Changing terms of service after you’ve bought a product without an option to decline needs to stop. Roku did it with TV’s. You had to accept the TOS after a SW update long after you bought the TV with no decline button. Only accept was there meaning you couldn’t use the TV unless you hit accept. That’s complete BS.
Agreed! Or give consumers the ability to continue to use the service under the terms which were signed when you enrolled! How did we ever give one party in an agreement the right to change the terms of the agreement whenever they want?! Why even have an agreement at that point?
Don't forget Adobe made their last editions of Flash Player unusable despite it already being downloaded as retribution for losing their count case. Adobe punished the public for their own issues. There was no need to disable Flash Player because their intent was to stop updating and maintaining Flash Player.
It's notable that this lawsuit comes on the heels of Adobe trying to change the ToS to say that they have the rights to all the content you create with their software, up to the point that they can browse through all your documents and delete or edit anything they don't like. Moral issues aside, this is a HUGE problem for anyone who uses Adobe for work that is protected by NDAs or is otherwise confidential. No wonder that there's huge numbers of people who are trying to cancel their Adobe subscriptions. And I'll bet quite a few of them are government employees.Possibly even DoJ employees...
They don't have the rights to your content. They have the rights to access, edit, etc, your content. Why? The software legally can't access it, be used for editing, etc. without that permission.
@karlrovey yeah it was to give them access to your PRIVATE work, so they could use your stuff to train their AI. What artist not on Crack would be OK with that?
Companies including mine have discovered that you can actually make more money by charging a little each month instead of one big upfront cost. And the consumer, usually a small startup company, is much more willing to spend small payments instead of one big one especially if they live check to check.
Honestly for me as much as it sucks it was the best thing Adobe ever did. I couldn't afford to buy their products and until you hit about the 5-year mark you won't have paid what it cost just to start day one. Which is also good for startups but it was a horrible proposition for anybody who had actually paid 600 bucks for Photoshop or $2,500 for the master collection already. My father told me in the early '90s that this was the future of software. Basically we're all in danger of owning dumb terminals and renting our software and we're pretty damn close to that at this point. Chromebooks are more than dumb terminals especially when you get the Android and Linux app compatibility but otherwise it's a web terminal that gives you access to free and rented software lol
@@Rainmotorsports Adobe's original subscription plan, which I believe was just Photoshop for $10 a month or so was okay. The problem with the subscription plans is they are great in the beginning, but then you have to subscribe to more and more to get the subscription, or there are a flow of "extras" that require more payment - and that is without considering shady privacy and TOS tactics and games.
things that should not be legal: -binding arbitration. -early termination fees. -making it more difficult to cancel a subscription than it is to sign up.
@@SakuraNyan Those clauses should not be legal for certain. It's like saying "We plan to do bad stuff, but you can't sue for it." It's like the signs on trucks that say they're not responsible if they damage your vehicle. They aren't actually legally binding. I'd definitely test the legality of these clauses.
Definitely no "binding" arbitration. Maybe arbitration as a first line remedy followed by in court litigation if the dispute is not resolved. Even before any arbitration or litigation, companies should seek to resolve differences to keep everyone happy. Everything related to privacy or usage of any client personally identifiable information or content should be 100% OPT IN with explicit notice, and needs to be granular similar to GDPR requirements in Europe. Charges and cancellation policies need to be clearly and simply explained up front without any obfuscation.
I don't think binding arbitration is a problem, its how companies abuse choosing their own venue and potentially "getting in bed" with the arbitrator by paying them so much money to host. Arbitration needs to be regulated to be more unbiased @josefmazzeo6628 I definitely agree that arbitration shouldn't be forced, and they should try to resolve any problems before arbitration/lawsuit time
@@josefmazzeo6628 Under a plain reading of the US constitution, binding arbitration clauses should be unconstitutional. On the grounds that an arbitrator is *NOT* a jury, and most likely the amount exceeds USD$20.
I've been using the Clipchamp that comes with Windows.... I've downloaded Resolve but haven't really found the motivation to jump into a new learning curve.
@@craigmcpherson1455 DaVinci Resolve is video editing software. Like Adobe Premiere, except it's free. Though they do have a paid version, but it's not a subscription model. They have my business as I quit supporting Adobe years ago when they adopted the sub model.
Don't forget that Adobe recently changed its general terms of service giving themselves the right to use your work and files to train its AI. They indirectly gave their Adobe Reader the ability to read all of your pdfs for AI purposes which is a massive privacy issue on many different levels, especially corporate level.
That actually a lesser issue, they get a non-exclusive license to everything you make with their products, and can freely browse, alter, and delete your files. They didn't learn from companies like AOL, Wizard's of the Coast, or Unity that screwing your customer base over is bad for business.
Not to mention HIPAA-protected medical information.... Certain medical facilities that I have knowledge of receive their transcribed medical reports in Microsoft Word format from the transcriptionist. They convert the Word documents to PDFs and upload them to their medical records software. If Adobe really can see those, that's a huge privacy breach.
They also changed their terms of service to give themselves pretty much unrestricted access and use of your private files saved on their site... and refused to allow you to access your files until you accept the terms. That is the scummiest thing I have heard from a company in a long time. Can't wait to see how this bites them in the back when they realize some companies have legal obligations to protect consumer privacy.
@@soundspark the tweaked terms after the initial backlash clarify this. The originally released terms did not, and gave the impression they would be using the content to train their AI. This is what caused a lot of backlash. What their original intent was is uncertain, things could have been different if not for the backlash. Vague terms in TOS could be that way intentionally, we will never know. But refusing to allow access to your own files before you accept the terms is scummy in any circumstance. At least offer a way to retrieve your data if you disagree with them.
@@JH-pt6ih I mean, the only real innovations Capitalism has gained is since Reagan has been the ability to milk as much money from the labor force as humanly possible
Lol, the FTC actually *doing* something for the consumer is the day I die. This will probably end in either a settlement that amounts to probably $2 checks for people and literal couch change for Adobe, or nothing of note changes and Adobe just makes it ever so slightly more clear about the ETF. That's all I've noticed from the FTC these days; if they even do anything anymore.
I was on AOL when they switched to unlimited time. Predictably, people logged in and stayed logged in, tying up the few phone lines they had. After 2 months I was able to get on only twice at 2 in the morning. I called to cancel. They did not give me much push back because of all the other people who were calling to cancel. But they would not refund me for the previous two months because I was able to get online twice. A few years later my future wife tried to cancel the AOL account taking money out of her credit card. They wouldn't talk to her because she wasn't the account holder, her ex was. We had to contact the state attorney general who sent a letter to AOL. They sent back a very whiny letter to tell her it was canceled and we didn't have to get the AG involved.
Similar thing happend to my grandmother. They had charged her for years for AOL when she hadnt had it for years. Even though we had canceled it. After a lot of PITA we got a refund on the years not used after a friend of the family that was a lawyer wrote them a letter.
@@GSP-76I don't even own a credit card, this is among the reasons why. If I need to order something online I go to Walmart and get what I call a burner card, because I load it once and that's it.
@@GSP-76now days if you get. New card through the same entity, they forward on your recurring charges as a "courtesy", so that might not work. Only courtesy it's for is allowing the credit card company to collect more fees.
Steve, I think a DA should attempt to argue that if a board of executive uses the company to comit crimes and tresspas against their supposed customers through misleading or unrefusable one sided contract alterations, then the company/corporation, in it's entirety, should be considdered a tool of organised crime and thus subject to the same criminal asset forfeiture procedure as a burglars power drill, a robbers firearm or kitchen knife, a drunk drivers car or a C-P-perverts harddrives.
@@craigbarnett5992 Well, I don't see any stockholders receiving $10 million bonus. Those people are members of the board. So who are they really serving but themself, just like any other business. The only difference is a small business suffers when shit hits the fans. A corporation, the stockholders suffer while the board walks away with billions.
There is another thing they did that I wish would get addressed. If you bought Adobe Acrobat like version 9 you paid big money for it. Fast forward to today. When you installed the software it would reach out to Adobe licensing servers to check the license and let you install it. Adobe took those servers offline so when you buy a new PC you now can't license the software you "purchased." You own nothing if the company can render it useless whenever they want to.
When they took the servers for Acrobat 8 offline, they issued a key which would make it so you no longer needed to access those servers (in fact this was not only for Acrobat 8, but for the entire CS2 (Creative Suite 2) that they deprecated at the time). When they put this key on their Web page, though, they neglected to put it behind any kind of sign-in that restricted it to CS2 buyers. This made it so they effectively released this software (though admittedly quite old at the time) for free. That may have scared them off from doing this again, because they knew that even behind a sign-in it would effectively make that software easy to pirate. Of course, that doesn't make this acceptable from a consumer standpoint.
Finally, some illumination on subscription services. I purchased Adobe products for years at a hefty price. I knew what I was doing, was happy to do it because I was a professional who used the products and the output allowed me to offset the cost. When it went to subscription only, I immediately recognized what they were really doing and NEVER subscribed. Tried to warn people but I was simply viewed as conspiratorial.
