Scared about losing Ownership of my software

[NJHeart2Heart]

I currently own LR 5x. I happened to be reading a blog today and the author's comment...scared me. She said "LR is available by subscription, or can be purchased outright I think.".

The fact that this author wasn't even sure if a local copy could even be bought just gave me a moment of panic.
I personally HATE the idea of having to PAY for THE USE OF software EVERY SINGLE MONTH or LOSE ALL MY PRECIOUS WORK, and by extension being forced to pay for features I have no interest in.

Is anyone else really nervous about LOSING a local software program? I just think how frustrated I get sometimes when I have to hand over a small fortune every month for my phone, TV, etc., and the idea of not owning ANYTHING and ALWAYS OWING SOMEONE MONEY just makes me cringe...

It make me feel the same way I often feel when I think about our TV subscription. In order to get the 6-10 channels which we use 98% of the time, we also wind up paying for a gazillion sports channels, and even worse, a group of rated XXX type channels.. because that's the best option for getting those few channels we really want.

Secondly, how bad off AM I? In other words, how soon will Adobe throw away any support for the local LR version, opting to ONLY offer a subscription based service?

Since I first purchased LR version 2, this is the FIRST TIME EVER I am contemplating whether I will have to eventually jump ship on it OR submit myself to basically leasing my software??

My stomach is in knots thinking about it. It makes me think even bigger picture.. My husband and I try to purchase things verses lease them or buy on credit, because we try to remain out of constant debt... but the way the digital world is going it won't be long before we will be FORCED to have revolving debt on EVERYTHING we use.... and especially with Lightroom, with it's sometimes proprietary storage of data, I hate the idea of how much metadata (which I've put time and effort into incorporating in my photos) I might LOSE by migrating to another (local and thus able to OWN outright without constant debt) program...

Please.. I could use some serious encouragement....

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Calm down. Lightroom is still availavle for purchase.

 

[Tony Jay]

Hi Dawn

With regard to Lightroom Adobe, while offering a subscription version, has not made any suggestions about terminating a standalone version.
Whether this situation might change in the future is not known but until now Adobe has denied moving only to a subscription.

FWIW the situation with Adobe's Creative Suite is very different.
There in fact, a subscription model, may make a lot more sense given the punishing cost of an outright purchase.
Although Adobe does offer a subscription for Lightroom (with Photoshop CS if desired) the economics of Lightroom are significantly different to that of the CS.

I wish I could give ultimate reassurance but I am not an Adobe employee, and even if I was it would be likely that I would be bound by non-disclosure agreements, so if one really knows something different one can't say or if one doesn't know then one doesn't know.
Nonetheless, I would not panic about this issue at this point in time.

Tony Jay

 

[clee01l]

FWIW, you have never 'Owned" software. What you have been purchasing is a license to use software offered by Adobe, Microsoft, etc. It is considered a perpetual license in that you can continue to use the produce as long as it will run on your OS. Adobe still offers the Perpetual license to LR. It no longer offers a perpetual license to Photoshop and other products. For these (and LR), Adobe now offers a subscription license that is active for as long as your subscription is current. It obligates Adobe to maintain and update the product for as long as it offers the subscription. The Perpetual license comes with no obligations on the part of Adobe. So, that when your product become obsolete, you will need to purchase a new subscription license as long as one is offered.
How Long will Adobe continue to offer subscription licenses to LR? I'm not even sure that Adobe can answer that question for itself, much less for you a customer. I can speculate and say that their goal is to move most users into the subscription model. They make the subscription model attractive by offering frequent new features not available to subscription licensors. Eventually the number of perpetual license holders will decrease until the perpetual license model is no longer economically practical for Adobe.

Let's compare the two plans.
As a new perpetual license holder you pay $150 for the full version. Every 15 -18 months Adobe release a new version with new features and charges an update few of $80. So, Cost of ownership for 3 years is ~$230. The Subscription plan is $120 per year, a 3 year subscription is $360. But for the subscription, you get LR & Photoshop. You also get new functionality added several times instead of 15-18 months. If you have a mobile device you cause LR Mobile and sync collections to your mobile devices. Guys used to carry fat wallets with photo sleeves to show photos of their kids and grand kids, Now they just use an iPhone.

You can say that the subsciption is more expensive and it is until you consider what you get. Photoshop when it sold as a Perpetual license was $900 and $600 to update. Just for PS, the $120.year is worth the price. Maybe you don't think you need PS. With a little PS training you can take advantage of PS feature to improve the quality of you image output. I did not think I would need it either, but as time goes by I find I used PS more and more.

