There are versions of Photoshop, Lightroom, and Audition that several groups of collaborating hackers have denuded of all online connectivity. They're all several years old and run in translation (Rosetta 2) and require Little Snitch, but they exist.
I'm old enough to remember a world before DRM. I'm old enough that I was already a veteran of the computing world when Big Steve made his announcement that he was deliberately stripping the DRM from all the music that Apple sold, because, as he pointed out, DRM weakened the experience for legal purchasers of music but did nothing to weaken the experience for pirates, making it a step backward in the competition with them.
It is absolutely no coincidence that Apple started a streaming service hopelessly tangled in DRM and revoking the entire idea of "ownership" four years after Big Steve died. He was already richer than hell before he returned to Apple. He wanted to do something other than maximize profits: He wanted to not be an asshole. His passing opened the way for the mindset of "We're big enough to get away with it, so we're doing it, period." "Don't be an asshole" was a philosophy for sentimental suckers.
And so, welcome to a world where you own the physical device outright, but you pay a monthly fee just to have certain software sitting on the device, even if you don't use it at all. It's kind of like that line from Ducktales: Scrooge goes forward in time, and his nephews have all turned into fat assholes after taking over his company, and they create what they call a "privilege of working for us tax," in order to claw money back out of the wallets of their own employees.
Adobe is a late-stage Dwarven empire. They're delving too greedily, and too deep. The freakin' FTC Balrog needs to come stomping in, any day now.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2024-06-09 06:06 am (UTC)I'm old enough to remember a world before DRM. I'm old enough that I was already a veteran of the computing world when Big Steve made his announcement that he was deliberately stripping the DRM from all the music that Apple sold, because, as he pointed out, DRM weakened the experience for legal purchasers of music but did nothing to weaken the experience for pirates, making it a step backward in the competition with them.
It is absolutely no coincidence that Apple started a streaming service hopelessly tangled in DRM and revoking the entire idea of "ownership" four years after Big Steve died. He was already richer than hell before he returned to Apple. He wanted to do something other than maximize profits: He wanted to not be an asshole. His passing opened the way for the mindset of "We're big enough to get away with it, so we're doing it, period." "Don't be an asshole" was a philosophy for sentimental suckers.
And so, welcome to a world where you own the physical device outright, but you pay a monthly fee just to have certain software sitting on the device, even if you don't use it at all. It's kind of like that line from Ducktales: Scrooge goes forward in time, and his nephews have all turned into fat assholes after taking over his company, and they create what they call a "privilege of working for us tax," in order to claw money back out of the wallets of their own employees.
Adobe is a late-stage Dwarven empire. They're delving too greedily, and too deep. The freakin' FTC Balrog needs to come stomping in, any day now.