy and force users into renting their software as Adobe has, they’ve tried to stretch out a very low price of entry into a multi-year series of free updates – and it’s not working. They’ve erred on the other end of the spectrum from Adobe. Affinity Designer is an excellent piece of professional creative software, but Serif’s business model is broken.
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