The subscription got new feature before the perpetual license users. The Dehase filter was introduced in LRCC2015.1 and still not available to LR6.xx users. Probably it will take a LR7 to let perpetual license users have access to these features.

Adobe sell their flagship products as a subscription. Microsoft Office is sold as a subscription now too. It is the software direction of the future. I can remember sometime not too long ago when if you want to do any computer work, you needed to use a terminal and log in to a mainframe usually over a dial up modem. If your company did not lease the mainframe, access was very expensive. – A Photography bundle subscription from Adobe is cheap compared to what it used to take.

 

[davidedric]

Hi Dawn,

I don't think anyone has mentioned that if you do start the subscription route and subsequently jump ship, you DON'T lose access to what you have done. What happens is that Develop no longer works. Library and Export still function, so you can create high quality copies of your modified images, you just can't do any more work on them within Lightroom.

Dave

 

[johnbeardy]

I don't think anyone has mentioned that if you do start the subscription route and subsequently jump ship, you DON'T lose access to what you have done. What happens is that Develop no longer works. Library and Export still function, so you can create high quality copies of your modified images, you just can't do any more work on them within Lightroom.

Dave makes an important point about the post-subscription LR, Dawn, though I think I'd explain it slightly differently.

What happens is that you won't be able to go into Develop or Map, or use LrMobile.

You can do everything else, so you can continue to catalogue new pictures with an expired LR, you can add keywords and other metadata exactly as now, and you can even adjust images using the Quick Develop panel.

John

 

[Jim Wilde]

EVERY SINGLE MONTH or LOSE ALL MY PRECIOUS WORK, and by extension being forced to pay for features I have no interest in.

You wouldn't lose ANY of your precious work. In fact, Adobe have been extremely generous towards those who take out a subscription plan and subsequently decide to cancel the subscription. All that happens is that Lightroom switches into a special "reduced functionality" mode, which means that you lose access to the Develop and the Map modules (and syncing with LRmobile). Everything else you can continue to do: use your current catalog (or create new catalogs) to import, export, add metadata, even develop using Quick Develop within the library module.

 

[NJHeart2Heart]

Thanks all for your input. I especially appreciate Cletus' breakdown. I still don't want to have to switch to subscription, but when that apparent inevitability occurs, I do hope the numbers will work out similarly.

Thanks all.

 

[MarkNicholas]

Please excuse my ignorance but with the subscription version do you need to be actually connected to the internet when you use it ?

 

[DGStinner]

Please excuse my ignorance but with the subscription version do you need to be actually connected to the internet when you use it ?

No. You only need to connect to the Internet once a month to verify your license is still valid.

 

[MarkNicholas]

No. You only need to connect to the Internet once a month to verify your license is still valid.

ok thanks. Another lazy question from me because I have lost touch a little recently (sorry). Does 6.1 have a new RAW converter or is it the same as in 5.xx ?

 

[clee01l]

ok thanks. Another lazy question from me because I have lost touch a little recently (sorry). Does 6.1 have a new RAW converter or is it the same as in 5.xx ?

Only with respect to new camera formats, yes. But the algorithms are still the same. We are still using Process version 2012. LRCC adds a deHaze filter not present in 6.1.

 

[PhilBurton]

FWIW, you have never 'Owned" software. What you have been purchasing is a license to use software offered by Adobe, Microsoft, etc. It is considered a perpetual license in that you can continue to use the produce as long as it will run on your OS. Adobe still offers the Perpetual license to LR. It no longer offers a perpetual license to Photoshop and other products. For these (and LR), Adobe now offers a subscription license that is active for as long as your subscription is current. It obligates Adobe to maintain and update the product for as long as it offers the subscription. The Perpetual license comes with no obligations on the part of Adobe. So, that when your product become obsolete, you will need to purchase a new subscription license as long as one is offered.
How Long will Adobe continue to offer subscription licenses to LR? I'm not even sure that Adobe can answer that question for itself, much less for you a customer. I can speculate and say that their goal is to move most users into the subscription model. They make the subscription model attractive by offering frequent new features not available to subscription licensors. Eventually the number of perpetual license holders will decrease until the perpetual license model is no longer economically practical for Adobe.

Let's compare the two plans.
As a new perpetual license holder you pay $150 for the full version. Every 15 -18 months Adobe release a new version with new features and charges an update few of $80. So, Cost of ownership for 3 years is ~$230. The Subscription plan is $120 per year, a 3 year subscription is $360. But for the subscription, you get LR & Photoshop. You also get new functionality added several times instead of 15-18 months. If you have a mobile device you cause LR Mobile and sync collections to your mobile devices. Guys used to carry fat wallets with photo sleeves to show photos of their kids and grand kids, Now they just use an iPhone.

