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Affinity Studio now free

(www.affinity.studio)
1199 points dagmx | 11 comments | 30 Oct 25 15:54 UTC | HN request time: 0.503s | source | bottom
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skwee357 ◴[30 Oct 25 16:11 UTC] No.45761626[source]▶
Kind of a bummer. I paid for Affinity tools some time ago, but I guess my license is now worth trash, and if I want to use the new Affinity tools, I need to have "Canva account".

I mean, free tools are good. But I smell a road to enshittification (for example, by offering Affinity for free so you create Canva account, then they push Canva AI or whatever BS to you little by little, and in the end deprecate affinity so you would move to Canva web Pro Ultra Version with 90% off for the first 3 months). Could be wrong, will see I guess.

[Edit] Just to clarify something. It's not like I expect to pay for a license and get updates forever, but from what it seems like from other comments, the original apps are being removed from the App Store, meaning that the "free Affinity" is "Canva Flavored" Affinity, rather than the original tools.

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1. carlosjobim ◴[30 Oct 25 16:26 UTC] No.45761823[source]▶
The complaining is off the charts! Nothing in your life would have changed if you hadn't heard about this free product. Now you rest sleepless and grind your teeth because other people get to enjoy free high quality software.
replies(3): >>45761888 #>>45762615 #>>45763172 #
2. skwee357 ◴[30 Oct 25 16:31 UTC] No.45761888[source]▶
Don't worry, I sleep tight and don't grind my teeth (at least not over Affinity).

What bothers me, however, is that I bought Affinity tools in the first place in order to avoid marrying myself with Adobe and their predatory business practices. I, and many people here on HN, shared this sentiment of Adobe. However, I'm kind of baffled by the amount of people who seems to celebrate these free tools, as this is a 101 in predatory business making: acquire a good product, make it free but with an account, deprecate said good product and force everyone to use your SaaS offering with monthly subscription. I might be wrong, time will tell.

I wonder when people will learn the real value of "free" offering by For Profit Big Corp (c)

replies(2): >>45761989 #>>45764923 #
3. carlosjobim ◴[30 Oct 25 16:38 UTC] No.45761989[source]▶
I bought Affinity as well. If Affinity remains free now for one year, that means that every person who needs them can make enough money during one year to pay for Photoshop for the next 10 years if they want to.

And if neither free nor paid professional software suits you, then program your own or use a physical photo editing lab. Or use your old Affinity software. It's not being deleted from your computer. That's what I'm going to do.

4. mns ◴[30 Oct 25 17:28 UTC] No.45762615[source]▶
Yes, it did change: I want to use the old apps and I don't want to use a Canva account. I can still use them, but will never get any updates any more.
replies(2): >>45763015 #>>45764930 #
5. carlosjobim ◴[30 Oct 25 18:00 UTC] No.45763015[source]▶
What you can or cannot get in the future is purely hypothetical and nobody owes you anything at all.
replies(1): >>45764666 #
6. nirava ◴[30 Oct 25 18:12 UTC] No.45763172[source]▶
bad take. your perpetual license was swapped under your nose for a freemium thing designed explicitly and specifically to get you to start paying subscription. that's the exact opposite of why I bought this software in the first place.

also remember, v2 is now NOT getting all the features people have been requesting for years like image trace. it seems basically calculated to get people to make an account and get the "free" thing instead of sticking with the "perpetual" v2

replies(1): >>45764944 #
7. RestartKernel ◴[30 Oct 25 20:04 UTC] No.45764666{3}[source]▶
What? How is selling a product with the promise of future updates under the same terms not owing us something? This is not some FOSS project we're taking about here.
8. ezfe ◴[30 Oct 25 20:27 UTC] No.45764923[source]▶
They already were deprecating the original Serif suite, since it was clearly in part an acquihire.

You bought those licenses with terms that you preferred and those terms are being honored so it seems like everything worked well.

9. ezfe ◴[30 Oct 25 20:28 UTC] No.45764930[source]▶
Nothing changed: you can still use the apps you purchased, as they were when you purchased them? That's the whole point of one time purchases.
10. ezfe ◴[30 Oct 25 20:29 UTC] No.45764944[source]▶
Your perpetual license is still valid for the v2 suite. Nothing was swapped - the product you paid for is no longer getting updates.

Just because people have been asking for features doesn't mean your perpetual license is owed those features??? That's an incredible amount of entitlement.

replies(1): >>45769251 #
11. nirava ◴[31 Oct 25 07:28 UTC] No.45769251{3}[source]▶
bro i just want to be able to buy the v3. as opposed to downloading the free thing and waiting for it to get worse and worse and more things pushing me to get pro subscription. is that so hard to understand?

we went from v1 -> v2 -> "free" + subscription, where "free" is unsustainable in the current economic climate and they WILL have to pull shady stuff once all the AI bubble money disappears.