I don't think Adobe has hit the wall (or ceiling) of potential subscribers to CC.
Right now, there are 2 groups who have not jumped into CC :  the people who use CS5 or CS6 illegally, and the people who use the legal version but are happy with their CS5 or CS6 version and refuse to pay a monthly fee for something they already have.

But what will happen in 2 to 4 years?  There will be a new version of Windows, and suddenly, CS5 and CS6 will not be compatible with the latest Windows anymore, and the "old" program on new computers will get buggy or not work at all.   Then there will be no CS7, but only CC to go to.

"...an in-app image browsing experience..."
Is that sort of what Canva is doing?

It might sound like that, but even though Adobe sells its separate apps as a "suite", anyone who has used them knows (a) it's multiple products, (b) Adobe struggles to have a consistent user experience across apps, so you're already used to being the "general contractor" yourself with the various bits and pieces you have to put together to get a finished design. I cannot imagine any deal Adobe could make would allow the customer to use an image without paying for it up front. Also can't imagine how Adobe could make their software restrict use of the images during the design process without rewriting just about everything, even with SmartObjects.

Canva offers a much simpler set of tools (which is probably not a big problem for some substantial portion of people putting together simple designs or making changes to something their designer did for them) and you get to do everything in one place, including with the images, and you don't have to pay until you're done and are actually ready to use what you designed. There, everything really is in one place.

I think that I've said before, I'm not a fan of anything that requires monthly payments.

Me either, but I keep getting bills every month. 

...But what will happen in 2 to 4 years?  There will be a new version of Windows, and suddenly, CS5 and CS6 will not be compatible with the latest Windows anymore, and the "old" program on new computers will get buggy or not work at all. Then there will be no CS7, but only CC to go to.

And when everyone finally has no other choice, and Adobe has us all by the short ones, then we'll see what they've really been planning. There are lots of great deals right now, great discounts, incentives to upgrade to CC. But what happens when Adobe has no need to incentivize the upgrade?

I'm a legal CS6 holdout. And honestly I would have just stayed on CS4 longer than I did except that I was able to find a reasonably priced CS6 and figured I'd make the jump now and try to run this version for at least 5 years before being forced to make some sort of change.

I'm weary of a monthly subscription. As mentioned above, what happens when Adobe has 80-90% adoption rates of CC from previous version users? I'm worried it becomes a cable tv sort of thing, and all of a sudden we're paying $100+ per month for software.

I'm a legal CS6 holdout. And honestly I would have just stayed on CS4 longer than I did except that I was able to find a reasonably priced CS6 and figured I'd make the jump now and try to run this version for at least 5 years before being forced to make some sort of change.

I used to be an infrequent updater too, and it's ironic that some of the updates in the last year have been the most useful Illustrator upgrades in maybe a decade. Live Corners is really useful and the new Curvature Tool looks like it could be as well (haven't quite got the hang of it yet). I'm not sure if they are trying harder or it just happened that way.

Quote from: michaeldb on October 22, 2014, 00:27

"...an in-app image browsing experience..."
Is that sort of what Canva is doing?

Canva offers a much simpler set of tools (which is probably not a big problem for some substantial portion of people putting together simple designs or making changes to something their designer did for them)...

Yes, it seems that Canva's real market might be tablet, phablet, and even smartphone users. People who don't really use productivity PCs (desktops and laptops), social-media-types who just want to slap a design together fast and easy for invitations and things like that.

Then if Adobe continues to alienate more and more of its users (and this thread gives a sample of some of the hostility Adobe has engendered in people who might have been loyal customers), Canva might add features to move its product onto desktops and laptops and compete with and replace Photoshop someday.

Quote from: cuppacoffee on October 17, 2014, 13:51

Adobe software is a staple in big, big corporations - advertising and marketing, publishing, merchandising and textile design just to name a few. You might be thinking of personal users but Adobe's market share of the industries that create content other than for the personal artist or photographer is huge.

Big companies use what their employees use. Adobe users will increasingly be seen as the previous generation IMO.

Fewer and fewer people need these big bloated old fashioned programs in order to achieve the results they want. And the big bloated suites may actually slow people down.

Quote from: cthoman on October 17, 2014, 14:07

I guess you haven't been reading what Adobe has been working on lately. Lots of smaller mobile apps. Lots of integration. Very interesting stuff in my opinion.

No I have been completely following them. Other companies are doing much more interesting stuff today. They're kind of like Microsoft in the sense that big companies still use them but they never do anything interesting anymore.

Adobe apps are not going to generate the sorts of incomes which their investors are used to - nor the sorts of revenue growth which investors expect. And tech and new media stocks are in trouble now anyhow (SSTK got close to the 52 week low several days ago). The apps they have shown so far have been rather lame - if they were a startup you would ignore them.

I don't think Adobe has hit the wall (or ceiling) of potential subscribers to CC.
Right now, there are 2 groups who have not jumped into CC :  the people who use CS5 or CS6 illegally, and the people who use the legal version but are happy with their CS5 or CS6 version and refuse to pay a monthly fee for something they already have.

But what will happen in 2 to 4 years?  There will be a new version of Windows, and suddenly, CS5 and CS6 will not be compatible with the latest Windows anymore, and the "old" program on new computers will get buggy or not work at all.   Then there will be no CS7, but only CC to go to.

Actually, there are a ton of new features in the CC that I've been excited to try and use ... I don't think they've hit a ceiling at all, they practically own the industry. I think the main reason people haven't upgraded is that their current version is still working just fine.

Sooner or later it's just going to be a business expense ... Rent's paid, power's paid, better write a check to Adobe ... Right now, there aren't many viable alternatives as far as I've seen.