[1]: (FWIW, I don't know one way or the other. Apologies to any Gimp developers here.)
https://www.gimp.org/news/2025/03/16/gimp-3-0-released/
Gimp's problem is mostly one of funding and attention, like most OSS projects. But it's never stopped development, which I think is impressive 27 years on.
Imagine where Gimp would be if any company treated it like Valve treats WINE.
Getting into the export flow takes time but I find it to be cleaner.
People go on and on about how bad Gimp's UI is, and while I won't defend it I will the criticism is 99% overblown.
https://i.imgur.com/3gqmu9N.png
If you take 10-15 minutes to customize the UI it can be pretty damn simple if you want. I'd say those minutes are worth it to avoid a subscription and to support a true OSS stalwart project.
In the 1980s, buying a new computer often meant buying compatible copies of software you already owned. It was a treadmill of support that did keep computing alive, but also prevented ordinary people from investing into the hobby as fully as they liked. Many of the boutique developers from the 80s would go out of business in the 1990s, when home computing proliferated to the point that they couldn't profit. Both FOSS and commercial software development persisted, despite the predictions of unfathomable hellscapes by the advocates of Franklin Computer et. al.
In my opinion, what changed was customer sentiment. 15 years ago, in the halcyon early days of the iPhone, paying $5/month for a SaaS or $10 for a novelty app was exciting. There was a (naive) belief that spending "the cost of a cup of coffee" would contribute to the betterment of society once Apple and Mastercard had taken their cut. But it never panned out. Brand loyalty is as foolish in software as it is in hardware.
I don't know anybody who found paying a monthly fee exicing. On the other hand, I know people who found $10 for a novelty app perfectly reasonable. But these people to my knowledge have not changed in their stances here. In other words: I see no change in customer sentiment.
The worst thing is that it can totally be a sustainable business model. Many software giants of today grew to their size by offering "buy to own" products through the 90s and 2000s. Lots of software can still be bought through that model, especially games, and it seems to be going pretty well for the developers.
No, it's not that this model isn't good. It's that it's not enough. For nearly any large business today, the thought of not endlessly maximizing the profit for the immediate next quarter is appalling. The world-leading analysts have done their research, and the results are in: just like you said, brand loyalty doesn't actually matter for anything, and neither does brand perception or consistency. What makes the most money is using any means imaginable to hook people into a recurring payment, so that's what everyone will do once they get big enough. Nothing else actually matters in terms of money.
Even now, over a decade after its release, FFXIV subscriptions are what’s keeping the mighty Square Enix alive.
https://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/ir/library/pdf/25q4slides...
I'm not sure I'm seeing the same. The gaming industry is going strong, and increasing consolidation isn't really a sign that the companies being acquired are in financial trouble, it's more about the strength and dominance of the biggest companies. And even those biggest players are continuing to release non-subscription-based titles. I'm not saying there aren't struggling gaming companies, but to me it seems that the majority are doing well for themselves, certainly there's nothing so monumental in the industry as to make me think "they're all losing money because they're not all moving to subscription services".
Square Enix also isn't really representative of the average gaming company. FFXIV seems to be their primary product in general, especially in the American and European markets. The products they cite in other sub-segments of digital entertainment are far more niche and many don't seem to be as well-received critically. They also focus a lot more on Japan than other gaming companies, for obvious reasons, which makes direct comparisons even harder. FFXIV is definitely their main cash cow due to the situation that company is in, but there's not nearly enough to map it to some sweeping industry-wide conclusion.
financially, subscriptions just make more sense sadly. People vote with their wallets, and they vote subscription.
It's sad, I loooooved Affinity and their licensing schemes, but honestly... I can see why they are moving.
The AI stuff though makes no sense to me? How many people will actually use it? But then I am mostly programmer and I use these tools only time to time.
In a very real sense, yes.
Just like real votes, candidates will collude on issues that are bad for them, and push the discussion on trivial and/or bikesheddy issues people shouldn't really care about, keeping important arguments out of the public place.
To people who ever felt their vote were almost useless and not voting would also only make the situation worse...that's exactly how "voting with one's wallet" feel like.
for the company, maybe
Only immediate existential threat is political attacks via corrupt laws.
The reason I’m not using Adobe is to avoid their onerous subscription.
If Affinity has moved to a subscription model then why bother not using the incumbent?
I want to own my software, not rent it.
Except for the odd fact that now you've got the software without having to pay.
Though in this case the biggest danger is being the training material creator used to train its models for its paid generative AI offering. I would assume people are monitoring the privacy policy and terms of use to know when such a change would happen - if it isn't so already, I haven't checked those documents.
As for me I'm happy to stick with v2 for as long as it can function on computers I own and use.