Adobe Creative Cloud Good Move or Bad??

Question

Any insight on what you think of the Creative Cloud apps?

Answer 1

Other side of the coin
Hi Phatgi,
As has been mentioned by the majority of professional creatives (thus NOT Adobe sales people and staff) CC is indeed a good move for the financial future of the CEO, head management and shareholders of Adobe.
For the customer the switch to CC has the following negative results and/or effects for the customer:
1.Your software upgrades automatically, introducing new, potentially production show-stopping, bugs that may/will cause you to lose clients.
2. Updates are completely up to the discretion of Adobe, and since they already have your monthly upkeep, their motivation to provide timely and quality product updates has been lowered. For example, Photoshop CC introduced a serious workflow bug (hidden layers will be selected by the move tool) that is still unresolved. Flash CC removed essential animation features. Premiere CC introduced some show-stopping "features". And so on. Congrats! You became their new beta testers.
3. The pricing structure is simple: you pay, and you get to play. You do not own the software. No perpetual licenses. It is up to Adobe's goodwill to allow you access to their tools. You cannot use the software unless you pay the upkeep. Should you forget about that expiry date on the credit card, your deadline is forfeit, and you lose your client. This has already happened to customers.
4. Cloud-based services check your uploaded content for "bad" things, like unlicensed and unlawful use according to Adobe rules. This is done automatically, and we may block your access to this content, even though it is YOUR content. Then you will have to prove it is yours. You may lose the freedom to use content as you want. Your content is watched by Adobe at all times.
5. Many free and other commercial desktop applications exist already, outside the "Adobe Cloud" that allowyou to build and publish websites, mobile apps, iPad publications, and content for any medium or device without the "Adobe Cloud". Most, if not all, of these alternatives are superior to the "Adobe Cloud".
5. The previous simple perpetual license options gave you and your team access to the very latest versions of all the Adobe professional creative desktop applications like Photoshop®, Illustrator®, and also give you a choice which applications you would actually NEED at a reduced price. You could pay just for one license of InDesign for your entire team installable on one machine, and two licenses of the Adobe Web production suite. This would have saved you and your company a lot of money. Adobe took away that choice from you. Simpler? Yes, perhaps. But they also took away our freedom of choice.
7. There is no exit strategy. Once you stop paying, you cannot access your files
Adobe holds your content hostage.
8. You cannot pay once for a version, and keep using it, even if you decide that version's features are all you will ever need for your work. You have no choice in this matter. (CS6 will be binned sooner or later, and only a subscription option will then be available).
At present these above features are very depressing. There are more new features yet to to be rolled out to consolidate control over you the Adobe customer. All your bases are belong to us.
http://vimeo.com/66594939#at=0
Regards
Herbert (A creative professional of Adobe software since Photoshop V3, and who has quit using all Adobe software earlier this year, and now works with alternative software he actually owns and has control over.)