FTC has been pretty active these last few years, went after Google and Microsoft for data scraping, a few other companies, and now Adobe… it’s just a start but I think in an interview the head stated they are outnumbered when it came to lawyers 1000 to 1
Subscription models and forced obsolescence are what companies do when they no longer have good legit reasons for customers to buy their new products. For example, for about 98% of consumers, Microsoft Word 2003 had every feature they could want and ask for. Period. The only way MS can get more money from those people is to convince them that their old version is somehow obsolete. and the only way fwd is a subscription-based product. I advise people to find the most recent version of the software that they can buy outright, get that, and ignore anything newer. For 99% of people, that works just fine.
in some of the old internet browsers from Netscape they had a few programs. one was called Composer. it was a decent word processor that could do a lot of things. font size, color, style, spell check and a some other things. you could write & publish web pages with it. for most people it could do pretty much everything MS word could do. i had a friend who had a little snail mail news letter that he had put out for a few years. when he made the change over to an online news group, he used Netscape Communicator to publish and run it. i don't know if Netscape included Composer or the other things in 6.xx or higher, the last version i used was 4.9. it won't install on 64 bit systems.
I NEVER allow automatic withdrawals from a bank account by any service provider. I even get charged for NOT doing that by my phone service provider. Consumer cellular. I learned the hard way. Overdraft by the automatic withdrawal of less than two dollars cost me almost $40 in bank fees.
Hmm...I switched to CC few years ago and fired att, cut my bill in half for two cell lines. Their terms of service are specific, you can cancel with no penalty at any time...
@@ltdees2362 Yeah, I've been with them for many years but they still charge me $5 a month to not use autopay. That started less than a year ago, I think. I don't use my phone much. Sometimes it's still in the car from the last trip I took three weeks ago. No, it's not on.
My work around for all subscription based services is to purchase a prepaid credit card from a store and use that to sign up. If I decide to cancel, then they have to contact me, and I get to hang up on them!
Or use a card nearing its expiration date. Try out the subscription services you're interested in. If you like it, update the info when it expires. If not, ha ha!
I wasn't able to get a prepaid card without giving my information, so they would still come after the debt, and I don't know of it's a new thing or not, but I have heard banks will let people charge your expired card, "for your convenience" so that none of our *precious subscriptions* are interrupted
@@kento7899that doesn't make any sense, have you even tried that in real life? Expired or not they can charge it just fine. The bank will honor it. The card number itself would need to change.
Be aware that if you cancel a credit card because you lost it, the charges will automatically roll over to the new card. So, if you choose to cancel a card to get rid of a nasty subscription, you may need to cancel all credit cards you have with that bank.
This is happening to me as we speak. Adobe pushed me into getting the annual subscription paid monthly and then they tried to RAISE the price DURING the year and charge me more! So I had to jump through hoops with customer service to get it canceled and they couldn’t cancel the service, they best they could do was waive a few months fee. I was told the last payment would be in May, but Lo and behold, in June I start getting charged for ANOTHER annual subscription paid monthly! Now I’m trying to contact them again and I’m told the phones aren’t available on the weekend, and when I try to chat with a representative, they shut down the chat saying there’s an error and to try back in 2 hours. They are the WORST!
Just cancel it online like everyone else then. Why are you calling them? They can't raise the price of the annual option, it is a contract and the price for the year is set. There are three options: 1) Monthly subscription, which can be cancelled at any time without penalty. This is the most expensive option. Your subscription remains active until the end of the billing cycle. 2) Annual subscription, payable monthly, which can be cancelled at a penalty of 50% of the remaining term. Your subscription ends immediatley when you cancel. This option is the intermediate option in terms of cost. 3) Annual subscription, paid up front, which can be cancelled any time without penalty. This is the cheapest option. Your subscription remains active until the end of the billing cycle. They don't push you into anything, you sign up online and choose the option that best fits your anticipated needs.
I wanted to use Adobe's music audio files (Music loops) and other files, so i took out a monthly subscription for a year. I eventually lost interest. So figured that it would at least run out after a year. Then I received a notice that it would automatically renew, unless I contacted them. I could not find a way to do that. I wrote twice them but never got a response. Now my card has expired and they are sending mails. That seems to be the only way. I have not used any of thier files in years. The fee is not that much, but that is not the point. The only thing I could have done was to contact my cand card company, I have been told. I found a company for the UK that lets you purchase files and variations of them individually. Adobe had limit in hoe many I could download. But, on the side; I did purchase Adobe Photo shop in 2013, and still use it regularly.
I was in a similar situation with another software. Even after I contacted them and they confirmed my service was cancelled the next month they still took money out. I ended up closing my bank account for that reason, it was a very expensive charge. Any "subscription' service is actually turning customer into a hostage. Hate it.
Years ago I got a security system from a local company. They sold the contract to one of the big security companies (ADT I think) and the original company went out of business. I decided to cancel after about 3 years of service and they claimed I had to pay for another year because their accounts auto-renew yearly and the only way to terminate is by sending a written notice by snail mail that must be received 30 days prior to the renewal date. What a scam. Auto renewals should be banned.
Many years ago, my wife purchased Adobe photoshop and can no longer install it on replacement machines because Adobe shut down the activation server. I think that was a disgusting tactic to get people to "upgrage" the product. We will NEVER buy another Adobe product. So they are building their reputation if nothing else.
A few years ago, I attempted to install a new version of Photoshop Elements on a new laptop. After a lengthy amount of time passed, I finally got to the "enter license number" part... would not work no way, no how, and no matter how many attempts. Used their help option; tech was in India, didn't understand the problem, and wanted remote access to my computer. Um, absolutely not! Software never installed, waste of money and time. I was livid.😡 No more Adobe for me. Your "shutdown activation server" part gives reason to my issue. Makes total sense!
I’ve run into that too. Why in the world would a piece of software that I own outright on a CD, not a subscription, need to check in with the mother ship in order to install on my computer? What about someone who doesn’t even have an internet connection? And if you insist on it for a 20 year old program, you better not disable the check in site.
AVG antivirus Software Exactly like this. They real you in with a discount for one year that you can cancel at any time. However, when you try to cancel they didn’t claim that you needed to cancel a month before and they’ve already charged you for the current year but the current year increases by almost $100. I spent months trying to get my money back and they never refunded the money.
I can still remember a huge review I created for my Geometry students. After discussion, my math department decided we were going to eliminate a specific topic, so I deleted it from the reivew. However, this was 20 years ago, and reformatting the whole document was too much of a pain. So I just blanked out the problem, and changed the answer in the key to "42" The students kept asking me, "You have 42 as the answer to number 21, but I can't find the question. I would ask them, "What is the ultimate answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything." Alas, few got it.
This is why I'm a proud user of ... let's call it... 'ajusted' Adobe software... Btw: Let's limit our praise for the FTC . Their actions are years and years overdue.
I keep a modem dial up sound file on my computer desktop to play to robocallers. Gets my number removed from their call list automatically because it’s gets flagged and “not a person”.
@@QuietRiverBear For the longest time I've wanted to have a "The number you have dialed..." recording on my voicemail, for those calls known to be spam that get sent straight to voicemail. I figure that anyone who knows me will get the joke. But it could also go sideways if I get an important call from someone who wasn't read in. So I've never made that leap... yet.
Rossman just complains about everything though, and usually he gets most of the stuff wrong. His thing is that he has realized that there is a huge audience of glass half empty types who like to be told the world is falling apart and out to rip them off, and he exploits those folks to the hilt! 😂
so many companies do what ADOBE is doing. We also found out AOL had been charging my grandma for service even though we had canceled it years earlier cause they just never turned off the auto billing on their end. This was back when you did a lot of that stuff on phones in the 90s still.
I just bought a new car. Comes with a 3 free month trial to Sirius XM. Received a letter from Sirius that stated. I had 7 days from receipt of the letter or 30 days after the initial activation of my 3-month free trial. To cancel the free trial or I would be bound by all of their terms and conditions including monitoring and tracking every move I make even after the Free trial. This is BS.
Yes, it is. I never got a letter from Sirius XM that said what your letter did. But they were obnoxious about sending lots of mailings asking me to extend or renew my subscription. Lately, I get spam E-mails that pretend to offer Sirius XM services, but are really phishing attempts going after my personal information, easily identified by the originating E-mail address. I block ‘em and delete ‘em upon receipt. But they just keep coming. Sigh.
That is legally required because they have to implicitly track you in order to provide the service. If they did not include those terms, they would be open to privacy lawsuits from you if they provided their service to you.
@@Tugela60 I'm completely aware that it's legal and I know why they do it. It's a free revenue stream for them. Even though you didn't ask for their service you didn't sign up for their service and you didn't want their service they still get to follow every move you make and sell that data to anyone who asks for it. I called the next day and you should have seen the calls it generated to me. And just in case anyone wants to get more from Sirius XM call and cancel the service they'll be on the phone offering you all kinds of nonsense just to get to track you. No thanks. Not unless they cut me in.
There was also a recent Adobe thing about their updated terms, which apparently forces you to license any content you edit for "improving their product", allowing them to do all kinds of stuff with whatever you make.
That is a misrepresentation. The bit you are talking about refers to the use of AI features, which involve sending your image to their servers, undergoing AI analysis, and then returning options back to you. It is the RESULTS of the AI analysis that belongs to them, not your image. They use that information to further improve their algorithms. They have to do this, otherwise they could not offer AI services such as generative fills without liability.
