Adobe's 9% Flash tax

On top of that, it only comes into effect after $50k revenue. If Flash reduces your development costs (not making that argument one way or another), then this is a great deal for small developers and will only be pushing away the large developers who can afford to invest in other technologies.

Is this a good idea? I don't know. I'm guessing this is the same type of licensing that a game engine would offer, but it does sound very expensive.

I'm seriously regretting that decision. Legally, it was "the right" thing to do.

But personally, I feel I paid the people that are screwing me -- as one person recently commented about the content industry, he was ceasing to pay those people so that they could use the money to force their evermore draconian policies (of self-interest) on him and society.

Furthermore, due to Adobe's clear mistakes, I needed support from Adobe Support. And despite all the money they had received from me, the experience was absolutely horrible. Eventually, I was the one explaining (repeatedly) to their support technicians what they needed to do. It finally came down to luck of the draw and reaching an associate who was actually willing to demonstrate a little initiative.

All this boils down to personal anecdote, but for me that is: Adobe goes to extremes to seem/be undeserving of the license fees they demand.

a) We are self-aware enough to acknowledge that the end of flash being relevant is nigh, so let's monetize this thing while we can

b) We think flash is a growing platform, and we're in a position of strength (like Apple's App Store), so the percent of revenue is something people will hate but tolerate

(Due to MBAs' infrequent use of the word 'nigh', b) is more likely)

Is this an accurate assessment?

Can that actually be legally enforced? I assume this tax would be part of the TOS for using an authoring tool. A consumer has to agree to the TOS for using/downloading the Flash client. But if I want to put up an SWF file I built without Adobe tools... who can legally stop me?

Unless there's some kind of encryption key for generating signed Flash files necessary for the functionality, and circumventing them would run afoul of the DMCA...

Since when has the SWF format had "fundamental openness"? It's the exact opposite.

CA (Computer Associates) made this their primary product revenue stream by buying up old software (eg. Clipper, Ingres, etc.) that still had an installed base. They invested minimal amounts into product maintenance (make sure it works on the newest version of Windows) and rake in the licensing revenue from the remaining user base.

The only thing different is that Adobe is essentially doing it to themselves--monetizing their own long tail instead of selling to a long-tail specialist and moving on.

I disagree it is 'pretty peculiar', I think it is 'pretty obvious' why Adobe has done this. After years of growth and dividends and success, they have gone through a decade of sideways motions where they are resorting various and sundry cost cutting moves to keep their stock afloat. They have 'good enough' disease.

That is the disease where computers and their products which run on those computers have become 'good enough' and their customer base isn't rolling over every 12months to pony up an upgrade fee. One of the interesting ways to see this effect is to look for sales of technical books about older versions of a particular software. When they are still selling well it is because those folks are using the 'old' version rather than upgrade.

Given the pricing model Adobe doesn't have a good way to capture that market. They have aggressively been trying to shut down re-sale of older versions on Ebay and elsewhere but the courts have handed them a couple of set backs too because their licenses do actually allow it.

So they have a product, Flash, which they have already said is 'dead' [2] in that its future is maintenance only, and so they perhaps figure, what the heck, lets get some money out of it before it goes.

[1] http://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&...

[2] http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/10/technology/adobe_flash/index...

Please, Adobe, keep this shit up.

This. Seems near impossible to keep track of all those different devs, monetizing in so many different ways.

If my game makes 60k one year, then 300k the next year because I poured money into marketing, development, new content, better experience, etc.... why should adobe get more money? Especially if none of the new growth had anything to do with the licensing. This is so insane... Why would anyone agree to this?

There is a huge potential for security exploits in 3d code. Drivers are optimized for performance and glitches will likely allow malicious code.

Forcing developers who use these features to sign their code gives Adobe a way to police exploits.

In fact, look at how soon the cut off date is. A researcher has probably sent them a proof of concept exploit. Adobe's solution is to disable the feature for most developers.

1) I've been in a company with a large established user base on a development environment. This is a very tempting option for such companies. (Look at the comment elsewhere referencing CA.)

2) Such a tax is not regressive. The $50k minimum is actually very friendly to the little guys.

Is the title of this post fud filled interpretation, or are there some facts?