Adobe Purposely Makes Software Easy to Crack

I find this amusing. Adobe's piracy problem is of it'south own making. They've cultivated these pirates for years by keeping their products priced so high, and by ignoring widespread piracy from students and amateurs. They've got their work cut out for them if they want to solve this problem.

Although there's no confirmation it's their strategy, it's often postulated that Adobe know this and do it intentionally. If you have amateurs and students hooked on your software, when they become professionals they'll be proponents of the software and encourage businesses to invest.

That's what I've always heard besides. Aforementioned thing equally Microsoft tolerating Windows piracy in China.

>Same thing as Microsoft tolerating Windows piracy in Prc. Aye, though I am not quite sure what MS can practice near piracy in China.

Piracy will always be a problem for any company that makes commercial software. People who are on a tight budget will ever opt for the pirated version, and crackers volition ever bound on Adobe, Autodesk, Microsoft, and every other popular software publisher whenever any of them come up out with a new piece of software. The only matter any company can really practice is offering features that can't be replicated in the locally run software, only for software like photoshop, that'due south not really practical.

That's brusk-term thinking. If students don't use your products, they won't when they plough into tomorrow's professionals. Lots of successful companies take been doing this for many years. $lx+ per calendar month is way as well expensive. Thankfully for them, piracy is widespread enough to ensure that GIMP's ugly interface keeps students from switching to it.

This is refreshing. I love economic arguments. Does software similar Adobe's typically show increasing returns to scale though?

>Better to sell to 1 professional Exactly, they merely have to back up a small group of professional users. >who will pay $m than 10 student/hobbyists who will pay $60 I run into what y'all did there...

At the end of the day is though whether Photoshop costs $60 oor $600, I think most students/hobbyists will pirate it anyway.

I concord. Photoshop is something I utilise a lot on a hobby basis, but equally a pupil I tin can't justify buying it because of the high price, which leaves me with no other selection...

I simply desire to point out that adobe'southward cost indicate is significantly more competitive with their artistic cloud offering. $20/Month for students. I become that a lot of people all the same won't be able to afford that, just it seems they actually listened to feedback on their pricing. Because upgrades and updates are built into that toll, I'd say its a really skillful bargain. http://www.adobe.com/products/creativecloud/buying-guide.htm...

Yous take options. On Mac, use Pixelmator. Elsewhere, learn GIMP. I cut the Adobe cord a long time ago and don't even miss it anymore.

>I cut the Adobe cord a long time agone and don't even miss information technology anymore. You're clearly not a commercial designer, then. Pixelmator (while it has some interesting features) and GIMP don't even cutting the mustard on the most basic level. Non-destructive editing, for case. I wish it wasn't truthful, but it is.

> You're clearly non a commercial designer, then Grandparent was specifically talking about hobby use, not commercial/professional designing: > Photoshop is something I use a lot on a hobby basis

For non-destructive editing, the new Acorn4 beats the crap out of Adobe products. Pile on layer styles/effects, re-guild them and re-parameterize them on the fly with live preview. As well you can accept the aforementioned effect multiple times. For example, you could have 3 or more split up not-destructive drop shadows on one layer.

+1 on Pixelmator. I rarely purchase software, but Pixelmator was hands down my favorite purchase. It opens Photoshop files, the color picker is bully for web development (it copies the color has a HEX value with the numerical hash sign!), intuitive UI and fast! Worth the coin for me.

People act like there is some big difference betwixt PS and GIMP. Sure, outclasses the other in quality and features, merely the fundamentals of good design are the aforementioned. You're talking virtually differences in workflow. A person with good pattern skills tin adapt their workflow to either software. There is no quantitative difference in the terminal output of either GIMP or PS. Your portfolio should speak for itself.

People in design agencies accept simply no chance to work with GIMP. If they cannot open files from recent versions of PS, they cannot do their job. I take seen this a lot. People send you files, which you tin only open (properly) with a recent version of PS. They just expect that you can work with them. Aforementioned with MS Function. Same with Illustrator. Same with expensive 3D software. I am sure, some designers would honey to work with Bone, but their social environment makes it as well difficult for them.

People in blueprint agencies have PS, and can open anything a client sends. Once they accept their source material they tin can work in any surroundings they like. Adobe makes it user-friendly to always "colour inside their lines". One affair that strikes me as ironic, is the notion that you can tell a creative person how to perform some arbitrary creative task. People transport all kinds of garbage to design firms (my wife is a creative type at such a firm), including Adobe files but also including every other kind of junk you tin can imagine. >Aforementioned with MS Role. Yeah, terrible people, we all have worked with them, simply we don't want to emulate them. >Aforementioned with expensive 3D software. Good technique is good technique, skills are skills, a competent person can accommodate their workflow to a new method or vehicle. A competent artist can express themselves in more than one medium. It comes down to this, if you are constrained to a single tool made by a single vendor, you lot are strictly a technician (in the narrowest sense).