@@Tugela60adobe CS6 had content-aware fill even when airgapped. They might need it for some advanced fill, but, even then, they've made the ToS allow processing and retention in excess of what's technically necessary for the service. Only a fool would assume they dont plan to use the language they inserted.
@SG_01 The cloud aspect of it was them establishing the legal framework for identifying and removing illegal material from their servers, which they are obliged to do but otherwise would not be able to do. Consequently it needs to be stated explicitly in the TOS so there is no debate on the matter. All of the major online data storage services have similar policies.
Adobe used to be this golden company of integrity and service, giving people a good product that you could use in perpetuity. They would make major updates which would cost you a small fee to upgrade to but for the most part, if there was a version of Photoshop or Illustrator you liked, you could just keep that and use it for 10+ years if you wanted. That's sadly no longer the case and the company has become a greedy "by the numbers" company that cares more about milking the maximum profit out their customers with ever evolving tactics to make sure YOU pay the most and get the least.
Frontier cable has entered our area and if one reads their fine print, they have a pay to pay clause. If you want to cancel at anytime there is a $50.00 cancellation fee.
I recently moved to a new place and contacted Frontier because I didn't want to do business with Comcast. Frontier determined that if I wanted their services, I had to pay the bill for the previous resident who skipped. I went with Xfinity (Comcast) instead.
Steve; look into HP ink cartridges! HP has somehow placed a timer in ink cartages that regardless of use will expire, quit working, in X months, not certain on number of months, mine seemed like 3 or 4. For those of us that print little it became very costly. I gave up and trashed a perfectly good printer due to the cost of ink cartages!
This is a measley sum of money to be fined as a company with as much money as Adobe has. It would be like us getting charged $5. It's bullshit. Just another example of corporatism at work. "Rules for thee not for me"
Yeah, companies need to be subject to criminal asset forfeiture if the board uses the company as a tool to comit crimes against their supposed customers.
I will never subscribe to a software. I'll buy a new version if I want it. This move to subscriptions is because companies know the need for new versions is declining.
@@pcatful sure there is. IE, I had purchaced MessagEase keyboard (for Android), then it went subscription ONLY and harassed me with popups. I searched google and found an nearly identical keyboard (Thumb-Key) that was free, and wasn't on Play Store. That's what I have now, and there are other ways for almost everything, but they aren't always legal.
Chrysler removed 3D wiring diagrams and a part locator feature because it “wasn’t popular enough”. It is really hurting our ability to diagnose the garbage they are building.
When Adobe went to the subscription program, I changed. I do not do windows. I use Apple products. I currently use Nitro PDF Pro. It will add bookmarks, run spell check, add fillable text boxes automatically, and allow you to add pages anywhere in the PDF. The only things I miss from Adobe are the ability to do math in a PDF or change a text box from one line to multiple lines.
@@struanpeat5116 After a while you'll find that the whole set becomes fixed in your mind and then differences tend to show up more easily, keep at it.👍
most likely the GoPro presets were removed because they did not want to update the presets as new GoPros came out as well as avoiding testing the list when updating their product
21st century companies have figured a way around the “vote with your money” concept. When one company figures out some unethical way of making tons of money, their competitors will see that and do the same unethical thing. Now you’ve got nowhere left to “vote” against unethical practices. “Right to repair” is a great example. Company A figures out that if they make it impossible for third parties to service their product they can then cash in by overcharging customers for repair. So just “vote” for the competitor that doesn’t do that… if you can find one. They all see the success Company A has had with that method and do it themselves.
I has AOL for free for several years... as to adobe: my son signed up for adobe photoshop and we were stuck for a full year. I hope we can get something back over this.
One of my employers switched its model from the traditional approach, where you'd purchase a copy, then purchase support each year, to the subscription model. That was probably the best (financially) change they ever made. It really locks the consumer into the product much more thoroughly. Upgrades become "free" (rolled into the subscription cost), keeping the majority of customers more up to date, cutting the support cost to the company for older versions. It also means that to get out, change to a competitor, a customer just saves on this year's subscription cost but then has a big up-front cost to buy copies of the competing product. Unless the customer has a truly compelling reason to switch, they don't. They just keep paying that annual subscription, which seems less painful. It also means the company has a more consistent income stream, instead of worrying about finding new customers to sell the product to, to get that one big influx. Having seen just how lucrative a subscription model is for the vendor, I've mostly avoided being on the customer side of that. But at least my employer didn't go out of their way to make it difficult to cancel. Not because they were ethical; I think they never considered it.
I like Linux, but (speaking of extortion) it just refused to play nice with my Nvidia graphics cards so frequently, I gave up on it. Besides, at that time at least (about five years ago) even it's friendliest user-friendly version, Mint, was harder to set up than most average, day-to-day users would want to deal with--and I say this as bit of a geek who's been building and installing OSes on computers for years. Then again, now that Microsoft is losing their minds again, and Windows 10, which I never much liked, is coming to end-of-life, I may have to see what changes Linux has made in the last five or so years... and get an AMD Graphics card, at least for my work computer...
I use GIMP instead of photoshop. Stopped using photoshop a long time ago. Photoshop takes up half of my computer Hard Drive space, while GIMP is a lean & mean software. Best image manipulation program! Love it! And it is free!
I still use adobe photoshop cs6, no subscription here, works for me very well, oh also have GIMP installed, when I need to edit something and a friend can help me, and for video editing I like sony vegas, no subscription either.
@@LoneTiger There are hundreds of excellent, open-source, free software available out there that work on all three major platforms, for those who can spend a few extra minutes looking for them. They just install, run & do their work without much gimmicks or headaches. Most of them are backward compatible as well. 🕉
@@LoneTiger With CS6, word has it if you try to reinstall it again, it won't work. Supposedly Adobe nixed the activation servers. Can't confirm, only repeating what I've heard. Affinity is a better option and a one time purchase.
I love what GIMP can do, but I've always found the UI/workflow too much for my clunky for my work. Hoping the next release fixes that. Affinity is where I ended up post-Adobe. One-time purchase works for me.
The fact that Adobe went to a subscription based service for software is exactly why I quit using it. Not surprised in the slightest that they're pulling this crap.
Yep, use your buying power, it is the most powerful thing we have as consumers. Don't just complain and expect things to change. If you continue to give these companies money, they will continue with what they are doing.
I personally had to deal with this several years ago. They lure you in with a good deal and then hit you with the fine print. I don't blame anyone for pirating their products. Incredibly scummy company.
It is not fine print, you had the option of paying for a monthly subscription or an annual subscription, paid monthly. You were greedy and chose the cheapest option, namely an annual contract. If you terminate a contract early, there are penalties associated with that. Most contracts have terms like that in them.
In the 90s I used Quicken to do my home bookkeeping. The program ran independently on my little 486 and served me well for several years. I was quite happy with it. Tried to return to it sometime in the early 10s but found I now need an account and subscription to the parent website. The software also wasn’t as user friendly as it used to be. I cut and ran. Pen and paper are the future, as long as they don’t take paper away from us. Save the trees!
Finally one of these that affect me. I had a 2-year for school and after 1 they raised the amount. When I complained my choices were finish to the second year or cancel immediately and lose access and have to pay the equivalent of 2 MORE years for stopping too soon. They then tried to renew 6 months later, but I requested new plastic to stop it.
Are those single use Credit Card numbers a good idea for this stuff? I guess then you need a single use credit card number to sign up for the single use service, yah? Just to be safe.
I'm old enough to have used Adobe Photoshop when there wasn't any subscription crap. It was good. In school, I occasionally used the newer subscription adobe software but because ir was on the school computers. I like the program, but I refuse to pay a subscription for a single time product that won't be updated with new features or force features like stock photo gallery I simply don't and will never need.
Steve, I had to close my checking account to stop AOL from getting money out of it. I went to the bank to stop it, they told me it just wouldn’t work, they would simply keep getting it. And I had dial up and just moved into a new house without a landline. Some how they got my cell number and called me wanting their back pay. They didn’t get shit.
Adobe has long enjoyed a monopoly status. Photoshop used to be the only image manipulation program worth using, so dominant that the word photoshop became synonymous with the act of altering an image. Shady business practices like this is only possible when people don't have another choice, so the amount of backlash is a symptom of their downfall which already began years ago and will continue spiraling down fast if they don't change their ways. Perhaps it's inevitable anyway and they realize it and will continue to tie people to their products as long as they can.
Um... A photo shop used to be an actual business that processed and edited photographs when they were still made on film and paper. Adobe made some software that did that stuff and used the existing name.
@@Kineth1 No, they didn't create *some* software, they created a groundbreaking one of a kind software, miles ahead of any competition. And it was that software that shaped the modern lingo, not the old photo shops. Shopping an image has nothing to do with purchasing a photo and photoshopping as a verb did not exist before adobe's photoshop. Photoshop is a HUGE trademark and my point is it might fade away, just like the old photo shops you mentioned.
