By Joe Rosensteel

May 17, 2023 3:33 PM PT

Software subscriptions feel weird, but they work

With the recent announcement of Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro for the iPad we have renewed the same, silly argument about subscription pricing that happens far too often. Without having the apps in hand (literally) there’s very little to say in the way of assessing the value offered by the subscriptions at this time, but there’s plenty to say in favor of recurring payments from behind the safety of this paywalled post (thanks for subscribing).

When Adobe switched to Creative Cloud pricing, there was a lot of sturm and drang, and while it hasn’t been all rainbows and puppies it’s largely worked out for all involved. Yes, Adobe executives have probably bought themselves a nice vacation home, but Creative Cloud has been a success for me, personally. I use Lightroom for my photo hobby, I use Premiere for cutting my demo reel every so often, and I use Audition for editing podcasts.

Let’s unpack why I’m satisfied paying Adobe every month:

1. The barrier to pay Adobe’s monthly rate was far lower than paying the the upfront cost for Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro in a time where I was uncertain how many months, let alone years of use, I would get out of the apps.
2. Adobe releases predictable updates. I felt particularly burned by Apple as a loyal Aperture customer, and as someone who used Shake for my jobby-job. Without much warning, someone at Apple decided it wasn’t worth it to make these apps. Would they do that again, to their flagship pro software? Maybe. Aperture and Shake won prestigious awards. Prestige isn’t the whole story.
3. Familiarity was also important, and I had experience with Premiere from college, so for cutting demo reels it was easier than having to learn Final Cut Pro. Likewise, Audition’s sort-of similarity to Premiere meant it was a more natural fit with my existing experience.

My credit card was put on file, software was downloaded, and Adobe drops in some new stuff every now and then. There’s no major concern about upgrading to a version of macOS and losing my software. (Although Adobe is not always timely with addressing some compatibility issues, they do get there eventually—and I know better than to download a new release of macOS on day one.)

The Creative Cloud a desktop app that pesters me about Adobe stuff is bad, but the underlying service itself? It works as expected. I can turn off auto-updates, or download old versions if I need something for compatibility.

I could have spent less money by knowing ahead of time how wildly successful podcasting would be for me, or by cutting that occasional reel update with a single purchase of Final Cut Pro, but no one really knew how many years of free updates Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro would receive. (I’m not even sure Apple has ever had a clear picture. It mostly just seemed like they didn’t want to add paid upgrades to the App Store so they sheepishly just kept updating the one they sold.) It is an aberration in the world of selling software that Apple has kept investing in these two pro apps with no income from the existing user base.

My point about familiarity might not seem that important when it comes to talking about subscriptions but it absolutely is. Kids generally can’t afford to pay for their own pro software. Back in the day, they might have used cracked codes for downloaded software, but generally their access to pro software would be through the world of higher education. A five-dollar expense makes sure little Braden or Madison is predisposed to consider Apple’s pro software.

The only weird thing is that the iPad announcements didn’t come with any Mac announcements about pricing. Surely, at some point they will need subscription pricing too. It’s been over a decade of free updates for these apps. Deeply unserious people might continue to argue in favor of free updates for apps for eternity, subsidized by RAM and SSD prices from pro Mac sales, but this is an unhealthy business model. It also suppresses competition in the pro app market.

Ideally we should live in a world where if you’re unhappy with your pro software you can cancel your monthly subscription and subscribe to another pro software solution. If you need a specific piece of software for a project as a freelancer, you’re just paying for the timeframe you’re working on that project.

It’s far more predictable to have a monthly recurring fee to estimate your expenses than it is to try and figure out when large sums of money should be plunked down and if you’ve timed your purchase with this year’s NAB conference, and out-of-cycle updates. Particularly if you’re an institution purchasing volume licenses.

Now, one fear that even some sensible people have is this: We might one day find ourselves in a situation where the subscription prices just keep ticking up, or that the software you rely on will be placed inside an expensive bundle of software you don’t need. But those are all fears that could be true in a world of software license purchases, too! Which is exactly why it’s important to have a variety of software vendors with sustainable revenue streams, instead of just Adobe which has the pro bundle of all pro bundles, or Apple which hasn’t seemed all that motivated by drops or gains in app sales.

Perhaps the presence of Apple’s pro apps on the iPad will nudge Adobe to compete for dollars there as well. Other than Lightroom, and now Photoshop, Adobe has only made overly simplified apps for iPad. There’s an Adobe Premiere Rush app, but it’s not Premiere, and there’s not even a toy version of Audition. If Apple just offered their Pro apps for free on the iPad, I doubt Adobe would ever even consider trying harder.

One final point: The App Store is not a free market. Adobe is big enough that it gets to sidestep the App Store with a Creative Cloud login that you acquire on adobe.com, but not a lot of developers get that benefit. If someone has to compete with Apple in the App Store, they do so at an extreme disadvantage for either sales or subs. That dramatic imbalance is really why we should rise up and overthrow our pro app oppressors.

But until then, I’ll just let Adobe charge my credit card so I can focus on getting work done.

[Joe Rosensteel is a VFX artist and writer based in Los Angeles.]