The problem is "experience with GIMP" looks to a potential employer similar "knows zippo of value to u.s.a.." The quality of someone's work tends to be less important than the overhead needed to get you upwards to spec. An bureau can throw a rock out the window and hit a design educatee with, probably, an acceptable portfolio and experience with PS. YMMV of course, if they're willing to put in that effort. I know GML and Nighttime Basic merely that's not worth much on a resume either.

Aye, if yous're trying for a mediocre job at a mediocre firm (most graduates and entry level folk) it makes it hard. You accept to change the chat away from empty buzzwords and back you your core talents, and y'all accept to have confidence in yourself to do that successfully. There are lots of factors working against the folk in that field, large supply of average/mediocre candidates who are clueless about bones econ and accepted to being taken advantage of.

Learning to use GIMP won't help yous if you're actually trying to get something done, either.

I also cutting the Adobe cord a long time ago. I'g on Windows and started using Pigment.Internet a few years ago and accept found that information technology meets all my needs.

> which leaves me with no other choice... That'due south not correct. There are options. The alternatives aren't always every bit capable, or may require more than work on your part, or may only not be as user-friendly, only there are options that would permit yous to do most or all of the things that tin can be done without pirating the Adobe stuff. Recognition of Adobe'south tactic, and the fact that the graphic arts industries accept practically made Adobe products a de facto standard certainly increases the incentive for many to but pirate the stuff. Adobe is counting on that.

> which leaves me with no other choice... Delusional excuse. You take options to do without or utilise an alternative.

Right.. so when a student enters the job market place, expected to know how to utilise the software AND when they are suppose to use it in their courses at the top of the list should be "GIMP"?

Campus reckoner labs have the software installed. Too, student discounts, (still not inexpensive). I know that's non ideal. None of that solves the real trouble of lack of contest in the infinite, and the resultant fact that industry uses Adobe and colleges teach what industry uses. Which makes a dainty lilliputian positive feedback loop that is difficult to overcome.

They might do better to open a GIMP store, and hire other students who do GIMP. Why do graphic designers need to only be employees?

Since when is existence required to know a piece of software "subservience to employers?" Come on.

When you're apparently and then dependant on unspecific future favour that y'all're "forced" in to piracy without it beingness explicitly directed.

That's non at all what the comments here are referring to. Adobe not going after students and hobbyists is an economical strategy. If yous exclusively use Photoshop from age 18 to 23 and get a job as a graphic designer with a firm that uses something else, you are going to push for Photoshop. For the visitor to purchase it. Nobody is talking about pirating software for business apply, and certainly not forcing coworkers to practise information technology.

Both the people I replied to implied that they take no choice but to pirate (first for a hobby then switcharooed to a career). I don't particularly care about Adobe'south machinations and was commenting on the weak attitudes on display.

this is exactly what adobe trying to practice with their easily crackable software :) they want yous to recollect at that place are no other selection available.

Fun fact: 1 way to tell the difference between the people who partied their style through college on someone else's dime and the people who were serious students responsible for their own future is that the quondam will dismiss $twenty/mo equally "non even one night out" and the latter will remember of it in terms of the additional scrimping on basic supplies and the like (or sharing textbooks, or...) ahem okay, sorry, I but get a little resentful at seeing the resources for serious academic endeavor beingness measured in leisure units. Seriously though, even if everyone else doesn't political party their manner through schoolhouse, $240/yr is a fair little chunk of change to a lot of students, and is certainly well inside the cost range where piracy makes a lot of fiscal sense.

Sorry to disagree, only even $240/yr is nothing compared to the annual fee of graduate studies. I remember this expense fits in the "studying fabric", therefore is 100% justified. tldr: master 10k$/yr + 240$/yr ~= 10k$/year. too: Don't get to starbucks everyday and learn to brew your coffee . Gonna save MUCH more. (2coffee/day*2$) - 200$( coffe automobile & 1 year of coffee) - 240AdobeCreativeCloud >0

"also: Don't go to starbucks everyday and learn to brew your coffee" -- HA! Every bit if I could afford Starbucks as a student. I'll give you lot money-saving: alive at dwelling house, commute to schoolhouse on bicycle, pack a purse tiffin :P

An uncrackable adobe re-create protection is what the Gimp (d*mn that name) actually needs to finally become usable. Legions of artistic students will better upon Gimp as soon every bit they can no longer use Adobe for gratis. Professionals already pay for Adobe.

