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Date for Adobe responses?

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PhilBurton

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Ad Astra wrote in a different thread Is Lightroom Classic end-of-life?

There are a number of well documented comments and concerns in this thread. I believe this forum and Victoria's support for Lightroom have the gravitas to merit a reply from Adobe.

I would like Tom and Rikk to give us a date for a response or series of responses. If that is not possible, then a "date for the date," that is, tell us when to expect Adobe to announce the date for the responses.

The lack of any indication that Adobe will respond is corrosive to the trust we all have placed in Adobe by making Lightroom a major part of our photo lives.

Phil Burton
 
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The lack of any indication that Adobe will respond is corrosive to the trust we all have placed in Adobe by making Lightroom a major part of our photo lives.
I like your use of the word corrosive. Since Victoria has the contact with Tom, I'll wait until she returns to prod Tom for a response.
Perhaps Tom is not aware that Lightroom Forums does not live in a vacuum. Facebook, DPReview and several photography blogs have all been the source of negative reactions to Adobe's roll out of Lightroom Classic/LightroomCC and the killing of the perpetual license. As we all know information flows freely in social media.
That corrosion of trust will certainly spread if Adobe fails to address their customer's concerns forthrightly. There are at least three products out there that want to acquire Adobe's customer base and this will only increase that chance for those companies to succeed in doing so.
 
I like your use of the word corrosive. Since Victoria has the contact with Tom, I'll wait until she returns to prod Tom for a response.
Perhaps Tom is not aware that Lightroom Forums does not live in a vacuum. Facebook, DPReview and several photography blogs have all been the source of negative reactions to Adobe's roll out of Lightroom Classic/LightroomCC and the killing of the perpetual license. As we all know information flows freely in social media.
That corrosion of trust will certainly spread if Adobe fails to address their customer's concerns forthrightly. There are at least three products out there that want to acquire Adobe's customer base and this will only increase that chance for those companies to succeed in doing so.
Clee,

Adobe should respond without a prod from Victoria. They should be feeling a lot of anxiety already.

I doubt that Tom is unaware of social media. A lot of Adobe's recent product developments are driven by the increasing power of social media and digital marketing. Tom seems like a pretty smart guy, judging by the recent YouTube interview. I'm guessing that there are some senior managers in Adobe who want to return to 1995. In general, Adobe has market leadership in its product areas, and maybe the culture there doesn't know how to react to serious competition. And social media, including this forum, can be a force multiplier for competition.

Phil Burton
 
Phil,

My contract with Adobe ended on October 17th of this year. California (where Adobe is based) law stipulates that contractors cannot be employed more than 18 months in a cycle of 24 months. Even though my contract expired, I am still bound by my NDA as an employee.

To that, I no longer speak for Adobe but do still advocate for them. Any information, internal to Adobe, which takes place after October 17, 2017 is beyond my reach.

Long story - short, I won't be providing you any dates.

I may, however, provide opinions from time to time... as I do remain part of the community. I do understand your frustration but I also understand Adobe's quiet nature here. As I said in another thread, nothing imminent is transpiring and the time for panic is long off and may never come.
 
I may, however, provide opinions from time to time... as I do remain part of the community. I do understand your frustration but I also understand Adobe's quiet nature here. As I said in another thread, nothing imminent is transpiring and the time for panic is long off and may never come.

Rikk,

Because of my subscription contract, I have about 10 months until my contract renews.
So, Adobe locking me in, actually could give them a false sense of security. I am actively looking at my options, in fact I have joined a couple of betas for other solutions based on the feedback I have already provided.
Did Adobe lose me? Not yet, but I am no longer a guaranteed customer.

Tim
 
Phil,

My contract with Adobe ended on October 17th of this year. California (where Adobe is based) law stipulates that contractors cannot be employed more than 18 months in a cycle of 24 months. Even though my contract expired, I am still bound by my NDA as an employee.

To that, I no longer speak for Adobe but do still advocate for them. Any information, internal to Adobe, which takes place after October 17, 2017 is beyond my reach.