Affinity photo for photoshop and Capture One for Lightroom and DaVinci Resolve video editing Affinity photo is $50 one time buy Capture One is $299 Resolve is free
I'm an IT person and we have clients who use Adobe all the time. It's pretty clear when you select annual subscription with monthly payments, as you're getting a discounted rate (sometimes as much as 40% off the monthly price). When you want to cancel you just go in and decrease your subscription count to 0. You will still be charged for the year you already agreed to at a discounted rate if it has been less than a year, but after that the payment goes away. You don't even need to talk to a person. No idea how anyone could find that confusing. I would agree that the ToS change is a big deal though. If Adobe is not letting you continue to use the service under the previous ToS you initiated the subscription under then they need to not only let you cancel with no penalty, but I also they need to give you a refund as damages as they are no longer providing the service they are contractually obligated to.
When I was in college, I had a classmate whos mother died. She was administrating her estate and tried to cancel AOL. The rep said "Only the subscriber can cancel." Her response was "That is going to be a long distance phone call. Can she call collect."
Well, she needs to have the executor contact them. They can't legally accept cancellations from a third party otherwise. Otherwise random people would be calling up to cancel the accounts of people they did not like.
@@Golfnut_2099 Then she needs to hire a lawyer and send them an official notification in her capacity as executor. They are not going to close the account just on the say so of some random person who calls them up.
@@Tugela60 NO. What should have happened is the AOL rep should have said... We are sorry your mother passed away. You will need to send us a copy of the death certificate and document stating you are the executor of the estate. It is not that difficult. There is a reason AOL is out of business, or at least has not many current customers.
@Golfnut_2099 That is probably what they did, the point is you need proof. And yes, you would need a lawyer, or at least a notary, to get that done. You can't just call them up and tell them to cancel the account, which is probably what the OP did. If you did, they would say "sorry, no can do", as they should.
This started because of a terms of service change that you can not opt out of or close to get to your projects. Where the new terms you are forced to acquire allow Adobe to use your work in Adobe cloud for machine learning, aka, generative ai
I am a victim of this exact problem with Adobe, I didn't realize if I canceled I was going to get charged hundreds of dollars, currently they are suspending my subscription fee for 3 months but they wouldn't cancel it for free so I still have Adobe.
I did find the button. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet, in a disused lavatory, with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the leopard."
I've been charged $ 58 $62 every month for 5 yrs that my daughter borrowed our card for. Capital one won't stop them. I don't have adobe id numbers and my daughter is mentally ill.
And if your daughter had taken the card without permission and/or was a minor when it happened, get a lawyer to help you press criminal and/or civil charges against both the bank and the "service" provider for criminal neglect in confirming if your daughter was even legaly able or authorised to enter into a financially binding contract.
I've been doing my own personal embargos with companies for years. It takes a lot to make me never shop somewhere again, but once I hit that point or if I really find company ethics abhorrent, I will never shop there or do business with them again. I'm certain my absence has never been noticed by those companies, but it does make me feel better.
That's my biggest problem with so called "updates." Instead of just adding stuff to make it better, they take away stuff that made it good in the first place.
Steve, I've been a subscriber for quite a while. RE AOL: My father in law was an AOL paid and then free user for decades. After he passed away last year, I wanted to close his AOL email and news service account. I had to provide a death certificate and identify myself and relationship. Further, I have been using Cyberlink's software. I get video/audio/photo/color software at a fraction of Prem Pro's and Photshop's prices.
Once again, I agree with you 100%. But, I find it very frustrating when the entire industry goes crazy and leaves no "vote with your money" option. I will need another car in a few years and I know of no manufacturer that allows their consumers actually to own their cars now; instead, we must place a down-payment and then rent all of the utility. (And still they might disable it by mistake or for vengeance.)
The EU are sometimes good for something and have laws that are enforced to ensure that cancelling a contract is at the least as easy as signing up for it in the 1st place. Now they need to do something about the criminal TOS being arbitrarily changed and also lack of a decline button (and for the likes of AG preventing your hardware from normal operations due to not accepting their new TOS)
If you need to do everything manually you might as well learn the cheaper option to Premier. Also, those cheaper options usually have a fan base that create solutions you can plug into the main software. As Adobe loses customers those optional programs are getting a ton of support. GIMP is way better than it was years ago.
When the companies behave like this they should change the laws so the heads of legal, financial, sales and operations go to prison for a couple of years. Once they start facing jail time instead of paying company fines they will change their behavior because they don't want to go to jail.
I have known a number of people who worked in the AOL "Retention" department at the call center here in Albuquerque. And yeah, they were under a lot of pressure to try and get people to not cancel.
Whenever a company makes it difficult for me to cancel, I do a bank chargeback. Not only does it prevent them from ever charging you again, but usually slaps them with a juicy $25 charge. You ALWAYS win chargebacks with the bank when they make it impossible for you to cancel your subscription, as long as you made some sort of attempt. Everyone else should do the same.
Changing terms of service after you’ve bought a product without an option to decline needs to stop. Roku did it with TV’s. You had to accept the TOS after a SW update long after you bought the TV with no decline button. Only accept was there meaning you couldn’t use the TV unless you hit accept. That’s complete BS.
I agree
It's BS that they are doing it that way
Activision did the same with WoW and starcraft2
They won't let me access what I paid for unless I agree to their forced arbitration clause
I'm just happy it is finally coming out. They did something similar to me 5 years ago. If I canceled I would have owed 3 years equivalent.
Agreed! Or give consumers the ability to continue to use the service under the terms which were signed when you enrolled! How did we ever give one party in an agreement the right to change the terms of the agreement whenever they want?! Why even have an agreement at that point?
Don't forget Adobe made their last editions of Flash Player unusable despite it already being downloaded as retribution for losing their count case. Adobe punished the public for their own issues. There was no need to disable Flash Player because their intent was to stop updating and maintaining Flash Player.
It's notable that this lawsuit comes on the heels of Adobe trying to change the ToS to say that they have the rights to all the content you create with their software, up to the point that they can browse through all your documents and delete or edit anything they don't like. Moral issues aside, this is a HUGE problem for anyone who uses Adobe for work that is protected by NDAs or is otherwise confidential.
No wonder that there's huge numbers of people who are trying to cancel their Adobe subscriptions. And I'll bet quite a few of them are government employees.Possibly even DoJ employees...
They don't have the rights to your content. They have the rights to access, edit, etc, your content. Why? The software legally can't access it, be used for editing, etc. without that permission.
how would they know people were not using the gopro preset so it was "OK" to remove?
DoD won't be happy with that one. They will have to cancel Adobe across the entire military over security risks. Idiots.
@karlrovey yeah it was to give them access to your PRIVATE work, so they could use your stuff to train their AI. What artist not on Crack would be OK with that?
@@karlrovey By using their software you are entering in to a licensing agreement with Adobe to use your work per their TOS.
Subscription software is still kind of bizarre to my old school brain.
Companies including mine have discovered that you can actually make more money by charging a little each month instead of one big upfront cost. And the consumer, usually a small startup company, is much more willing to spend small payments instead of one big one especially if they live check to check.
Unfortunately it's possible because our fellow neighbors enable the practice.
Yeah, I totally prefer old-school buy it and pay for upgrades.
Honestly for me as much as it sucks it was the best thing Adobe ever did. I couldn't afford to buy their products and until you hit about the 5-year mark you won't have paid what it cost just to start day one. Which is also good for startups but it was a horrible proposition for anybody who had actually paid 600 bucks for Photoshop or $2,500 for the master collection already.
My father told me in the early '90s that this was the future of software. Basically we're all in danger of owning dumb terminals and renting our software and we're pretty damn close to that at this point. Chromebooks are more than dumb terminals especially when you get the Android and Linux app compatibility but otherwise it's a web terminal that gives you access to free and rented software lol
@@Rainmotorsports Adobe's original subscription plan, which I believe was just Photoshop for $10 a month or so was okay. The problem with the subscription plans is they are great in the beginning, but then you have to subscribe to more and more to get the subscription, or there are a flow of "extras" that require more payment - and that is without considering shady privacy and TOS tactics and games.
things that should not be legal:
-binding arbitration.
-early termination fees.
-making it more difficult to cancel a subscription than it is to sign up.
Also "no class action" clauses. Like that *alone* should be deemed proof of intent.
@@SakuraNyan Those clauses should not be legal for certain. It's like saying "We plan to do bad stuff, but you can't sue for it." It's like the signs on trucks that say they're not responsible if they damage your vehicle. They aren't actually legally binding. I'd definitely test the legality of these clauses.
Definitely no "binding" arbitration. Maybe arbitration as a first line remedy followed by in court litigation if the dispute is not resolved. Even before any arbitration or litigation, companies should seek to resolve differences to keep everyone happy. Everything related to privacy or usage of any client personally identifiable information or content should be 100% OPT IN with explicit notice, and needs to be granular similar to GDPR requirements in Europe. Charges and cancellation policies need to be clearly and simply explained up front without any obfuscation.
I don't think binding arbitration is a problem, its how companies abuse choosing their own venue and potentially "getting in bed" with the arbitrator by paying them so much money to host.
Arbitration needs to be regulated to be more unbiased
@josefmazzeo6628 I definitely agree that arbitration shouldn't be forced, and they should try to resolve any problems before arbitration/lawsuit time
@@josefmazzeo6628 Under a plain reading of the US constitution, binding arbitration clauses should be unconstitutional.
On the grounds that an arbitrator is *NOT* a jury, and most likely the amount exceeds USD$20.
