Uh, they've even messed up things like their auto-updater for the FREE versions of Acrobat Reader for Windows. For a long time, it would regularly get stuck and not complete pending updates or would leave remnants behind of older versions it upgraded, or would just blow up with errors trying to do updates. And we could talk about Flash too, but it speaks for itself .....
As long as I've been in I.T., I feel like I've had to help people out of jams caused by Adobe products and their failure to work properly. Sure, a LOT of people have done a LOT of great work using their software. But they leave a lot to be desired, for as much money as people pay out to them to use any of their commercial apps.
Even with the current Creative Cloud setup, I probably get a tech support ticket put in where I work at least once every 2 weeks or so, with someone having issues. Some of it COULD just be called user-error, except I blame Adobe for making the process too confusing for them. (EG. We give someone a license for Acrobat Pro. They download and install the software but it won't run properly. They don't realize they need to ALSO install the whole Creative Cloud manager application so it can verify they have a cloud-based license for it and properly activate it. Really, why SHOULD they think it needs that part? The app is just a waste of disk space and an annoying extra toolbar icon or window on the screen, listing all the other apps they're not licensed for and aren't using. It's also rather stupid Adobe doesn't automatically uninstall existing copies of Acrobat Reader if someone installs the full "Pro" version. Why would you want to keep the crippled edition of the same thing on your machine, especially when it's no longer going to be set as the default to open PDF files?)
I can't entirely agree with this. They've certainly messed up a few things (like CPU multithreading in After Effects to instead introduce GPU rendering, which would have been fine but it's been implemented only on a FRACTION of their Effects) but their prices are reasonable for access to their entire suite of software. This is unlike a truly horrible company like Autodesk where you might pay $180+/month for one main application and a couple of supporting apps (you can easily do without).
[doublepost=1557842824][/doublepost]Not sure I quite agree with this. Yes, it's true that software is always "licensed to you, and not sold" -- but that distinction is really supposed to be there to ensure you understand you didn't purchase the right to re-engineer or resell the software as though YOU wrote it yourself.
If the software was truly "for sale" - that would mean you could request the source code too.
Still? When you pay $X for a copy of a commercial program, it's understood that was you paying for the right to install it on a machine and use it for as long as you're able to hang onto the installation media. No company in their right mind would arbitrarily revoke your license, just because .... People with old, vintage PCs and Macs use a lot of ancient software on them because they're not capable of running the modern stuff. Why would Apple, for example, revoke all the AppleWorks licenses, just because they decided it's time you use newer software instead?
You do realize you have probably never “owned” software, right? You purchase and own a license to use software; a license that is almost always revocable by the company that sold it to you.
Subscription licensing doesn’t change the legal authority of the company to revoke the license or not.
), is there any cheaper alternatives?
