I had planned to announce this on my 11th anniversary of joining these Adobe forums (8/11), but several things made me change 8/11 to 7/11. Still, almost 11 years on the Adobe forums, more than 20,000 posts and judging by the number of points gathered in those years, not all my posts were utter rubbish. Some of you may have found one or two to be helpful.
But, luck never lasts a lifetime, unless you die young.
The same happened to me. My luck has run out. In no way comparable to the tragic loss of 9/11, so this is certainly no big deal, but I felt I owed it to you to explain my reasons.
I’m leaving the forums. It is Time to Say Goodbye…
My time on the forums has mostly been pleasant, and I enjoyed sharing what little I know about editing and hardware to help others, despite that some of you perceived me to be an arrogant know-it-all. Well, you can’t please everybody, especially if you are the bearer of bad news, as happened regularly on the hardware forum.
But all things come to an end eventually.
There are two things certain in life: Taxes and Death.
Some argue that taxes are even worse, because you have to pay them every year, death only happens once in a lifetime.
Well, that brings me to the reason for my departure. Adobe has levied a new tax with the introduction of CC, their Cash Cow model. This was not done in a democratic process, it was a single sided action and there is no guarantee that Adobe tax rates will not rise significantly in the near future. Governments have done it often when they needed money and what would stop Adobe from doing the same thing? Once on the Cash Cow wagon you are hooked for life. There is no return.
As I said, taxes are worse than death, because you have to pay taxes every year, instead of only once in a lifetime. Luckily, there is no legal obligation to pay those Adobe taxes. I refuse to be held hostage by Adobe, I will not voluntarily put on Adobe tax hand-cuffs. Jeez, I hate taxes…
So, I decided to leave Adobe. I will not rent. I will not submit to their taxes.
I offered them a lump sum payment for a lifelong subscription of CC, exactly like you do with the authorities in certain tax-havens, but no…
I’m not going the Cash Cow route. No Harm done. I’ll continue using CS6 or switch to Avid Symphony or Edius.
There are three kinds of people:
1. Those who make things happen,
2. Those who watch things happen,
3. Those who wonder what happened.
The first category is the group that make a clear statement not to pay Adobe taxes, the second category is the group who have accepted the Cash Cow model, possibly lured by the attractive first year pricing or the lack of a valid upgrade path, and the third category is where the majority of the subscribers end up after tax rates have been increased, which is inevitable.
My decision to leave Adobe does have consequences for the PPBM benchmark test. I can’t speak for Bill, but I will no longer put any effort into developing a Cash Cow version of the benchmark, so the CS6 version, as far as I’m concerned, is the latest version. Avid and/or Edius may well receive a new benchmark they never had.
I hope I haven’t offended too many people here.
Time to Say Goodbye...
Mods: Since I posted in several forums, I posted this message in several forums as well. That is double or even triple posting. Given your increased sensitivity lately about anything that deviates from Adobe Marketing hype, you may want to make this an Announcement, a RIP if you so wish.