Keeping that prototyping intention in mind, these tools can be incredibly useful in the hands of someone trying to get buy in on newer techniques within their organization.

The company also needs to make single or limited groups of products available at a lower price for customers who prefer to work as they have always worked, using one Adobe tool to great effect, and not worrying about the rest.

I agree. For folks like me who no longer freelance and who largely work in a text editor with Web browsers themselves as the design-rendering tools, there’s just no way to justify a $50/month subscription. It took me a long time to justify the chunk of change it took to purchase a license to CS3 way back when, and for now, that version continues to serve me well. I do think fondly of Adobe as a company, and will certainly upgrade to more current versions of their software when standalone versions with one-time pricing are offered.

The actual cost of a CC subscription is the difference between what buying a license would cost, including regular updates, and the cost of the CC subscription. That is less than $600 per year, in my case it is about the same for a good many years since I didn’t qualify for any of the suite upgrades, having been only a photoshop and dreamweaver user for a few years.

People should lighten up a little. The CC payment is a cost of living if you value the Adobe apps as part of your life. I do. Too much of the complaining I have been reading is starting to sound like complaining about the cost of eating, or of transportation. Be glad to be alive, to have the costs, to have the interests and the talents that lead to the costs. Otherwise, look for an alternative, and let us know if you find a better one.

“…if they don’t the subscriptions will stop paying and they will stop growing”

@MarkM: True, yes, but once a creator has bought into CC subscription the penalty for stopping is very, very high: loss of the ability to edit one’s files. This penalty will grow as the years go by, as file formats are updated to make them non-backwards compatible to the last perpetually licensed product: CS6. A professional using Adobe tools will not be in a position to lose access to the tools essential to one’s business.

So even if Adobe fails to live up to its promises, raises the subscription price to unaffordable levels, or otherwise makes the service a bad proposition to its subscribers, we really will have no alternative to continuing to pay—forever. Because without the monthly payment, there is no functional software. Even after spending many thousands of dollars for years of subscriptions, without continuous payment, there is no functional software.

That is why I call this scheme extortionate: without continuous payment, the owner of a creative work is prevented from editing his/her own work, and will no longer be able to make a living from that work. No other subscription software works that way, from what I am hearing. Apparently Adobe is considering some kind of read-only format for exporting work from CC, which is a complete joke, if not an outright insult.

As far as Adobe “disappearing” without monthly payments from its customers, I think that’s quite a stretch. Q1 earnings were over $1B US. Adobe already has a near-monopoly on its software, and having a captive customer base facing a high penalty for leaving only strengthens this monopoly power. Monopolies are much less vulnerable to market forces: what assurances do Adobe’s customers have that this near-monopoly will not lead to stagnant innovation, higher costs, and poorer service? Again, we are being asked to Trust Adobe on all this. I, for one, cannot afford to trust a single company with my livelihood.

I was seriously contemplating joining CC as my CS5 is getting a bit long in the tooth, but this news of the termination of any option for a perpetual license has helped me decide that I cannot accept Adobe’s terms—the risk is too high.

My strongest objection to Adobe’s current implementation of the subscription-only service is its requirement for total buy-in. As long as one pays the monthly fee, one can have access to all the amazing services offered; but the moment that fee isn’t paid, the creator loses the ability to open and modify his/her own files. “Pay in perpetuity” to access my own property (my files) creates, for me, a great sense of unease and anxiety. Should I trust Adobe, when Adobe has shown itself very capable of changing the rules of the game without warning (e.g. upgrade policy change in 2011)?

This subscription situation is apparently unique to Adobe’s CC license; other subscription software allows the customer to continue to use the software after the subscription ends but the software is frozen and receives no updates and/or bug fixes, with no loss of file access by the creator. (Corrections appreciated…)

As currently configured, Creative Cloud is very much a “terminator gene” service; pay up or die. It is this extortionate technique which I object to, and which I will not participate in.

As for adobe: i think they should make all tools available for the cloud as well as for static use.

just my two cents

I took a look at Smashing’s Fireworks section and admit that Fireworks is a much more complete product nowadays. I last used it in the 90′s as Macromedia so my position is outdated.

I guess it’s still not relevant to me at this point and as Adobe probably sees that web developers who are designing assets are moving towards full HTML/CSS prototypes (like I have) and for one person teams (like me) Fireworks doesn’t make sense. But I guess it is good for a graphic designer who wants to mockup prototypes quickly without having to code html/css. It’s just not relevant to me and I think Adobe is seeing an uptick in HTML prototyping.

‘Comments are moderated’

Great, thats why i see so less negative response to this.

James Bernard: Actually, all comments that have been submitted so far were published immediately, without moderation. So what you see is what I’ve gotten.