Long story - short, I won't be providing you any dates.

I may, however, provide opinions from time to time... as I do remain part of the community. I do understand your frustration but I also understand Adobe's quiet nature here. As I said in another thread, nothing imminent is transpiring and the time for panic is long off and may never come.

Well, you may not currently work at Adobe, so this isn't really directed at you..

We can certainly understand Adobe not wanting to say anything [without the million meeting march]. But I think what a lot of us are saying is that it's just not acceptable this time around. The scarcity of finding anything about Lightroom Classic on Adobe's website mirrors to a "T", the same situation of the now defunct perpetual version. So I think we'd like some answers about that and the other items Cletus and Gnits (& many others) have requested.

Given the state of what is happening right now, I think Adobe should at least treat its users with a little more respect and openness than they're been doing lately. Granted, we may be peons in Adobe's multi-Billion dollar eyeballs, but still.. Do not even cattle at least deserve humane treatment up until slaughter?
 
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Rikk, I have a lot of respect for you and wish you well in your endeavours going forward.

My understanding would be that he might be back after 6 months - due to the law for contractors. I myself was a contractor in a somewhat similar situation, I suppose. There can be some strange rules in place for contractors, whether imposed by state or company (and/or Union).

But if not, good luck Rikk!
 
Rikk, I have a lot of respect for you and wish you well in your endeavours going forward.
Agreed. Rikk, I hope you will continue to be a voice for reason here.

Phil
 
Phil,

My contract with Adobe ended on October 17th of this year. California (where Adobe is based) law stipulates that contractors cannot be employed more than 18 months in a cycle of 24 months. Even though my contract expired, I am still bound by my NDA as an employee.

To that, I no longer speak for Adobe but do still advocate for them. Any information, internal to Adobe, which takes place after October 17, 2017 is beyond my reach.

Long story - short, I won't be providing you any dates.

I may, however, provide opinions from time to time... as I do remain part of the community. I do understand your frustration but I also understand Adobe's quiet nature here. As I said in another thread, nothing imminent is transpiring and the time for panic is long off and may never come.

I think you are misconstruing seething anger for panic...

My CC Photography subscription recently expired and I am actively trialling options to replace LR... Two are excellent and I am waiting for the new release of the 3rd to trial it as well. I snagged a LR 6 perpetual license to support my legacy images and I will move forward with a completely non Adobe solution for all new images.

Adobe will never get another dime of my money!!!
 
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I think you are misconstruing seething anger for panic...

My CC Photography subscription recently expired and I am actively trialling options to LR... Two are excellent and I am waiting for the new release of the 3rd to trial it as well. I snagged a LR 6 perpetual license to support my legacy images and I will move forward with a completely non Adobe solution for all new images.

Adobe will never get another dime of my money!!!
For those of us on the fence, telling Adobe in such terms that they have no chance at winning your business means they have no reason to listen to you.

Tim

Sent from my LG-TP260 using Tapatalk
 
For those of us on the fence, telling Adobe in such terms that they have no chance at winning your business means they have no reason to listen to you.

Tim

Sent from my LG-TP260 using Tapatalk

Tim you are absolutely correct, and I have completely written Adobe off as a viable alternative (other than my licensed copy of LR 6 perpetual to support my legacy images developed in LR). I am not sure yet what DAM I will land on C1P, ON1, or Luminar (I am interested in which of the 3 works best with Photo Mechanic, I suspect C1P will win)... I also have made the switch to Affinity Photos and love it.

Adobe's strategic rationale has been discussed ad nauseam and I am not looking to continue that discussion. Simply put their strategic needs and my image development needs are no longer congruent.

My post was not meant to be disrespectful to Rikk only to convey a very a real feeling about Adobe (I am by no means alone) and my steps to pull together a credible (non-subscription) image development solution.

jms
 
For those of us on the fence, telling Adobe in such terms that they have no chance at winning your business means they have no reason to listen to you.