Our shop switched to DaVinci Resolve years ago. It was a bit of a learning curve, but we love it......AND own it.
I've been using the Clipchamp that comes with Windows.... I've downloaded Resolve but haven't really found the motivation to jump into a new learning curve.
Is that a PDF editor?
@@craigmcpherson1455 DaVinci Resolve is video editing software. Like Adobe Premiere, except it's free. Though they do have a paid version, but it's not a subscription model. They have my business as I quit supporting Adobe years ago when they adopted the sub model.
@@craigmcpherson1455it is a video editing software
@@craigmcpherson1455 Only video
Don't forget that Adobe recently changed its general terms of service giving themselves the right to use your work and files to train its AI. They indirectly gave their Adobe Reader the ability to read all of your pdfs for AI purposes which is a massive privacy issue on many different levels, especially corporate level.
That actually a lesser issue, they get a non-exclusive license to everything you make with their products, and can freely browse, alter, and delete your files.
They didn't learn from companies like AOL, Wizard's of the Coast, or Unity that screwing your customer base over is bad for business.
Not to mention HIPAA-protected medical information.... Certain medical facilities that I have knowledge of receive their transcribed medical reports in Microsoft Word format from the transcriptionist. They convert the Word documents to PDFs and upload them to their medical records software. If Adobe really can see those, that's a huge privacy breach.
Adobe should be forced to use AOL as their corporate ISP.
I assume you're trying to be funny. Eh
@GeorgeWashingtonLaserMusket yea it wasnt
@@GeorgeWashingtonLaserMusket clearly you never used AoL in the early days on dialup internet.
They also changed their terms of service to give themselves pretty much unrestricted access and use of your private files saved on their site... and refused to allow you to access your files until you accept the terms.
That is the scummiest thing I have heard from a company in a long time.
Can't wait to see how this bites them in the back when they realize some companies have legal obligations to protect consumer privacy.
Isn't there a slight bit of misinformation? Doesn't it just give them the permission to scan the files for illegal stuff?
@@soundspark the tweaked terms after the initial backlash clarify this. The originally released terms did not, and gave the impression they would be using the content to train their AI. This is what caused a lot of backlash.
What their original intent was is uncertain, things could have been different if not for the backlash. Vague terms in TOS could be that way intentionally, we will never know.
But refusing to allow access to your own files before you accept the terms is scummy in any circumstance. At least offer a way to retrieve your data if you disagree with them.
@@duanefouche378 At least they disclose that they scan your files for CSAM instead of just hiding that fact behind some blog entry that nobody reads.
"You will own nothing, and be happy!"
The main problem with this is that too many people WILL be happy.
Klaus Schwab much.
"Capitalism breeds innovation!"
The innovation:
@@nsahandler Well it does. The problem is assuming all innovation is necessarily good!
Living in pods and eating bugs is where the real happiness begins
@@JH-pt6ih
I mean, the only real innovations Capitalism has gained is since Reagan has been the ability to milk as much money from the labor force as humanly possible
Seen this on Louis Rossmanns channel. Good on the FTC for actually doing something.
if you see Louis and Steve talking about the same thing, it's definitely worth paying attention to
Also dont buy LG smart TVs. :]
Louis has been on top of these type of rip-offs for a long time. Right to repair, also.
@@wolfsokaya Don't buy any smart TV. Ever heard of Weeping Angel?
Lol, the FTC actually *doing* something for the consumer is the day I die. This will probably end in either a settlement that amounts to probably $2 checks for people and literal couch change for Adobe, or nothing of note changes and Adobe just makes it ever so slightly more clear about the ETF. That's all I've noticed from the FTC these days; if they even do anything anymore.
I was on AOL when they switched to unlimited time. Predictably, people logged in and stayed logged in, tying up the few phone lines they had. After 2 months I was able to get on only twice at 2 in the morning. I called to cancel. They did not give me much push back because of all the other people who were calling to cancel. But they would not refund me for the previous two months because I was able to get online twice. A few years later my future wife tried to cancel the AOL account taking money out of her credit card. They wouldn't talk to her because she wasn't the account holder, her ex was. We had to contact the state attorney general who sent a letter to AOL. They sent back a very whiny letter to tell her it was canceled and we didn't have to get the AG involved.
If you run into these issues, you could call your credit card company and request a new card. That worked fir me twice in the past.
Similar thing happend to my grandmother. They had charged her for years for AOL when she hadnt had it for years. Even though we had canceled it. After a lot of PITA we got a refund on the years not used after a friend of the family that was a lawyer wrote them a letter.
@@GSP-76I don't even own a credit card, this is among the reasons why. If I need to order something online I go to Walmart and get what I call a burner card, because I load it once and that's it.
@@jasonbourne1596 That's even better.
@@GSP-76now days if you get. New card through the same entity, they forward on your recurring charges as a "courtesy", so that might not work.
Only courtesy it's for is allowing the credit card company to collect more fees.
Adobe - did not learn from AOL.
AOL - did not learn from dodo.
"Hard to quit" is an age-old scam. Time/Life music club did it before AOL was even a thing. Likewise with gyms and health clubs.
Steve, I think a DA should attempt to argue that if a board of executive uses the company to comit crimes and tresspas against their supposed customers through misleading or unrefusable one sided contract alterations, then the company/corporation, in it's entirety, should be considdered a tool of organised crime and thus subject to the same criminal asset forfeiture procedure as a burglars power drill, a robbers firearm or kitchen knife, a drunk drivers car or a C-P-perverts harddrives.
Corps serve stockholders - and no one else.
@@craigbarnett5992 That's why you go after the shareholders' assets too.
Adobe's business practices should qualify them for being prosecuted under the RICO act.
@@craigbarnett5992 Well, I don't see any stockholders receiving $10 million bonus. Those people are members of the board. So who are they really serving but themself, just like any other business. The only difference is a small business suffers when shit hits the fans. A corporation, the stockholders suffer while the board walks away with billions.
There is another thing they did that I wish would get addressed. If you bought Adobe Acrobat like version 9 you paid big money for it. Fast forward to today. When you installed the software it would reach out to Adobe licensing servers to check the license and let you install it. Adobe took those servers offline so when you buy a new PC you now can't license the software you "purchased." You own nothing if the company can render it useless whenever they want to.
When they took the servers for Acrobat 8 offline, they issued a key which would make it so you no longer needed to access those servers (in fact this was not only for Acrobat 8, but for the entire CS2 (Creative Suite 2) that they deprecated at the time). When they put this key on their Web page, though, they neglected to put it behind any kind of sign-in that restricted it to CS2 buyers. This made it so they effectively released this software (though admittedly quite old at the time) for free. That may have scared them off from doing this again, because they knew that even behind a sign-in it would effectively make that software easy to pirate. Of course, that doesn't make this acceptable from a consumer standpoint.
Finally, some illumination on subscription services. I purchased Adobe products for years at a hefty price. I knew what I was doing, was happy to do it because I was a professional who used the products and the output allowed me to offset the cost. When it went to subscription only, I immediately recognized what they were really doing and NEVER subscribed. Tried to warn people but I was simply viewed as conspiratorial.
Adobe A.I. tools T.O.S. give Adobe the rights to Users created content. This was in the news recently.
they swear they are not going do that tho lol they promise ..they didnt put it in there so they could do that ...they promise
We canceled Adobe for this reason alone. We have zero trust in them doing the right thing. We’re done with them.
@@Smart-Towel-RG-400 Yes 🙂 the "Trust me bro" worked well for LLT!
FTC FINALLY goes after ridiculously difficult opt out language and procedures.... NEEDS TO BE JUST THE START
FTC has been pretty active these last few years, went after Google and Microsoft for data scraping, a few other companies, and now Adobe… it’s just a start but I think in an interview the head stated they are outnumbered when it came to lawyers 1000 to 1
Until the Executives pay the fines and/or do time it all means nothing.
Subscription models and forced obsolescence are what companies do when they no longer have good legit reasons for customers to buy their new products.
For example, for about 98% of consumers, Microsoft Word 2003 had every feature they could want and ask for. Period. The only way MS can get more money from those people is to convince them that their old version is somehow obsolete. and the only way fwd is a subscription-based product.
I advise people to find the most recent version of the software that they can buy outright, get that, and ignore anything newer. For 99% of people, that works just fine.
Agreed. I actually switched to googlr doc's (free). When they went to a subscription model.
Yeah, I'm still using MS Office 2007 on my desktops. I actually use LibreOffice to write then import to MS Word to polish. Works fine so far.
That's why I'm switching over to Linux now. Tired of the BS from MS.
I use Open Office for this reason. It still allows me to save in file extensions that will work with other people's office programs.
in some of the old internet browsers from Netscape they had a few programs. one was called Composer. it was a decent word processor that could do a lot of things. font size, color, style, spell check and a some other things. you could write & publish web pages with it.
for most people it could do pretty much everything MS word could do.
i had a friend who had a little snail mail news letter that he had put out for a few years. when he made the change over to an online news group, he used Netscape Communicator to publish and run it.
i don't know if Netscape included Composer or the other things in 6.xx or higher, the last version i used was 4.9. it won't install on 64 bit systems.
