As a retired photography teacher, I no longer require the latest & questionable ‘greatest’ features.
It’s a matter of practicality really. Since I no longer need to be on the cutting edge, why would I need to continue to pay Adobe’s monthly rental fee. It is a fee in perpetuity, mind you.
Earlier I had already scaled back from the monthly Creative suite subscription which was $35 a month. I changed to the $20 a month.
Here I am six months after retiring thinking that even $20 a month is excessive. That’s $240 a year I can put to better use.
Here are my other reasons:
- Monopoly means no innovation. Adobe and even Apple have become ‘fat’ and lazy employing the time honored strategy of getting rid of the competition by buying a company then not innovating or supporting it. It’s not illegal but it means customers lose out from the monopoly. Historically Adobe did it to Dreamweaver. Its own web-publishing software GoLive couldn’t compete against Macromedia’s Dreamweaver, so they bought it. Thankfully the government steps in and tries to intervene like when the Dept of Justice sued Adobe for unfair practices.
- Then there have been many photographers grumbling about Adobe using their work to train Adobe’s AI.
On a personal note, I can attest that I was shocked and surprised that when I began the process to cancel my subscription I saw the following prompt:
I’m sure when I signed up I agreed to that somewhere because like many users seeing that up front would have lessened the shock.
Keep in mind at the time of writing I was down to the $20 a month subscription and Adobe wants $50 more from me to say goodbye.
How rude! So the workaround is to choose a different plan. I chose the $12 a month Lightroom only plan with the intention of canceling before the 15 day trial is up.
Finally I am rid of Adobe’s subscription plan.
As an Mac user, I did a quick search and found these 2 alternatives:
- Lightroom > Photomator $120 lifetime one-time purchase or $30
a month - Photoshop > Pixelmator Pro $50 lifetime one-time purchase
And I settled on them understanding that I will need to make some adjustments in my workflow. Those two Apps btw work on my iPad and my iPhone! And if ever I need AI work done, there are plenty of alternatives online.
I may document this adventure with videos or just write about them here. Let me know if you have questions, suggestions in the comments.
Obviously this option is for Mac users only and folks who don’t need Adobe’s AI tools.