The creeping cost of upgrades

I have notice with a sadness that the former champions of perpetual license (ie you buy the software) in the graphic/art/ photography areas, where doing well because they picked up a lot of extra buyers running away from Adobe’s Subscription model. Particular at the start up adobe did ot upgrade much. The champions were upgrading often and charging a smallish amount (20-30%) for the upgrade, and this also went down well with users.

Things have changed a lot of the last two years. Adobe have reduced subscription options (particularly for a single piece of software or group of complimentary tools) and increased subscription for the full creative ? to a ludicrous level (if you aren’t using it for a profitable business). This is clearly gouging a customer base. Not nice and another way or suggesting they are cutting of your nose to spite your face.

Unfortunately the price of upgrades are creeping up to 70-80% of the first license. If the software has been upgraded significantly that may be ok. A couple of suppliers prompting upgrades aren’t yet advertising an upgrade price, if one is even to be offered. Perhaps waiting 2-3 upgrade cycles is still ok. However it is rapidly reaching the case where if you are a loyal software user the amount you pay annually is not a lot different between perpetual licensee and subscriptions.  Both teams are gouging their user base. Possibly there is a little churning of software sold to the same number of users. In both cases we the users are the losers.

The case of Luminar Neo, is a particularly blantant attempt. It is probably a market driven ploy trying to prompt hype aboput all new, limit time/number pre-purchase seats, etc, etc but I personally just see something that isn’t legacy compatible and does not offer a  bigger step forward as is being over-hyped. I have Luminar AI and love it (not as my main photo editor that’s still ON1) but because some of the AI features are really useful and time saving. I feel I share a lot this think with Peter Forsgård . Until there is a trial version I can try I will not commit to spending anything on what is still vapourware.

Lowdown on Lockdown

 

The promised easing of lockdown conditions, didn't materialized (ok they are pshed forward a few days). It was however a great day to get out and have a picnic of one household and sepearted groups.It Jells park it wasn';t even possible to park so we (my wife & I) had to go a little further.

Everything is nice and green (alternative pring sun and rain) is doing wonders but the grass is getting tall. A great opportunity to get down low..

So why am I bothering?

I am so over this. Another nice day and I opened up in my studio to do some painting. I turned on the compuyer (only recently recovered from a lengthy period of "Death by UpGrade") to listen to some music.  I left the spunnerv run and did a bit of sketching.

Two hours later, it finally "recovered" but will not recognise Wifi. So I shifted the computer to my office, where I can make a direct ethernet onnection to my router. Another hour plus of repair, but I can access the internet.

Another day gone! You guessed it I moved it back to the studio and more waiting and no go.

Spring ?

 

Even more Interuptions

Social Media in general has become a obessed with interupting you amd keeping your attention (primarily so they can sell more "eyeballs" to advertisers). The time you spend can be worthwhile occassionally but not when you mindlessly have to scroll through hundereds of images, video or headlines. This is primarily a waste of your time yet the notification bell keeps tinging.Some phone let you change the tune but it does take a lot of self control not to pick up your phone or open a new browser window. It is made more complex when you have had enough and want to uninstall, it mostly has to be done individually by notification service by app or service, and it was easy to unsubcribe from say theei newsletter but the notifications where then defaulted back on. My current feeling is less than 1% of these notification actually need my attention so I now inore then all, and often missed phone calls!

Notificitaion * 99% => Interuptions

One respite was flickr it had a beautiful recent activity page which (automatically) curated a selection of your friends and those you followed and was the landing place when you logged in. There was no need for the endless scroll just to find something worthwhile to view and study for a while, not swipe up of down to get over it to the next 2 second glimpse in a length search.

Well that was until now ... ...

"Now that most of the Flickr community has had the chance to experience the new Notification Center, it's almost time to close the book on the Recent Activity page."

Flickr do offer a range of decent setting for notfications so it is worth visiting that page now and pruning back the default notification setting before they become to annoying.

A Cautionary Tale

Let us imagine a story where you have the opportunity to put a notice or a picture on your local community notice board.

There are a few rules that you have never heard of and are keep secret. There is a time limit of around 20 minutes. There is a view threshold of 20 clicks/views. If they haven’t meet these conditions your notice/picture is papered over from public view by ads and only shown to friend within a new 2 hour time window and only if they have recently viewed your stuff. After that it falls into the discard bin.

Well this story is not a lot different to the Instagram's and Facebook's secretive algorithms.

The result is “celebrity” wannabees and a bland sameness.

Where is you tube heading?

Well the YouTube studio blog update says they are going dark (that’s the option to use dark mode) but sadly this may be a good metaphor for the way the informational content of their offerings are heading.

Once upon a time (well a while ago now) YouTube was a great place to look up "how to" do stuff. Especially those fiddly little things about home maintenance and the things in the user manuals (does anyone other than me still read them?). A five to ten minute video that went through a process step by step was wonderful at allowing a lot to get done.

Things have changed! Viewng YouTubes now has more than likely incorporated ads which often interrupt the process (ok a good step for google to extract money from advertisers) but hopeless for our concentration (look up the dangers inherent in context switching - if you think these interuptions can be ignored). This smell of cash has unfortunately also attracted a lot of players seeking to game the situation with SEO and hacks to find and copy-cat popular video and repackage their message, but with flashy click-bait titles and less helpful information,. All to often they are unresearched and have misleading information presented in fashionable colours and well curated backgrounds. I can’t see any genuine attempts by google at fact checking. It is all about becoming a celebrity and “owning” the hashtag. Because this get more views and perhaps longer attention they become promoted in YouTube suggestions,

The true information gold is sinking to the bottom, and difficult to discover.

Why I am moderating all comments & deleting so many?

There are just so many bogus commenters around at the moment both here and on YouTube. Most of them are promoting software that I have mentioned and have links to “cracks" ways to download and run the software for free, but that always leaves the way open for different forms of malware. A few are pointless rants, leading to even more dubious places.

So I have turned on comment moderation here and on YouTube. I do read through and comments and definitely carefully visit sites linked in the comments. It is tedious for me but I don't want to leave you my readers venerable to any innocent looking  cyber-naughties.

I  would however really welcome genuine comments and recommendation of things you like or wish to draw my attention too. Just be patient it may take a week or two for me to keep.