US sues Adobe for hiding termination fees and making it difficult to cancel subscriptions

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Aisha Malik 10:08 AM PDT • June 17, 2024
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The U.S. Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit against Adobe alleging that the company deceives consumers by hiding the early-termination fee and making it difficult for people to cancel their subscriptions.
In the complaint filed on Monday, the DOJ wrote that “Adobe has harmed consumers by enrolling them in its default, most lucrative subscription plan without clearly disclosing important plan terms.”

The government says Adobe pushed consumers toward the “annual paid monthly” subscription without informing them that canceling the plan in the first year would cost hundreds of dollars.
Adobe only discloses the early-termination fees when subscribers attempt to cancel, and turns the early-termination fee into a “powerful retention tool” by trapping consumers in subscriptions that they no longer want, the complaint says.

“During enrollment, Adobe hides material terms of its APM plan in fine print and behind option textboxes and hyperlinks, proving disclosures that are designed to go unnoticed and that most consumers never see,” according to the complaint. “Adobe then deters cancellations by employing an onerous and complicated cancellation process.”
Adobe says it plans to refute the claims in court.
“Subscription services are convenient, flexible and cost effective to allow users to choose the plan that best fits their needs, timeline and budget,” said Adobe’s General Counsel and Chief Trust Officer Dana Rao, in a statement. “Our priority is to always ensure our customers have a positive experience. We are transparent with the terms and conditions of our subscription agreements and have a simple cancellation process.”

The DOJ’s complaint says Adobe has violated federal laws designed to protect consumers. The government is seeking “injunctive relief, civil penalties, equitable monetary relief, as well as other relief.”

Adobe shifted to a subscription model in 2012 and started requiring consumers to pay for access to the company’s software on a recurring basis. In the past, users could access the company’s software after paying a one-time fee. Subscriptions account for most of the company’s revenue, the Federal Trade Commission notes.
 
My artistic ability stops at drawing a stickman. Is there any real reason why another graphics software program can't be used?

This feels like a industry self inflicting a wound on itself because it refuses to use any software it's not framiler with or am I missing something?
 
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My artistic ability stops at drawing a stickman. Is there any real reason why another graphics software program can't be used?

This feels like a industry self inflicting a wound on itself because it refuses to use any software it's not framiler with or am I missing something?
Adobe offers the best version of many different types of software. Photoshop for photo editing, Premiere for video editing, Illustrator for vector graphics, and they offer all of these under one subscription. You can subscribe for an individual piece of software but they make that inconvenient. The complete subscription is the most convenient and easiest to sign up for. Additionally if you are the kind of person who is using one piece of Adobe software you're likely the kind of person who professionally needs access to multiple. Adobe software in basically every category is leagues better than the competition.

So when you sign up, you're probably just looking to use one software from them. But then they shove in your face the seemingly cost effective all-inclusive subscription. It's not a lot more to get the all-inclusive package, so you go for it, given that the hypothetical buyer probably would actually use multiple Adobe softwares. Then when you want to cancel, you realize that you're locked in for a YEAR and they did not tell you this when you signed up! Now you're on the hook for a lot more money than you originally expected. Good luck calling or emailing their customer support, it's shit.

FUCK ADOBE
 
Pirate everything, it's both the moral and pro-consumer thing to do. Even if you like the company always have a pirated copy at hand so that when they eventually turn gay and retarded you can always enjoy the unmolested version.
I'm gonna assume pirating something for professional use has inherently more dangers and pitfalls then private use.
 
how would they even prove that the content you made was created on pirated software.
I was at a radio cluster that upgraded a fuckton of machines to CS6, iirc it involved an Adobe rep going full prostate exam on our networks
they weren't too happy to find out that most of our shit had a pirate copy of 1.5, and if you REALLY dug you could even find the installs for Cool Edit Pro 2.0 including the crack and documentation from K00£ D00DZ or whoever
 
I've put in hundreds of hours into learning Premiere. I'm not learning a new software.
Nigga its not fucking Vegas or the software made for retards who can't do basic cuts, if you managed to learn premiere Da Vinci is the same shit just a shittier UI, not that many plugins designed for it and the maybe potential of it improving unlike adobe who just sits around with a thumb up their asses making Premiere worse every year
 
They've convinced enough people that they are the industry standard to the point that many design/editing/etc. gigs where they require project files its always adobe, photoshop/after effects etc. so you cant even use alternate software if you want to.

Adobe has used their position of being seen as the industry standard, the default photo-editing software, etc. to price gauge people to an insane degree, to abruptly change their TOS to be able to spy on peoples work, and use peoples intellectual property.

It's fucked, Microsoft, Google, all these big companies once they get comfortable at the top that's when the greed really comes out and the anti-consumer practices start to become over the top.

I'm praying on adobes downfall.
It isn't just Adobe that's like that. If you're a CAD engineer you're expected to use SolidWorks, and wouldn't you know it but those guys update their file format every year, rendering older versions of those programs unable to read it. So instead of a subscription like Adobe they just mandate you buy a brand new copy every year if you want to keep working in that field.
 
Pirate everything, it's both the moral and pro-consumer thing to do. Even if you like the company always have a pirated copy at hand so that when they eventually turn gay and retarded you can always enjoy the unmolested version.
I get what you're saying but you gotta remember that most people using Adobe are doing it through their business, not as an individual. It's not as feasible for a business to pirate software than it is for an individual. That's part of why this shit is so bad.
 
Is it still possible to pirate Photoshop after they switched to their gay-ass subscription model? I'd like to compare it against Procreate but it'll be a cold day in hell before Adobe gets a single shekel out of me.
 
Is it still possible to pirate Photoshop after they switched to their gay-ass subscription model? I'd like to compare it against Procreate but it'll be a cold day in hell before Adobe gets a single shekel out of me.
I recall getting a relative Photoshop that was pretty fresh at the time, like, ten years ago or so?
iitc it wasn't super complicated
 
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