You can say that the subsciption is more expensive and it is until you consider what you get. Photoshop when it sold as a Perpetual license was $900 and $600 to update. Just for PS, the $120.year is worth the price. Maybe you don't think you need PS. With a little PS training you can take advantage of PS feature to improve the quality of you image output. I did not think I would need it either, but as time goes by I find I used PS more and more.

The subscription got new feature before the perpetual license users. The Dehase filter was introduced in LRCC2015.1 and still not available to LR6.xx users. Probably it will take a LR7 to let perpetual license users have access to these features.

Adobe sell their flagship products as a subscription. Microsoft Office is sold as a subscription now too. It is the software direction of the future. I can remember sometime not too long ago when if you want to do any computer work, you needed to use a terminal and log in to a mainframe usually over a dial up modem. If your company did not lease the mainframe, access was very expensive. – A Photography bundle subscription from Adobe is cheap compared to what it used to take.

Sorry for jumping in here so late. I would like to add some potential risks here to the idea that you can continue to use the software "forever:"

• You decide to switch from Mac to Windows, or the other way around, and Adobe no longer has a download for the standalone version of Lightroom available for the new platform.
• A new version of the operating system is released, and you want to upgrade BUT the standalone version won't run on the new OS.
• You buy a new DSLR and you shoot RAW, but the RAW convertor in your standalone version does not support that new camera

Phil Burton

 

[Rob_Cullen]

Hi Phil,
I think your are new to this forum, if so Welcome! I hope you learn as much as I have, and more.

Some 'friendly' comments on your post:

You decide to switch from Mac to Windows, or the other way around, and Adobe no longer has a download for the standalone version of Lightroom available for the new platform.

You can still download Lightroom v1.1 from the downloads page- that's 2007, How perpetual is it possible with computer technology in this era?

A new version of the operating system is released, and you want to upgrade BUT the standalone version won't run on the new OS.

This is not a problem created by Adobe. It happens with all software sooner or later!

You buy a new DSLR and you shoot RAW, but the RAW convertor in your standalone version does not support that new camera.

Again- not a problem created by Adobe. The camera manufacturers keep altering their proprietary raw file structure in new cameras. Adobe have done us the kindness of supplying the free DNG converter to overcome this problem.

 

[PhilBurton]

Hi Phil,
I think your are new to this forum, if so Welcome! I hope you learn as much as I have, and more.

Some 'friendly' comments on your post:


You can still download Lightroom v1.1 from the downloads page- that's 2007, How perpetual is it possible with computer technology in this era?


This is not a problem created by Adobe. It happens with all software sooner or later!


Again- not a problem created by Adobe. The camera manufacturers keep altering their proprietary raw file structure in new cameras. Adobe have done us the kindness of supplying the free DNG converter to overcome this problem.

I'm not suggesting that Adobe has created all of the problems I suggested. But Adobe can decide how to address these problems. For example, Adobe may or may not release a patch to make Lightroom standalone (probably only 6) compatible with a new OS. Or not.

All well-managed companies have policies, more or less, for "end of life" plans for software that is no longer offerred for sale. At some point, Adobe could decide that they will withdraw old versions of Lightroom from their download page. I'm not saying they will do that, but it is a risk.

Remember that they are no longer getting any revenue from people still using of Lightroom, and will want to motivate these people to upgrade to Lightroom CC. It's all about the dollars.

Phil

 

[Rob_Cullen]

The philosopy of 'Change', (or 'entropy' to put it another way.) is always a great talking subject.
Love your statement- "It's all about the dollars."- so true!

 

[Victoria Bampton]

For example, Adobe may or may not release a patch to make Lightroom standalone (probably only 6) compatible with a new OS. Or not.

Just in case anyone's wondering, their policy is to stop updating older versions as soon as the next full release comes out.

 

[PhilBurton]

Just in case anyone's wondering, their policy is to stop updating older versions as soon as the next full release comes out.

Not even security patches or patches for new versions of Mac OS or Windows?

Phil

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Correct. Not even that.

 

[rob211]

And BTW, I'm not sure that just because you can download an old version of Lr, that you can get a license to use that old version. In other words, I think Adobe stops selling such licenses at some point as well. Someone was asking about using Lr on a very old computer on Adobe's forum and the Adob-bot said they'd have to get v 5 through a retailer, like an older boxed DVD I guess.

In effect a license is good forever; the software? not so much if you try to use it on an evolving system.