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Affinity Studio now free

(www.affinity.studio)
1199 points dagmx | 1 comments | 30 Oct 25 15:54 UTC | HN request time: 0.2s | source
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nirava ◴[30 Oct 25 18:07 UTC] No.45763101[source]▶
This is a deletion.

- they're completely stopping all updates to v2; even image trace won't be coming to it. You might have paid for perpetual access to it 2 months ago, but it has completely stopped. As the world moves on (new chips, new OS features, just general software movement) this will increasingly feel like a second-class experience.

- the new "free" software is a sales funnel into the paid subscription, and will also increasingly have that "second-class" feeling as new pro-only things are added to it. it is also practically guaranteed to feed your work into AI unless you buy pro sometime in the next 5 years

In short, something secure, top class, the "best the company offers" product doesn't exist anymore. What was once there isn't.

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damnesian ◴[30 Oct 25 18:47 UTC] No.45763725[source]▶
> the new "free" software is a sales funnel into the paid subscription, and will also increasingly have that "second-class" feeling as new pro-only things are added to it

There's a plague of this on the entire industry now. Free apps abound, none of them will do exactly what you need, all of them will point you to the shiny unfree thing that will.

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1. jonathanstrange ◴[30 Oct 25 19:04 UTC] No.45763955[source]▶
The practice would be easier to tolerate if the unfree thing had reasonable pricing. Alas, it is always subscription-based and the monthly fee is crazy high, in the range of re-buying a traditional download product every four months. I understand that professional users might have more money to spend but it still seems to me that those companies overestimate what potential customers are willing to pay as running costs.