Affinity Studio now free

If you're not paying, you are the product.

There is a premium plan for the AI features, so that's the strategy, which does make some sense, I bet a lot of people will want to have those features.

Good software is never freemium. It is either paid upfront or it is a timebomb. I am okay with keeping things proprietary and asking for a fair price. Once free-to-play is introduced, the software is gone for good.

I thought about buying Affinity a couple of months ago since they offered a perpetual license. Now I won't even think installing it

“Even if you are paying, you are the premium product.”

I think we need to stop saying that quote since the existence of subscription. Can you stop Google from tracking you or let you define your “algorithm” if you have purchased YouTube Premium and one of the Google Drive plans? I really doubt.

I think it is the value of the company matters. If their intentions is to keep investors happy, the users are always the product no matter paying or not. By contrast, there are quite a lot of free open source software doing the same for free, but the users still remain user.

Canva proper is freemium, yet they continuously add more free features