ADOBE trickery

[eob]

This is just a notice of warning to everybody on this list who considers buying Adobe's Creative Suite.

When Adobe came up with the first creative suite (CS1), they made it very easy and attractive for all Photoshop users to buy into an entire suite for a relatively cheap price. Naturally, that way, they demonstrated that they had a very good sense of marketing their products. Nothing wrong with that, of course. So, I took advantage of their offer and I upgraded from Photoshop (single application) to the Creative Suite. Now, when the economy got tough, I wanted to go from the entire suite (CS3) to a single application (Photoshop CS4). After all, having the suite is nice and sometimes needed, but having the Photoshop is a must.

So, I went to Adobe's online shop, I checked my eligibility status, which turned out to be OK and I placed my order without any warning flag along the way. Then, when I installed Photoshop CS4, it did not want to accept my serial number. I contacted Adobe and it turned out that, in fact, I was not eligible for a 'sidegrade' from an entire suite to a single application. I repeat, there was no warning on Adobe's site.

So, basically, Adobe trapped me for life into buying an entire suite of applications that I rarely or never used. If I wanted to go back to a single application, I had to pay the full price of this application, even though I already paid the full price for an original retail version before buying into the suite. This is a kind of practice that I am comfortable to compare with the practices of pirates who steal their software without any payment whatsoever. Adobe, you just proved that you deserve to be pirated...

I cancelled my order, had to send them a "letter of software destruction" and received a refund (in about 2 weeks).

[Ernest]

Better download it [...]


[adm. note]: rest of the message has been deleted because of nonconformance with this site's standards. - eob

[habakuk]

Ernest, I cannot suport that in any way. [snipped the message after the referenced message has been deleted]

cheers
®

[eob]

I have been using Photoshop since version 3.5 and I paid for each upgrade I've got. For the last 4-5 years , every new version of Adobe software is more difficult to install than the previous one and more user-unfriendly to update or upgrade. Their anti-piracy paranoia is starting to bite them in the ass - just like Microsoft before them...

I have never stole any application (Adobe, or otherwise). I do not endorse pirating, either. But Adobe's action in this case makes me very bitter. I feel cheated and that's why I have no sympathy for a big company like Adobe being pirated. Especially so that Adobe practically monopolizes the market (Microsoft will never be an alternative for me and GIMP or Corel can not seriously compete with Photoshop).

BTW, Ernie, I wish you haven't posted that comment above. My suggestion is to delete it as soon as possible...

[habakuk]

I do fully udnerstand your point, eob. My own experience with Adobe goes into the same bad direction. That was mainly as a GoLive user who suddenly was forced to use Dreamweaver which has a really useless, ugly, non-CS3-conforming interface. They killed their own product and made me use a product that is inferior in terms of the handling and GUI conformity, yet they trew out GoLive (which is perfectly aligned with the other CS3 apps) and included DW which breaks every Mac GUI rule and their own CS3 GUI rules. Adobe has become a very arrogant and strangely directed company. The fact you can't sidegrade within their own app suite is a pity and just another sign of arrogance.

So, Adobe deserves public accusation of their bad practise and even more bad customer treatment.

cheers
®

[Ernest]

I can't delete. If you want, just do it

[eob]

OK, Ernie, I just deleted it for you.