To lock subscribers into recurring monthly payments, Adobe would typically pre-select by default its most popular “annual paid monthly” plan, the FTC alleged. That subscription option locked users into an annual plan despite paying month to month. If they canceled after a two-week period, they’d owe Adobe an early termination fee (ETF) that costs 50 percent of their remaining annual subscription. The “material terms” of this fee are hidden during enrollment, the FTC claimed, only appearing in “disclosures that are designed to go unnoticed and that most consumers never see.”
Ashley Belanger at Ars Technica
There’s a sucker for every corporation, but I highly doubt there’s anyone out there who would consider this a fair business practice. This is so obviously designed to hide costs during sign-up, and then unveil them when the user considers quitting. If this is deemed legal or allowed, you can expect everyone to jump on this bandwagon to scam users out of their money.
It goes further than this, though. According to the FTC, Adobe knew this practice was shady, but continued it anyway because altering it would negatively affect the bottom line. The FTC is actually targeting two Adobe executives directly, which is always nice to hear – it’s usually management that pushes such illegal practices through, leaving the lower ranks little choice but to comply or lose their job.
Stuff like this is exactly why confidence in the major technology companies is at an all-time low.
More oppressing issue here is if you need such tools you can’t really afford to cancel the subscription, like ever. And it doesn’t really matter if the confidence in major technology companies is at an all-time low ATM, or not. Regardless of it you simply can not afford to cancel the subscription.
Geck,
Yes, I can attest to that. However if you are a professional or even a hobbyist photographer at $200 per year subscription would be lowest of your costs, maybe except cleaning supplies.
They know their target market very well.
$200 per year subscription plus all other subscriptions you mean? Forever.
Geck,
A basic lens costs $250:
https://www.amazon.com/Sony-50mm-F1-8-Standard-SEL50F18F/dp/B07XBX32GR
A better one has another zero digit:
https://www.amazon.com/Sony-Full-Frame-Large-Aperture-Angle-Master/dp/B08SWMH186/
A really good one adds just another zero at the end:
https://www.amazon.com/Canon-RF400mm-F2-8-L-USM/dp/B091R4HCG4
If you are really into photography, and care about latest RAW profiles and good management, Lightroom is a must, and costs peanuts in comparison.
Thom Holwerda,
Adobe Creative Cloud was always designed for anti-consumer intentions, but somehow adobe managed to take forced subscription payments to a new level.
No kidding. Isn’t it telling that what might be most surprising about this story is that the FTC actually did something about it. Good! We need regulators putting an end to these kinds of abusive businesses practices everywhere. The power imbalance between consumers and corporations is badly out of wack and years of tech consolidation have deprived us of free market competition which leaves many consumers feeling trapped. And of course it doesn’t help that many consumers don’t see how their own consumer choices and behaviors in the past are connected to the creation of corporate monsters in the future after it’s too late to do anything about it.
Alfman,
Adobe convinced people, like me, to buy into their subscription, because basically they have no competition at all.
I repeat this often, but in photography, Photoshop and Lightroom are in a different class than say Corel, Gimp, Affinity, or RawTherapee.
(In other areas like NLE, there are good, even free alternatives like DaVinci Resolve)
That is why Broadcom will unfortunately get away with forcing vmware as a subscription as well. These are mature but niche enough markets to make competition unprofitable for newcomers, and consumers getting a good product leads to only having them complain about price.
The only way Adobe will be pushed aside is having an entirely new market. And here comes the AI based photo editing tools.
Like how Digital Cameras, which Kodak invented themselves, pushed Kodak out entirely along with the film camera market itself, AI tools becoming good enough would be sufficient to replace Adobe for most users.
Just like Acrobat being replaced by online tools like Docusign or Xodo.
sukru,
Now that customers are contractually locked into subscriptions and they have no software to fall back on, it’s far harder for them to resist. But, if the consumers who originally complained about adobe subscriptions had collectively declined to pay for them when they still had the chance, then adobe would have lost their game of chicken. And there’s no doubt whatsoever adobe would have gone back to the software sale model.
Our behavior as consumers could make a difference if we could behave rationally and wisely before bad changes get normalized. But we’re not organized whatsoever and corporations have become proficient at manipulating us into acting in ways that harm our own self interests, and that’s why we’re here today
Alfman,
We tried. I bought the disc version of Lightroom, and still have it.
The issue is, our needs to not stay constant. When you buy a new lens, and the program no longer has the profiles you need, upgrading becomes necessary.
And at that point subscription was the only option.
sukru,
I understand. The thing about boycotts is that they only work if you get everyone on board with you and obviously it didn’t happen.
I have a few rules in my life, one of them is to never rent software. That is why i moved my graphic tools from Adobe to Affinity some time ago. #resistenshittification
gagol2,
Agreed. The problem however is that such boycotts are only affective at inducing wide scale changes if a significant portion of consumers participate in it. If adobe customers had collectively protested it from the outset, then customers would still be able to buy the software today without being locked into subscriptions. I don’t expect consumers to start acting more rationally, but there is no doubt their inability to organize in the past is responsible for where we’re at today. It’s not just adobe either, this is the process by which changes for the worse become normalized and “accepted”. Sadly the enshittification is ongoing and our tolerance of anti-consumer practices today is leading us to a future with more rent seeking.
https://www.ft.com/content/6fb1602d-a08b-4a8c-bac0-047b7d64aba5
Ugh, I hate that FF allows websites to hijack copy paste functionality. Huge anti-feature there. Sites like FT abuse it to unwittingly trick us into posting their advertising blurbs. Thom if you see this, feel free to edit that out.
Heck if I had known FT were a bait and switch website (provide open access to articles only to revoke access to them later once they’re linked to), I wouldn’t have linked to them at all. It’s a pagerank manipulation scam. How ironic is it that an article that’s literally about “enshitification” itself becomes subject to the very same enshitification practices that are villified by the article, haha. I wonder what the author thinks about his own publisher’s practices.
I am simply stating what works for me. If it encouraged others to do the same more power to everyone! Just because i ignore it dont mean i want i dead… maybe just less trendy. Like AI, amazing research but the wall to wall buzzwordification of everything with ai in it makes me sick.
This is payday loan companies level of scummy. I can’t believe respectable company like Adobe stoops so low.