I NEVER allow automatic withdrawals from a bank account by any service provider. I even get charged for NOT doing that by my phone service provider. Consumer cellular. I learned the hard way. Overdraft by the automatic withdrawal of less than two dollars cost me almost $40 in bank fees.
Hmm...I switched to CC few years ago and fired att, cut my bill in half for two cell lines. Their terms of service
are specific, you can cancel with no penalty at any time...
@@ltdees2362 Yeah, I've been with them for many years but they still charge me $5 a month to not use autopay. That started less than a year ago, I think. I don't use my phone much. Sometimes it's still in the car from the last trip I took three weeks ago. No, it's not on.
My work around for all subscription based services is to purchase a prepaid credit card from a store and use that to sign up. If I decide to cancel, then they have to contact me, and I get to hang up on them!
Or use a card nearing its expiration date. Try out the subscription services you're interested in. If you like it, update the info when it expires. If not, ha ha!
I wasn't able to get a prepaid card without giving my information, so they would still come after the debt, and I don't know of it's a new thing or not, but I have heard banks will let people charge your expired card, "for your convenience" so that none of our *precious subscriptions* are interrupted
@@kento7899that doesn't make any sense, have you even tried that in real life? Expired or not they can charge it just fine. The bank will honor it. The card number itself would need to change.
@@kento7899 i did that with Spotify, but they were still able to update my information to my new card number without even asking me.
Be aware that if you cancel a credit card because you lost it, the charges will automatically roll over to the new card.
So, if you choose to cancel a card to get rid of a nasty subscription, you may need to cancel all credit cards you have with that bank.
This is happening to me as we speak. Adobe pushed me into getting the annual subscription paid monthly and then they tried to RAISE the price DURING the year and charge me more! So I had to jump through hoops with customer service to get it canceled and they couldn’t cancel the service, they best they could do was waive a few months fee. I was told the last payment would be in May, but Lo and behold, in June I start getting charged for ANOTHER annual subscription paid monthly! Now I’m trying to contact them again and I’m told the phones aren’t available on the weekend, and when I try to chat with a representative, they shut down the chat saying there’s an error and to try back in 2 hours. They are the WORST!
Just cancel it online like everyone else then. Why are you calling them?
They can't raise the price of the annual option, it is a contract and the price for the year is set.
There are three options:
1) Monthly subscription, which can be cancelled at any time without penalty. This is the most expensive option. Your subscription remains active until the end of the billing cycle.
2) Annual subscription, payable monthly, which can be cancelled at a penalty of 50% of the remaining term. Your subscription ends immediatley when you cancel. This option is the intermediate option in terms of cost.
3) Annual subscription, paid up front, which can be cancelled any time without penalty. This is the cheapest option. Your subscription remains active until the end of the billing cycle.
They don't push you into anything, you sign up online and choose the option that best fits your anticipated needs.
I wanted to use Adobe's music audio files (Music loops) and other files, so i took out a monthly subscription for a year. I eventually lost interest. So figured that it would at least run out after a year. Then I received a notice that it would automatically renew, unless I contacted them. I could not find a way to do that. I wrote twice them but never got a response. Now my card has expired and they are sending mails. That seems to be the only way. I have not used any of thier files in years. The fee is not that much, but that is not the point. The only thing I could have done was to contact my cand card company, I have been told.
I found a company for the UK that lets you purchase files and variations of them individually. Adobe had limit in hoe many I could download. But, on the side; I did purchase Adobe Photo shop in 2013, and still use it regularly.
I was in a similar situation with another software. Even after I contacted them and they confirmed my service was cancelled the next month they still took money out. I ended up closing my bank account for that reason, it was a very expensive charge.
Any "subscription' service is actually turning customer into a hostage. Hate it.
Years ago I got a security system from a local company. They sold the contract to one of the big security companies (ADT I think) and the original company went out of business. I decided to cancel after about 3 years of service and they claimed I had to pay for another year because their accounts auto-renew yearly and the only way to terminate is by sending a written notice by snail mail that must be received 30 days prior to the renewal date. What a scam. Auto renewals should be banned.
Many years ago, my wife purchased Adobe photoshop and can no longer install it on replacement machines because Adobe shut down the activation server.
I think that was a disgusting tactic to get people to "upgrage" the product.
We will NEVER buy another Adobe product. So they are building their reputation if nothing else.
A few years ago, I attempted to install a new version of Photoshop Elements on a new laptop. After a lengthy amount of time passed, I finally got to the "enter license number" part... would not work no way, no how, and no matter how many attempts. Used their help option; tech was in India, didn't understand the problem, and wanted remote access to my computer. Um, absolutely not! Software never installed, waste of money and time. I was livid.😡 No more Adobe for me.
Your "shutdown activation server" part gives reason to my issue. Makes total sense!
I’ve run into that too. Why in the world would a piece of software that I own outright on a CD, not a subscription, need to check in with the mother ship in order to install on my computer? What about someone who doesn’t even have an internet connection? And if you insist on it for a 20 year old program, you better not disable the check in site.
Well... You *can *still activate it with this one neat trick.
Get the Affinity suite. Includes "Photo" a very good replacement for Photoshop. And you own it. 1/2 off currently, not coincidentally.
There is a video of a guy that recorded his phone call to AOL to cancel.
AVG antivirus Software Exactly like this. They real you in with a discount for one year that you can cancel at any time. However, when you try to cancel they didn’t claim that you needed to cancel a month before and they’ve already charged you for the current year but the current year increases by almost $100. I spent months trying to get my money back and they never refunded the money.
Go to small claims court.
You get extra credit today for mentioning Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy
Beware of THE LEOPARD!
I can still remember a huge review I created for my Geometry students. After discussion, my math department decided we were going to eliminate a specific topic, so I deleted it from the reivew. However, this was 20 years ago, and reformatting the whole document was too much of a pain. So I just blanked out the problem, and changed the answer in the key to "42"
The students kept asking me, "You have 42 as the answer to number 21, but I can't find the question.
I would ask them, "What is the ultimate answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything."
Alas, few got it.
@@LadyLithias - Yeah, but what's the question ? A task for the Amalgamated Union of Philosophers.
@@michaelmoorrees3585
“What do you get if you multiply 6 times 9?”
8-)
All the more reason to be glad I switch to Davinci Resolve years ago.
This is why I'm a proud user of ... let's call it... 'ajusted' Adobe software...
Btw: Let's limit our praise for the FTC . Their actions are years and years overdue.
Ah the good old days of dial up. I can hear the modem now logging on. Only seems like yesterday...... time is moving pretty fast.
I still have an old 9600baud modem. I don't even know where I could use it anymore.
I keep a modem dial up sound file on my computer desktop to play to robocallers. Gets my number removed from their call list automatically because it’s gets flagged and “not a person”.
@@QuietRiverBear that's fucking genious!😂
I still like the sound of a dial-up modem. There's just something nostalgic about it.
@@QuietRiverBear For the longest time I've wanted to have a "The number you have dialed..." recording on my voicemail, for those calls known to be spam that get sent straight to voicemail. I figure that anyone who knows me will get the joke. But it could also go sideways if I get an important call from someone who wasn't read in. So I've never made that leap... yet.
Adobe CEO went to the Wells Fargo Bank School of Management ‼️ Wells Fargo learned at the Sears Automotive management School.
Louis Rossmann’s channel has been taking about this as well.
Louis is hilarious!
Great rants!
👍👍🤣
yes, and not just the ETF but the TOS change that allows Adobe to use all of your personal work in CreativeCloud.
I learned something from Louis 😉
Steve has been on Louis' channel
He's going to destroy the legitimacy of Right to Repair if he keeps encouraging people to pirate stuff.
Rossman just complains about everything though, and usually he gets most of the stuff wrong.
His thing is that he has realized that there is a huge audience of glass half empty types who like to be told the world is falling apart and out to rip them off, and he exploits those folks to the hilt! 😂
What I remember about AOL is they kept sending me very colourful coasters. I remember I had a spindle full of them, like 50 or something.
That's weird, they always sent me a bunch of colorful frisbees
I heard they were for hanging in a fruit tree to scare away birds.
Every video I learn something. The biggest thing I have learned is to READ CONTRACTS AND AGREEMENTS!!!!
While waiting for lengthy litigation, your best option is to use a disposable virtual credit card like Privacy, Citi Virtual Credit Card numbers, etc.
They might still send you to collections. Not saying don't do that, juat saying be prepared.
so many companies do what ADOBE is doing. We also found out AOL had been charging my grandma for service even though we had canceled it years earlier cause they just never turned off the auto billing on their end. This was back when you did a lot of that stuff on phones in the 90s still.
I just bought a new car. Comes with a 3 free month trial to Sirius XM. Received a letter from Sirius that stated. I had 7 days from receipt of the letter or 30 days after the initial activation of my 3-month free trial. To cancel the free trial or I would be bound by all of their terms and conditions including monitoring and tracking every move I make even after the Free trial. This is BS.
Yes, it is. I never got a letter from Sirius XM that said what your letter did. But they were obnoxious about sending lots of mailings asking me to extend or renew my subscription. Lately, I get spam E-mails that pretend to offer Sirius XM services, but are really phishing attempts going after my personal information, easily identified by the originating E-mail address. I block ‘em and delete ‘em upon receipt. But they just keep coming. Sigh.
