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Affinity Studio now free

(www.affinity.studio)
1200 points dagmx | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.349s | source
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skwee357 ◴[] 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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carlosjobim ◴[] 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.
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skwee357 ◴[] 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)

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1. carlosjobim ◴[] 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.