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Comment by 2devnull | Hacker News Reader

No offense but you sort of prove the parent’s point. People who work on computers professionally but don’t use open source because “it’s too complicated to get going” are making an error. Adobe’s UX being addictive is the point.

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Many products have been successful not because they bring new features to the market but because they make existing features trivial to use. UX is everything.

It really is. Arguably the most famous example among HN readers was BrandonM’s comment[0] on Dropbox’s launch thread. Was he correct that you can built it trivially using 2007 software? Sure, if you had the correct mix of specialized knowledge of the software and networking. Dropbox was not a novel idea, but that’s now where it value was; the value proposition relied 100% on its UX.

If MSFT and Apple each shipped a Dropbox competitor that was highly integrated, available, and pushed flagship software suits to adopt it as well within a year, would Dropbox had become as large as it did? I would guess not. It would likely be a downgrade from what Dropbox offered (the separate ecosystems staying bifurcated comes to mind), but a zero install solution would be the only thing that could make it easier.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224

This is like the whole reason we use slack everywhere lol

No offense taken, I'm simply pointing out that the user experience of setting up and leveraging open source is a challenge to wider adoption.

I expect most of us (hackers) have tried these tools, but not your average user. When I see comments like OP, it's coming from the hacker perspective imo.

The user is not making an error, the error is assuming everyone should be a hacker.

The user is definitively making an error here. Especially when the user is actually not a user but a producer (supposedly artists). As an artist you should strive to have a certain level of ownership and independence.

It gets worse, there was a thread a couple weeks ago about Envato (ex ThemeForest) asking all their authors for "free/unlimited" rights for anything they have to be used to train AI models for NO compensation. It was eye opening how many "artists" and "producers" accepts the status quo as is, and think it's still a good idea to collect whatever this company throw on their way.

It's really hard to feel sorry for these people...

How many work hours would it take for the average professional artist to get to this level of technical proficiency? Given the opportunity cost I'm sure you could argue it would be a net loss for the employer.

Employers don't need their graphic artists to be able to use git and navigate Python dependencies. That's why they have IT.

The mistake companies make is in not fully embracing this.

Alright, once you get it running the UI for generative fill can be used by a graphic artist, and now you're several months ahead of your competitors, but still the UI is a little rough. But it's open source, so you have your techs make it a little better.

Now your company needs to make it easy to submit a pull request, or you're suddenly maintaining your own fork, which you're going to want out of as soon as you have an alternative, and soon your company is paying $$$$ to Adobe again.

I work with a lot of people that don’t care. They have a job with deadline, for which they already gained a lot of knowledge, and need to keep it updated. So no, the supplementary friction is not acceptable, even for « good » reason.

What type of "work on computers professionally" are we talking about? Working on a computer as a professional artist or writer is much different than working on a computer as a programmer/hacker professionally. For the first, the computer is just a tool like a pencil or a paintbrush. I wouldn't expect them to know how to figure out how to use things unless it has a very very simple UX.

Isn't any UX that is the best available "addictive"?

Isn't the point of your UX to be the best available?

Implying malicious intent to designing good software is a bit weird, whatever Adobe might be doing in terms of delivery and pricing.

This is not true most people don't have the techinical skills to do what you are saying.

Most designers work entirely within software like photoshop or figma that are auto installed or cloud based.

its not addictive, its cutting edge and has a price tag for that. open source will follow up with the cheap entry point for the nerds. If you dont like that, then you need to throw proper money at your favourite github accounts because that is fundamental difference. Adobe is funding high end tech solutions by selling a product. if you have another way to to achieve that, do tell.

too many college canteen marxists in this place is my thinking.

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