Tim

Sent from my LG-TP260 using Tapatalk

Has Adobe ever listened to me? It would have been simple to stop having different functionality between perpetual and subscription. Instead Adobe has abandoned perpetual and has used some creative understanding of English to get there.
 
Has Adobe ever listened to me? It would have been simple to stop having different functionality between perpetual and subscription. Instead Adobe has abandoned perpetual and has used some creative understanding of English to get there.
Without the difference in "benefits," that is, the automatic availability of new features, there would be no incentive to go with a subscription. The difference in benefits between perpetual licenses and subscription is standard industry practice. Pay me now, or pay me later.

Phil
 
Without the difference in "benefits," that is, the automatic availability of new features, there would be no incentive to go with a subscription. The difference in benefits between perpetual licenses and subscription is standard industry practice. Pay me now, or pay me later.

Phil

Very true, and one of the reasons why a number of us are switching from Adobe. Honestly it makes no difference to Adobe whatsoever, but it does to me.

As an aside, Libreoffice works extremely well and there is no longer any tie to Microsoft either...
 
Without the difference in "benefits," that is, the automatic availability of new features, there would be no incentive to go with a subscription. The difference in benefits between perpetual licenses and subscription is standard industry practice. Pay me now, or pay me later.

Phil
That isn't exactly how I was looking at it. The price difference seems to be such that Adobe are either overcharging for the subscription model or undercharging for the perpetual model. It is a simple choice as to whether or not to allow users access to new features, the fact that Adobe do so suggests that they cannot justify the price separation. They also wanted to get rid of their subscription users, judging by their attitude. Customer service is part of the totality of Adobe's offering in the market place. Thus far with 6.x they appear to have used the community as extended beta testers (was 6.12 the first decently usable 6.x version?) and turned their back on perpetual users, making a clear statement (by their actions) that 'perpetual is not wanted'. In the longer term, this is a brave attitude to users, especially as there is now (very recently) at least one product out there that (IMHO) outclasses LR in every regard that matters, if you want to just post process images (ie no web stuff, no cloud stuff, just superb (state of the art) post processing of raw images, with a decent catalogue and export).
 
That isn't exactly how I was looking at it. The price difference seems to be such that Adobe are either overcharging for the subscription model or undercharging for the perpetual model. It is a simple choice as to whether or not to allow users access to new features, the fact that Adobe do so suggests that they cannot justify the price separation.
No, that's pretty standard in the industry.
They also wanted to get rid of their subscription users, judging by their attitude.
Not just wanted. They have, judging by their pricing.
 
Not just wanted. They have, judging by their pricing.

Keep in mind that someone at Adobe has looked into the future and stratified their future customers in some unknown fashion, and figured out for each layer what their price tolerance is, and what number of customers they will get in each group and what features they need to get that group interested.

There's going to be some groups at the bottom of that, who (from Adobe's standpoint) are either too few people, or who they assume will spend too little money, or both.

My money (pun intended) is they decided on variations like: (1) those who will pay for storage and software, and keep everything in the cloud and so bring in > $20/mo, maybe much more, (2) those who are serious users who will keep paying significant subscriptions (>= $10) forever if not more for minimal new features (and/or will convert over to CC but stay at the bottom tier), or (3) a yet to be identified crowd that is much more numerous who will pay for either micro-transitions, or smaller amounts, but in vast volumes. This latter I assume someone is still thinking about as this release does not address it, but it does set up a platform for it possibly. Once your app is on their phone, micro-transactions and in-app purchases becomes simple, if they can just figure out what "it" is they are selling.

While the rest who think $10/m is too much but still want serious editing features like Classic (but not enough to pay for Photoshop also)... well, my GUESS is they think you are both small in number and when multiplied by (say) $3-5/mo are not worth bothering with.

So they will tell you how important you are, and valuable customer base, and we hear you and are listening but you were written off a couple years ago internally as more trouble than you are worth.

My GUESS. And I'm either in, or close to, that group, so please don't take offense. I just think we all need to bear in mind that the less money we are willing to spend, the less our voices are heard -- that's just capitalism. Or Politics. But in this case Capitalism.
 
