How Adobe is Shooting Itself in the Foot

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 24. November 2011 - 6:28

A few weeks ago, Adobe announced that from now on, the upgrades will be only from the previous version of Photoshop and/or the Creative Suite. If people are a couple of version behind, that's too bad, you will have to do a buy a full version or get lost or…

Scott Kelby, of NPPA fame, wrote an open letter to Adobe to complaint about the upgrade policy.

I think that most people are missing the point.

  1. The prices vary a lot depending on the country and the markets. In Russia, the official Extended edition of Photoshop CS5 is over 3 thousand dollars where the average income is just above $8 thousand dollars. You can guess the prices in China, India, Greece, Spain…
  2. Photoshop is the most pirated software. Photoshop is pirated more than Windows or Microsoft Office or any of the games. The rumors are 50 to 1! That's 50 copies of Photoshop/Creative Suite are pirated for every copy of Photoshop/Creative Suite that is sold. Amazon's #1 category of computer books is Photoshop.

Originally I bought Photoshop CS, years ago. Then I upgraded to Photoshop CS3. I almost completely stopped using Photoshop when I started using Lightroom. I reinstalled Photoshop CS3 because I needed for some specific work. CS3 couldn't do it properly. I bought the Photoshop CS5 upgrade: $170 Canadian. Buying it new would be $1025 Canadian. No way Jose!

My alternatives were:

  • Get a pirated copy for $25 including the DVD
  • Get a pirated copy for free
  • Get a student copy for $210 (I'm not a student but both of my kids are)
  • Get an official upgrade for $169 (which I did)
  • Switch to PaintShop Pro X4UI for $49 with the competitive upgrade
  • Switch to GIMP, which is free1

I understand that companies like Camera Bits / Photo Mechanic need the annual income and sell yearly upgrade subscriptions for $90. $90 per year is reasonable but paying $1025 every 2 or 3 years. Never!

Adobe's policy is not about money, they could make maximizing their profits by lowering the prices and reducing the quantity of software piracy. Think about Adobe lowering the price of Photoshop by 50%. How many more copies could they sell? 5 times, 10 times more? They would easily double or triple their profits… It's all about controlling the customer. It's the same attitude as the music industry, and look at what's happened to it.

  1. Many people will say that these softwares are not as good as Photoshop. The competition does not need to be as good as Photoshop. The competition just need to be good enough for what I need. Most people that post their photos on Picassa, Windows Live… can do their basic edits online and do not buy Photoshop Elements anymore. I see regularly Photoshop Elements as 50% off! ↩