@@jonathanmiller295wow...I get those annoying Sirius XM
upgrade emails too.
That is legally required because they have to implicitly track you in order to provide the service. If they did not include those terms, they would be open to privacy lawsuits from you if they provided their service to you.
@@Tugela60 I'm completely aware that it's legal and I know why they do it. It's a free revenue stream for them. Even though you didn't ask for their service you didn't sign up for their service and you didn't want their service they still get to follow every move you make and sell that data to anyone who asks for it. I called the next day and you should have seen the calls it generated to me. And just in case anyone wants to get more from Sirius XM call and cancel the service they'll be on the phone offering you all kinds of nonsense just to get to track you. No thanks. Not unless they cut me in.
There was also a recent Adobe thing about their updated terms, which apparently forces you to license any content you edit for "improving their product", allowing them to do all kinds of stuff with whatever you make.
That is a misrepresentation. The bit you are talking about refers to the use of AI features, which involve sending your image to their servers, undergoing AI analysis, and then returning options back to you. It is the RESULTS of the AI analysis that belongs to them, not your image. They use that information to further improve their algorithms.
They have to do this, otherwise they could not offer AI services such as generative fills without liability.
@@Tugela60adobe CS6 had content-aware fill even when airgapped.
They might need it for some advanced fill, but, even then, they've made the ToS allow processing and retention in excess of what's technically necessary for the service. Only a fool would assume they dont plan to use the language they inserted.
I didn't research too deep into it, however it is more likely for their cloud product
@SG_01 The cloud aspect of it was them establishing the legal framework for identifying and removing illegal material from their servers, which they are obliged to do but otherwise would not be able to do. Consequently it needs to be stated explicitly in the TOS so there is no debate on the matter. All of the major online data storage services have similar policies.
@roflchopter11 They are talking about the AI regenerative fills, which is done on their servers.
Canceling AOL was like canceling a gym membership. They kept charging me for a year to not avail. Had to close bank account to stop it.
Software-as-a-service completely sucks, and I categorically refuse to take part in that scam.
Adobe used to be this golden company of integrity and service, giving people a good product that you could use in perpetuity. They would make major updates which would cost you a small fee to upgrade to but for the most part, if there was a version of Photoshop or Illustrator you liked, you could just keep that and use it for 10+ years if you wanted. That's sadly no longer the case and the company has become a greedy "by the numbers" company that cares more about milking the maximum profit out their customers with ever evolving tactics to make sure YOU pay the most and get the least.
Frontier cable has entered our area and if one reads their fine print, they have a pay to pay clause. If you want to cancel at anytime there is a $50.00 cancellation fee.
Good luck getting them to bill you if you cancel your card and return the equipment in person.
I recently moved to a new place and contacted Frontier because I didn't want to do business with Comcast. Frontier determined that if I wanted their services, I had to pay the bill for the previous resident who skipped. I went with Xfinity (Comcast) instead.
@@GarretTheGussythey'll probably send you to collections.
Most companies have a way to make it difficult for people to cancel, it just varies in difficulty company to company.
Steve; look into HP ink cartridges! HP has somehow placed a timer in ink cartages that regardless of use will expire, quit working, in X months, not certain on number of months, mine seemed like 3 or 4. For those of us that print little it became very costly. I gave up and trashed a perfectly good printer due to the cost of ink cartages!
Mine don't expire. There is a warning that pops up when ink is low but it still keeps on working if you ignore it.
This is a measley sum of money to be fined as a company with as much money as Adobe has.
It would be like us getting charged $5. It's bullshit. Just another example of corporatism at work.
"Rules for thee not for me"
Yeah, companies need to be subject to criminal asset forfeiture if the board uses the company as a tool to comit crimes against their supposed customers.
Likely an injunction too.
I will never subscribe to a software. I'll buy a new version if I want it.
This move to subscriptions is because companies know the need for new versions is declining.
Unfortunately there’s not always an option.
@@pcatful sure there is. IE, I had purchaced MessagEase keyboard (for Android), then it went subscription ONLY and harassed me with popups. I searched google and found an nearly identical keyboard (Thumb-Key) that was free, and wasn't on Play Store.
That's what I have now, and there are other ways for almost everything, but they aren't always legal.
@@pcatful there is always an option for people willing to learn, or ask (google).
Software is not a service, it is a product. Cable TV is a service. FTC needs to shut down all of these software 'subscription' models.
Chrysler removed 3D wiring diagrams and a part locator feature because it “wasn’t popular enough”. It is really hurting our ability to diagnose the garbage they are building.
They also just changed their ToS so they have a license to everything you create with their products
Good, Adobe just screwed me with this issue. I plan on ditching all Abode products.
Just do the monthly subscription then if you want to cancel whenever you want without an early termination penalty.
When Adobe went to the subscription program, I changed. I do not do windows. I use Apple products.
I currently use Nitro PDF Pro. It will add bookmarks, run spell check, add fillable text boxes automatically, and allow you to add pages anywhere in the PDF.
The only things I miss from Adobe are the ability to do math in a PDF or change a text box from one line to multiple lines.
Ben pinned by the sword to the shelf, Steve's LHS
I dont often find It that quickly, but i started in the bottom right and was very confused to find it almost instantly
@@struanpeat5116 After a while you'll find that the whole set becomes fixed in your mind and then differences tend to show up more easily, keep at it.👍
G'Day Bob, how's it been?
most likely the GoPro presets were removed because they did not want to update the presets as new GoPros came out as well as avoiding testing the list when updating their product
21st century companies have figured a way around the “vote with your money” concept. When one company figures out some unethical way of making tons of money, their competitors will see that and do the same unethical thing. Now you’ve got nowhere left to “vote” against unethical practices.
“Right to repair” is a great example. Company A figures out that if they make it impossible for third parties to service their product they can then cash in by overcharging customers for repair. So just “vote” for the competitor that doesn’t do that… if you can find one. They all see the success Company A has had with that method and do it themselves.
The large print giveth, the small print taketh away. - Tom Waits
The whole "subscription" model for software is totally obscene to start with.
Quicken. 😡
I has AOL for free for several years... as to adobe: my son signed up for adobe photoshop and we were stuck for a full year. I hope we can get something back over this.
If your son was not 18 or over, they cannot legally enforce the contract
One of my employers switched its model from the traditional approach, where you'd purchase a copy, then purchase support each year, to the subscription model. That was probably the best (financially) change they ever made. It really locks the consumer into the product much more thoroughly. Upgrades become "free" (rolled into the subscription cost), keeping the majority of customers more up to date, cutting the support cost to the company for older versions. It also means that to get out, change to a competitor, a customer just saves on this year's subscription cost but then has a big up-front cost to buy copies of the competing product. Unless the customer has a truly compelling reason to switch, they don't. They just keep paying that annual subscription, which seems less painful. It also means the company has a more consistent income stream, instead of worrying about finding new customers to sell the product to, to get that one big influx. Having seen just how lucrative a subscription model is for the vendor, I've mostly avoided being on the customer side of that. But at least my employer didn't go out of their way to make it difficult to cancel. Not because they were ethical; I think they never considered it.
Software subscription systems should be illegal.
I want to OWN what I buy.
And I'm over here on my Linux computer like...🤷♂
And? What does that have to do with Adobe?
I like Linux, but (speaking of extortion) it just refused to play nice with my Nvidia graphics cards so frequently, I gave up on it.
Besides, at that time at least (about five years ago) even it's friendliest user-friendly version, Mint, was harder to set up than most average, day-to-day users would want to deal with--and I say this as bit of a geek who's been building and installing OSes on computers for years.
Then again, now that Microsoft is losing their minds again, and Windows 10, which I never much liked, is coming to end-of-life, I may have to see what changes Linux has made in the last five or so years... and get an AMD Graphics card, at least for my work computer...
I use GIMP instead of photoshop. Stopped using photoshop a long time ago. Photoshop takes up half of my computer Hard Drive space, while GIMP is a lean & mean software. Best image manipulation program! Love it! And it is free!
I still use adobe photoshop cs6, no subscription here, works for me very well, oh also have GIMP installed, when I need to edit something and a friend can help me, and for video editing I like sony vegas, no subscription either.
@@LoneTiger There are hundreds of excellent, open-source, free software available out there that work on all three major platforms, for those who can spend a few extra minutes looking for them. They just install, run & do their work without much gimmicks or headaches. Most of them are backward compatible as well. 🕉
Same here. And I loved Photoshop.
@@LoneTiger With CS6, word has it if you try to reinstall it again, it won't work. Supposedly Adobe nixed the activation servers. Can't confirm, only repeating what I've heard. Affinity is a better option and a one time purchase.
I love what GIMP can do, but I've always found the UI/workflow too much for my clunky for my work. Hoping the next release fixes that. Affinity is where I ended up post-Adobe. One-time purchase works for me.
The fact that Adobe went to a subscription based service for software is exactly why I quit using it. Not surprised in the slightest that they're pulling this crap.
Yep, use your buying power, it is the most powerful thing we have as consumers. Don't just complain and expect things to change. If you continue to give these companies money, they will continue with what they are doing.
Abandoned Adobe in 2019. One of the most crooked and diabolical companies around.
I personally had to deal with this several years ago. They lure you in with a good deal and then hit you with the fine print.
