this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2024

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Affinity is joining the Canva family (forum.affinity.serif.com)

submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by otter@lemmy.ca to c/technology@lemmy.world

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Link from the post:

https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/press/newsroom/canva-statement/

Also someone linked this old tweet

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[–] otter@lemmy.ca 25 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (4 children)

I was recommended Affinity on here a while back as a one-time-payment alternative to Adobe subscription based photoshop/publisher.

I haven't used Canva in a while, but I remember disliking their interface and pricing schemes. Am I right to think that this change is a bad thing for Affinity users?

We have to say that selling Serif was not on our minds at all, but when Canva contacted us (only a couple of months ago!) there was something about it which just felt right.

hmm :/

Will the ethos of Affinity change now it’s part of a large global company?

The team behind Affinity remains in place and our approach remains the same – and this is something that Canva is very focused for us to maintain too. Yes, we are now a division within a larger company, but we believe this will allow us to serve our community even better in the future and give us even greater freedom and ability to challenge the status quo.

They don't say anything about pricing / plans. If I'm going to be forced into a subscription anyways, then I might as well use adobe's stuff

[–] MasterHound@lemmy.world 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Just bought Designer a week ago. Wouldn't have touched it had it been a subscription. I love it so far but it will be my last purchase of any Affinity software if they move to a subscription.

[–] cosmicrookie@lemmy.world 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Id contact them if i were you, asking for clarification and possibly a refund.

[–] MasterHound@lemmy.world 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

I've sent them an email, not too hopeful I'll get any information out of them about their pricing model going forward though.

Edit: They replied but they just gave a copy and pasted statement from the press release that Designer V2 users will own in perpetuity, nothing regarding future plans.

[–] cosmicrookie@lemmy.world 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

I too wrote to them. This is their reply

Nothing changes. We will continue to sell the apps as a single payment and you’ll continue to get regular free updates. If anything, this will enable us to introduce bigger updates, faster.

[–] MasterHound@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago

That's certainly a more hopeful response. Fingers crossed they keep to their word with V3 too.

[–] PopOfAfrica@lemmy.world 9 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Affinity refused to make Linux ports. That alone killed them for me.

[–] catharso@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 8 months ago

full port would have been great but i would have been already very happy if they at least tried to make it run somewhat ok via wine.

[–] conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works 9 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

I haven't used Canva in a while, but I remember disliking their interface and pricing schemes. Am I right to think that this change is a bad thing for Affinity users?

I can tell you my first reaction sure as hell wasn't "sweet, now I can hook my photo editor into some online bullshit".

They don't say anything about pricing / plans. If I'm going to be forced into a subscription anyways, then I might as well use adobe's stuff

They have an FAQ that says they're keeping the same model and plan to continue to develop v2. How long that lasts, though?

[–] jaykay@lemmy.zip 11 points 8 months ago (1 children)

No plans “at this time”. So next week I’m guessing lmao

[–] conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Pretty much how I feel. I was OK with the transition to v2 because I thought the upgrade path was reasonable, but I feel like at some point I'm going to get screwed now.

Though without updates the current version should be fine for me for the foreseeable future,

[–] conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I wonder if they recognize that "not a subscription" is a huge part of Affinity's market position though.

If you're going to force a subscription, why wouldn't I just use photoshop?

[–] Deeleres@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Maybe they want to compete with the price per subscription: let's say they want to charge 5 € per month for Photo, Design and Publisher each, against 26 € for Photoshop (alone).

[–] conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works 1 points 8 months ago

Maybe.

Wouldn't make a difference to me though. If you go to a subscription, I'm leaving, and with a lot of bad blood.

[–] altima_neo@lemmy.zip 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

The FAQ is very deliberately worded in that nothing changes now, but offers no reassurance for the future. V2 will stay the same, but V3, or whatever they decide to call it at that point, could very well be subscription based.

[–] Interstellar_1@pawb.social 1 points 8 months ago

Canva had a great UI just a few years ago, but they've simplified it a lot to the point that it's just hard to use now.