Adobe confirms UK looking into its $20b Figma deal, EU probe 'expected' Adobe's planned $20b buy of Figma – one of the largest takeovers of a private software dev on record – is being probed globally, "including by the Competition and Markets Authority in the UK," the software maker has confirmed, saying it expects "the transaction will also be reviewed in the EU." The agreement is still on track …
Getting a large user base hooked on your drug means you can make changes to the market as a dominent player. Adobe will more than likely want a sizeable stake in the standards of media files, the things that will be required for the many Metaverses that will no doubt spring up from various corps wanting to control that emerging market.
"Getting a large user base hooked on your drug means you can make changes to the market as a dominent player"
Indeed, and once you're hooked, you will find that the prices will go up and that the lower cost and free categories will have more restrictions placed on them.
The US Justice Department is currently investigating the Adobe-Figma deal and I hope that the end result of those inquiries is a de-merger that promotes competition.
Adobe paying $5000 per every current user is indeed a bubble price for a tool that is ok for drawing vector images and UI mockups, but c'mon, those are still just vector images and UI mockups.
Even I am one of those 4M figma users but I don't see how they possibly could extract even a fraction of that $5k from users like me just to break even: hike the price, I'll move elsewhere.
UI designs age fast nowadays and thus UI mockups are sort of throw-away stuff anyway after the actual product has been implemented, so no-ones gonna lock in to the same vendor eternally just because their original year-2022 UI mockups happened to be there, given that they are not the only doable design tool around.
Even I am one of those 4M figma users but I don't see how they possibly could extract even a fraction of that $5k from users like me just to break even: hike the price, I'll move elsewhere.
Adobe's beancounters have probably analysed the customer base, and figured out how to milk them. So it'll follow the usual Adobe model-
Introduce a free tier, but saving and sharing is disabled. Features are limited to horizontal and vertical scroll wheels. Erasing can be achieved by pairing your phone, and shaking it.
Paid tier will be offered on a monthly subscription. Subscription price will increased monthly by RPI x Pi. Saving and sharing will be via the cloud only. Users will be required to purchase 'PixelPax', starting at only 1c per pixel, multiplied by image resolution. So 480p, 720p, 1080p etc will atract a 1x, 2x, 3x etc multiplier.
It will then be bundled into the 'Creative Sweat' package, with additonal service charges for features you don't really want. Basically Adobe will be working on the assumption that it can milk anybody who's built Figma into their workflow, and learned how to use it. Future Figma file formats will of course be proprietary, so if your clients take the red pill, well, you'll just have to find new clients.
Adobe's chief product officer Scott Bellsky told Bloomberg the company was commited to a free tier post-acquisition.
Adobe has previous for promising a product's existing price model would remain as-is after takeover which is a bare-faced lie, history already demonstrates this if you look back when they bought Allegorithmic, creators of Substance Painter & Designer, within a year they canned Allegorithmic's existing pricing models including those available via the Steam platform and integrated them into Adobe's own pricing model which is far more expensive with less end-user options than before they bought Allegorithmic.
Adobe is an anti-consumer company, if they can sucker you into their platform they will bleed you dry with their exorbitant monthly fees, they force people to sign up "monthly" contracts in actual they bind their customers to a 12 month agreement hidden in the small print - even if you only want to use their product for say 3 months - you are contracted to pay via the small print for the full 12 months even though their product is advertised with monthly fees.
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