Hey, what’s up?
Today, I wanted to talk about why I cancelled my Adobe subscription. I’m also going to go through all the adobe apps and the alternatives that I chose.
If you’re thinking about leaving Adobe and/or looking for alternatives, then this could be for you!
Let’s go right in.
2 weeks ago, I decided to try out Adobe’s products because I found out a way to get it for way cheaper using Student plan.
Ultimately, It did not feel right for me. It was giving me headaches. So I just cancelled it, and I’m going to explain why.
1- NOT ABOUT THE PRICING
As a solo-entrepreneur, I am fortunate to have the money to pay for these softwares. Money isn’t an issue. I have no problem spending money on things that I need or that I want to invest in.
To be honest, I got the Adobe Creative Cloud using the student plan, which is so cheap that I kinda felt a thief.
My problem is simply the business model. The subscription. It’s just crazy. It’s just a bad business model and I don’t respect that.
2- SUBSCRIPTION ISN’T OWNERSHIP
When you subscribe to a service, you don’t own the anything. For example, you subscribe to Netflix, then you can use Netflix. The moment you stop paying Netflix, then you can no longer use Netflix. It’s the same thing with Adobe. You pay the softwares as service. The moment you stop paying the service or the subscription, then it’s over. You no longer have access to it. And so when you subscribe to Adobe Creative Cloud, you’re not purchasing anything. You’re renting. So that means that the moment you decide to stop paying for whatever reason. Maybe you’re taking a break. Maybe you’re short on money. Maybe you want to try another thing. And you want to cancel Adobe Creative Cloud. Then you lose everything. Why? Because you didn’t purchase anything. You don’t own anything.
3- COMMITMENT
Adobe Creative Cloud products are very complex. In the last weeks, I was able to test them. These softwares are probably the most complex softwares that I’ve ever tried, and I spend most of my life on the computer. So you have to put a lot of energy, time and money (because to pay for the subscription) just to learn about these softwares. So you need to be committed. You need to have to motivation. I have the motivation to learn, but I don’t want to feel forced and dependent on Adobe. Because, later on, if you ultimately lose that commitment, then you lose all the skills that you built.
So ultimately, I think Adobe needs more competitors. So what I decided to do exactly that, so I cancelled my Adobe subscription so that I can purchase and own the competitors softwares. You pay more money upfront, which I don’t really mind, but I think that on the long run, you save more money by owning the softwares and I can also sleep at night not having to deal with subscriptions.
4- ALTERNATIVES
Let’s now talk about the alternatives to the Creative Cloud that I’m going to use. Now, I’m simply going to talk about the softwares that I actually need. Not the other ones.
Premiere Pro: Davinci Resolve. I bought the studio version, so now I literally own the software for life from black design unless they change their policies, but that would make me angry. And I’m going to use this software to edit these YouTube video that I am making. Yes, it’s a bit expensive upfront, but I think that you save money on the long run.
Photoshop: Kittl & Affinity Photo 2 for raster pixel designing.
Illustrator: Kittl, Affinity Designer 2, Inkscape & Figma for vector designing. Now there are many tools because each of these tools have something unique and useful. I’m planning to use these tools, but I might end up use one more than the others, we’ll see how that goes.
Adobe Express: Kittl. The reason I feel comfortable with Kittl is that I learned graphic designing from Canva. And I think that Kittl is a cheaper alternative to Canva specialized in Print-on-Demand. So yes, it has a little subscription, but I use Kittl as something to fall on. So yes, my goal is to improve my designing skills, but I know that I can still create designs easily.
Firefly: Here, I have two things. DALL-E 3 which I’ve been using so far. You can it for free from Microsoft Designer or from ChatGPT, but my problem with ChatGPT is that it require a subscription. So because it requires a subscription, I’m also thinking about installing Stable Diffusion on my PC and generating my own AI images using my GPU. So I’d be able to avoid another subscription. Let me know if that’s something you’d be interested in.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, my goal is to improve my graphic designing skills and also video editing skills. But I want to do so with softwares that I can rely on because I own them. They don’t have to be perfect and don’t have to have all the crazy features, but I want them to be good enough for my needs. They can also be free and open source, but I think the problem with free and open source softwares is that they end up buggy and outdated. And I have no problem paying more money upfront if that means that I can purchase and own a good software. And I will try as much as possible to stay away from any subscriptions and unreasonable upgrade, especially if it’s expensive.
As of right now, I have 3 subscriptions for my business:
- Amazon Prime Duo which is $10/month
- Microsoft 365 which is $8 per month
- Kittl which is $10 per month
So that’s pretty much it, I hope this was helpful to you. If this blog was valuable to you, you could consider following me on social media and if you have any thoughts or comments, you can leave them below.
I hope this helps, peace!
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