Keep in mind that someone at Adobe has looked into the future and stratified their future customers in some unknown fashion, and figured out for each layer what their price tolerance is, and what number of customers they will get in each group and what features they need to get that group interested.

There's going to be some groups at the bottom of that, who (from Adobe's standpoint) are either too few people, or who they assume will spend too little money, or both.

My money (pun intended) is they decided on variations like: (1) those who will pay for storage and software, and keep everything in the cloud and so bring in > $20/mo, maybe much more, (2) those who are serious users who will keep paying significant subscriptions (>= $10) forever if not more for minimal new features (and/or will convert over to CC but stay at the bottom tier), or (3) a yet to be identified crowd that is much more numerous who will pay for either micro-transitions, or smaller amounts, but in vast volumes. This latter I assume someone is still thinking about as this release does not address it, but it does set up a platform for it possibly. Once your app is on their phone, micro-transactions and in-app purchases becomes simple, if they can just figure out what "it" is they are selling.

While the rest who think $10/m is too much but still want serious editing features like Classic (but not enough to pay for Photoshop also)... well, my GUESS is they think you are both small in number and when multiplied by (say) $3-5/mo are not worth bothering with.

So they will tell you how important you are, and valuable customer base, and we hear you and are listening but you were written off a couple years ago internally as more trouble than you are worth.

My GUESS. And I'm either in, or close to, that group, so please don't take offense. I just think we all need to bear in mind that the less money we are willing to spend, the less our voices are heard -- that's just capitalism. Or Politics. But in this case Capitalism.

I honestly don't fit into any of those categories. I have no qualms whatsoever about paying $300 for a Capture One license. I simply will not be locked into an ecosystem with a subscription model that holds my IP hostage. In addition to C1P I have also beta tested On1 Photo Raw 2018 and I really like it. So for me it will be one of these DAM / Developers and Affinity Photo (I have not ruled out Luminar, but I think it is too little too late).

As an aside my business dumped MS Office in favor of Libreoffice, MS is just pushing the subscription model a bit to hard...

For me it is all about subscription vs perpetual licensing. So I clearly do not fit any of Adobe's customer models.
 
While the rest who think $10/m is too much but still want serious editing features like Classic (but not enough to pay for Photoshop also)... well, my GUESS is they think you are both small in number and when multiplied by (say) $3-5/mo are not worth bothering with.

So they will tell you how important you are, and valuable customer base, and we hear you and are listening but you were written off a couple years ago internally as more trouble than you are worth.
Considering that with software the "marginal cost" of selling another product is about zero, once the product has been created and priced, Adobe must believe that there is almost no one in that category. But as others have pointed out, Adobe makes it very hard to discover the web page for ordering the perpetual license version of LR 6, so their sales data is not good market research.

If I were at Adobe, I would want to do some customer surveys LR only vs. LR+PS subscriptions. I'm assuming that subscription-only pricing is an executive decision that can't be reversed.

Phil
 
My guess is that it won't be long before all software is on subscription only.
For all but specialized categories, and for software not developed as "shareware," YES.
 
My guess is that it won't be long before all software is on subscription only.
This cycle has happened before. Mainframe software was sold on a lease model, aka subscription.
Mini-computers came in and broke the market and sold software as is.
Client server software systems for large enterprises in the 90s went back to subscription models, then broken by the dot com "revolution".

Rinse/repeat. Companies that fail to understand history and fail to adapt tend to fail or get swallowed up (e.g. DEC and SUN).

If Adobe raises the price to much, there will be a competitor who will come along and sell it via the purchase model.

I give it another ten to fifteen years and the primary model will switch again.

Tim
 
Brain fart:

Does anyone else think of those commercials for Direct TV where people love pouring hot coffee on themselves, or love getting their hand stuck in a vending machine, or thrilled about being smushed in a subway car? ... You know - those things that just make you giggle with glee.

Just me?
 
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