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Affinity Studio now free

(www.affinity.studio)
1200 points dagmx | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.214s | source
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nirava ◴[] 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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ezfe ◴[] No.45764353[source]
Isn't this EXACTLY what subscriptions fix, though? That you can stop paying if the product stops getting updates.

Everyone wanted a one time license, you aren't allowed to complain when that one-time licensed product stops getting updates.

Note: I own a license to V2 of the Serif suite.

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paulhebert ◴[] No.45764406[source]
I’d prefer to have them release a new version every X years and let me buy that for a fixed cost. (This is how Adobe used to work)
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ezfe ◴[] No.45764904[source]
You can't have your cake (one time payments) and eat it too (software gets perpetual updates).

Perpetual licenses with 1 year of updates is a good middle ground, but they have said that the v2 suite will get maintenance updates for some period of time so even that type of license would not have changed this conversation.

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1. paulhebert ◴[] No.45765578[source]
Sure. I get that. My ideal scenario is that existing versions get security patches and critical bug fixes but you have to upgrade for new features.

But I realize that’s less lucrative and not how modern software tends to work