I'm going to be pedantic for a moment to make a point afterwards... The GIMP is essentially an inanimate object and has no needs of its own. It does not want to be used. It does not desire to be popular. Information technology does not want. Information technology would exist quite happy to be consigned to perdition, except it can't be happy at all. Let's exist clear here: you desire a program similar GIMP that doesn't await like it time warped forward from 1993. Which is a unlike thing altogether, merely the main thing is that it sounds less impressive, and that you should watch out for whatsoever potential sense of entitlement to awesomer software, because y'all probably didn't actually pay any coin or work on said software... :P At present, some of us are a little less picky about UI and deployability in an actual or hypothetical commercial design-house workflow and the usual complaints, and are possibly a picayune more picky about spending money (and/or pirating software). Nosotros'll continue to happily employ the GIMP for our miscellaneous photo-editing needs as such needs arise, and volunteer labor will proceed to improve it.

I'll echo radicalbyte's comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5911792) which is that Adobe doesn't intendance well-nigh the casual user who pirates their software. It's extremely expensive software that they would but await professionals to pay for, and typically those designers, graphic artists, etc. at companies are non going to be pirating annihilation. Their companies volition pay for the software, and given the choice, those professionals volition pick the software they're about comfortable with. By making it pretty darn easy to get your hands on a pirated copy, Adobe is playing the long game but winning in the end as the steep learning curve keeps their users from switching.

It'due south not piece of cake to pirate though. The last versions accept been pretty tricky for "normal" people to successfully crack and run. Just expect at the comments on any file sharing site. The majority of them are similar, "i deceit go this to work". People end up running an older version and not the latest. If this was really their intended strategy they would just brand a free version for students or amateurs. As it is now, they are spending a LOT of effort trying to go far harder to cleft their products. And it is harder, but it's withal possible. Look at Autodesk Maya, they have a complimentary version for students so there is absolutely no reason to pirate it.

The prospective of crackers is that all commercial software should be cracked & distributed amongst the community. Information technology doesn't affair if it's a $20 chat client, or a $10K industrial CAD platform. Reverse engineering is a sport to them.

I guess it'southward to rub information technology in the faces of Adobe and anybody else who supported this motility "considering it would assistance against piracy", when in reality they've merely made information technology worse for normal customers, and besides more expensive (which was probably what they really wanted anyway, and the anti-piracy thing was just the public excuse for doing it).

In this case, piracy is in Adobe's interest. It allows people to larn their tools, which they'll and then buy one time they're working. Creative Cloud is all about forced upgrades, non cutting piracy.

This is information technology. It's common for design shops to stop on a version of Adobe that is mature and works for them. After a couple of years, you're spending less than $50 per month. InDesign .indd compatibility has consistently broken with each new CS version; with this new organisation, you're either going to take to subscribe or not be able to interchange files in their original, (easily) editable format with clients, other designers, etc.

That'southward always been my theory besides. It's all-time for the manufacture in general if someone can acquire industry-grade tools whilst messing around as a teenager, it means less grooming is required and information technology's a form of vendor lock-in for the software makers.

I don't actually buy the 'more than expensive' line. Previously the suite was a prohibitively expensive for me, whereas at present I pay $50 a month. Spread over 2 years (approx range between CS updates), I notwithstanding come alee by almost $chiliad.

I found myself buying for the offset fourth dimension ps and illustrator. the edu subscription is xx$ calendar month, which is finally, reasonable. I'm very happy to pay for what I'd been using for years but had previously been impossible to afford.

And that's exactly what Adobe is looking for. They don't care that you pirate their software. They know that when the time comes for you to choose something to use professionally, you'll have no pick merely to buy a license. And if you're not using it professionally, Adobe lost nothing from the pirated version anyway.

They're plenty of professionals that apply pirated Adobe software... Similar the most of the 2nd/tertiary globe countries.

They still wouldn't be paying for it though, and when they can beget to, they volition.. And yet again, it just grows their market share and continues to make their products the de-facto.. If the second/3rd earth started to standardize on not-Adobe tools, then all the 1st world agencies that use that cheap labour could potentially starting time looking into those other tools, correct?

I love how the media keeps portraying CC as an anti-piracy measure. Information technology may be a segue to it, but unless software truly lives in the cloud this would never exist the example. It'due south changing the revenue stream and in a lot of cases, it's more compelling for users to switch over.

And people tin download music for free yet Apple tree sells billions of songs on iTunes. People are more than happy to pay if the toll/convenience is right.

If the CC'due south brought in one good affair, it's motivation to finally surgically remove Bridge from PS - I eyed it with suspicion when it came and tried to brand itself at domicile; and I'm not terribly mourning the unceremonious slitting of the umbilical cord. (I am - in short - a miserable, tribal consumer.)

Because how complacent Adobe is correct at present information technology worries me how bad things will get when they no longer take to entice an upgrade every year.

dorronseensess.blogspot.com

Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5911537

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