I don't blame anyone for pirating their products. Incredibly scummy company.
It is not fine print, you had the option of paying for a monthly subscription or an annual subscription, paid monthly. You were greedy and chose the cheapest option, namely an annual contract. If you terminate a contract early, there are penalties associated with that. Most contracts have terms like that in them.
In the 90s I used Quicken to do my home bookkeeping. The program ran independently on my little 486 and served me well for several years. I was quite happy with it. Tried to return to it sometime in the early 10s but found I now need an account and subscription to the parent website. The software also wasn’t as user friendly as it used to be. I cut and ran. Pen and paper are the future, as long as they don’t take paper away from us. Save the trees!
I remember an interview where they asked Netflix CEO to attempt to cancel his subscription; they had made so difficult he couldn't do it.
I had no issues. Maybe the guy always had other people do that stuff for him and was clueless about practical stuff like that?
I hate the free apps that ask for credit card info to use the first 30 days. Not going to do it. They obviously don't have faith that you'll like it.
That is because it is a subscription, the first month of which is free. You can cancel it at no cost in the first month.
Finally one of these that affect me. I had a 2-year for school and after 1 they raised the amount. When I complained my choices were finish to the second year or cancel immediately and lose access and have to pay the equivalent of 2 MORE years for stopping too soon. They then tried to renew 6 months later, but I requested new plastic to stop it.
Someone else that realizes that cannot bill you without any info! Gj
Are those single use Credit Card numbers a good idea for this stuff? I guess then you need a single use credit card number to sign up for the single use service, yah? Just to be safe.
I'm old enough to have used Adobe Photoshop when there wasn't any subscription crap. It was good. In school, I occasionally used the newer subscription adobe software but because ir was on the school computers. I like the program, but I refuse to pay a subscription for a single time product that won't be updated with new features or force features like stock photo gallery I simply don't and will never need.
Steve, I had to close my checking account to stop AOL from getting money out of it. I went to the bank to stop it, they told me it just wouldn’t work, they would simply keep getting it. And I had dial up and just moved into a new house without a landline. Some how they got my cell number and called me wanting their back pay. They didn’t get shit.
Adobe has long enjoyed a monopoly status. Photoshop used to be the only image manipulation program worth using, so dominant that the word photoshop became synonymous with the act of altering an image. Shady business practices like this is only possible when people don't have another choice, so the amount of backlash is a symptom of their downfall which already began years ago and will continue spiraling down fast if they don't change their ways. Perhaps it's inevitable anyway and they realize it and will continue to tie people to their products as long as they can.
When you have a good product already but still require MORE money..
Um... A photo shop used to be an actual business that processed and edited photographs when they were still made on film and paper. Adobe made some software that did that stuff and used the existing name.
@@Kineth1 No, they didn't create *some* software, they created a groundbreaking one of a kind software, miles ahead of any competition. And it was that software that shaped the modern lingo, not the old photo shops. Shopping an image has nothing to do with purchasing a photo and photoshopping as a verb did not exist before adobe's photoshop.
Photoshop is a HUGE trademark and my point is it might fade away, just like the old photo shops you mentioned.
We need alternatives to Adobe.
Davinci resolve is free
Sony Vegas also exists.
Affinity photo for photoshop and Capture One for Lightroom and DaVinci Resolve video editing
Affinity photo is $50 one time buy
Capture One is $299
Resolve is free
Look into the 'use content stored in our cloud for advertising and other purposes' part of the EULA.
You just stop paying
I'm an IT person and we have clients who use Adobe all the time. It's pretty clear when you select annual subscription with monthly payments, as you're getting a discounted rate (sometimes as much as 40% off the monthly price). When you want to cancel you just go in and decrease your subscription count to 0. You will still be charged for the year you already agreed to at a discounted rate if it has been less than a year, but after that the payment goes away. You don't even need to talk to a person. No idea how anyone could find that confusing.
I would agree that the ToS change is a big deal though. If Adobe is not letting you continue to use the service under the previous ToS you initiated the subscription under then they need to not only let you cancel with no penalty, but I also they need to give you a refund as damages as they are no longer providing the service they are contractually obligated to.
Should have read, "Americans are tired of corporate America " period!
When I was in college, I had a classmate whos mother died. She was administrating her estate and tried to cancel AOL. The rep said "Only the subscriber can cancel."
Her response was "That is going to be a long distance phone call. Can she call collect."
Well, she needs to have the executor contact them. They can't legally accept cancellations from a third party otherwise. Otherwise random people would be calling up to cancel the accounts of people they did not like.
@@Tugela60 She was the person in charge of the estate.
@@Golfnut_2099 Then she needs to hire a lawyer and send them an official notification in her capacity as executor. They are not going to close the account just on the say so of some random person who calls them up.
@@Tugela60 NO. What should have happened is the AOL rep should have said... We are sorry your mother passed away. You will need to send us a copy of the death certificate and document stating you are the executor of the estate.
It is not that difficult.
There is a reason AOL is out of business, or at least has not many current customers.
@Golfnut_2099 That is probably what they did, the point is you need proof. And yes, you would need a lawyer, or at least a notary, to get that done. You can't just call them up and tell them to cancel the account, which is probably what the OP did. If you did, they would say "sorry, no can do", as they should.
Ben pinned on the right by the hilt of the sword.
"Great minds seldom differ"😁
This started because of a terms of service change that you can not opt out of or close to get to your projects. Where the new terms you are forced to acquire allow Adobe to use your work in Adobe cloud for machine learning, aka, generative ai
I am a victim of this exact problem with Adobe, I didn't realize if I canceled I was going to get charged hundreds of dollars, currently they are suspending my subscription fee for 3 months but they wouldn't cancel it for free so I still have Adobe.
GIMP is a free and open source version of photoshop.
I did find the button. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet, in a disused lavatory, with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the leopard."
Dang, so I was not the only one who had issues with AOL and Adobe
I've been charged $ 58 $62 every month for 5 yrs that my daughter borrowed our card for. Capital one won't stop them. I don't have adobe id numbers and my daughter is mentally ill.
Cancel the card
And if that doesn't work cancel the bank account.
And if your daughter had taken the card without permission and/or was a minor when it happened, get a lawyer to help you press criminal and/or civil charges against both the bank and the "service" provider for criminal neglect in confirming if your daughter was even legaly able or authorised to enter into a financially binding contract.
@davebigdog You can't make stuff up if you do that 😂
@@Tugela60 how come someone can't cancel their card for any reason
I've been doing my own personal embargos with companies for years. It takes a lot to make me never shop somewhere again, but once I hit that point or if I really find company ethics abhorrent, I will never shop there or do business with them again. I'm certain my absence has never been noticed by those companies, but it does make me feel better.
That's my biggest problem with so called "updates." Instead of just adding stuff to make it better, they take away stuff that made it good in the first place.
Tat is why I dumped Apple.
SiriusXM needs to be called out for their cancellation policy. Worst i've ever seen.
Steve, I've been a subscriber for quite a while. RE AOL: My father in law was an AOL paid and then free user for decades. After he passed away last year, I wanted to close his AOL email and news service account. I had to provide a death certificate and identify myself and relationship. Further, I have been using Cyberlink's software. I get video/audio/photo/color software at a fraction of Prem Pro's and Photshop's prices.
I dropped Adobe products monthly subscription years ago . In fact ,I no longer use anything branded Adobe that I am aware of .
Once again, I agree with you 100%. But, I find it very frustrating when the entire industry goes crazy and leaves no "vote with your money" option. I will need another car in a few years and I know of no manufacturer that allows their consumers actually to own their cars now; instead, we must place a down-payment and then rent all of the utility. (And still they might disable it by mistake or for vengeance.)
I'm not surprised. It been more than a decade that Adobe seems very shady to me.
I'm happy with my PhotoShop 7.0 client-side app. screw the subscription model
The EU are sometimes good for something and have laws that are enforced to ensure that cancelling a contract is at the least as easy as signing up for it in the 1st place. Now they need to do something about the criminal TOS being arbitrarily changed and also lack of a decline button (and for the likes of AG preventing your hardware from normal operations due to not accepting their new TOS)
If you need to do everything manually you might as well learn the cheaper option to Premier. Also, those cheaper options usually have a fan base that create solutions you can plug into the main software. As Adobe loses customers those optional programs are getting a ton of support. GIMP is way better than it was years ago.
I recently cancelled the Adobe subscription after having it several years. Was able to cancel online without any issues whatsoever.
When the companies behave like this they should change the laws so the heads of legal, financial, sales and operations go to prison for a couple of years. Once they start facing jail time instead of paying company fines they will change their behavior because they don't want to go to jail.
I have known a number of people who worked in the AOL "Retention" department at the call center here in Albuquerque. And yeah, they were under a lot of pressure to try and get people to not cancel.
Whenever a company makes it difficult for me to cancel, I do a bank chargeback. Not only does it prevent them from ever charging you again, but usually slaps them with a juicy $25 charge. You ALWAYS win chargebacks with the bank when they make it impossible for you to cancel your subscription, as long as you made some sort of attempt.
Everyone else should do the same.
Glad I saw your story after the free trial. I tried to cancel Adobe and now they're charging me $99 early termination fee, which was never disclosed.