I am dropping this post here on the day it was announced that Serif was acquired by Canva. Here’s a link to the statement. We’ll see how long that link remains. (Here’s a new article about it.)
Here’s a link to a screen capture of the page in case the original disappears and you want to check it out.
Here’s my original post about Affinity Photo which I’ve been using for four years and have recommended to people who were sick of Adobe’s subscription model.
I’m tempted to go through the acquisition statement and give my thoughts on parts of it, but I’ve got other work to do right now… I’ll update this post if I get time.
Update: Here’s how I imagine acquisitions work.
Company A: Hey, I like what you built.
Company B: Why thank you!
Company A: But you know what I like more? Money. Do you like money?
Company B: Oh, okay… Well, yes, of course…
Company A: How about I give you a big pile of money for the thing you built?
Company B: Well, what does that mean for me?
Company A: You get a big pile of money, we’ll make you head of a new business division, then tell you to fuck off in a year.
Company B: Well that’s…
Company A: Look at this big fucking pile of money.
Company B: You son of a bitch, I’m in!
Update: Enjoy this post from September 2022.
Update 2024-03-28: Supposedly all will be fine… Canva’s Affinity deal will shake the Adobe status quo
After launch, we contacted the Serif PR team and were assured that the pricing structure for Affinity would stay the same. They indicated they had heard users’ complaints and were steadfast in their plans to keep buy-once, use-forever pricing.
In the statement, the newly combined teams said they would remain committed to fair pricing and perpetual licensing, resources would be put into Affinity to accelerate development, and the company would continue to use customer feedback to shape the product.
But hey, it’s not all good news. “Canva also invests in AI-based tools, which will certainly come to Affinity in one way or another.” So yeah, I hope I can disable and fucking AI bullshit that gets added to Affinity products in the future. (Though honestly I’ll probably just use V2 as long as I can.)