Proof that software as service/cloud based, will never work for long term ...

[BravoV]

... even you're totally innocent, its like you're cursed just because you're born at the other wrong side of the pond.

-> Adobe is cutting off users in Venezuela due to US sanctions

[daqq]

And yet there still are people who are OK with eagle being moved to a subscription only system. 

[SiliconWizard]

That makes the landlords of the 21st century. Software landlords. Everything is rented.

[BravoV]

That makes the landlords of the 21st century. Software landlords. Everything is rented.

Nope, this is even much worst that renting as in real estate deal, according to the details, even you just paid the rent yesterday, by tomorrow you will be kicked out, and no refund at all.

I guess this time, the reborn of so called new wave of "W4r3z" is imminent, as this is more political rather than just freebies.

Geez... almost forgot that "W" words as its so 90s . 

[BravoV]

And yet there still are people who are OK with eagle being moved to a subscription only system. 

I guess those people never had a chance to imagine, that one day, suddenly they lost their access to their hard worked circuit or pcb designs, just because a leader of a country said so.

Yep, even they're stored locally, as the need to be onlined in order to launch the program, means nothing to prevent the software to lock down all your files once it successfully contacted the mothership. 

[SiliconWizard]

That makes the landlords of the 21st century. Software landlords. Everything is rented.

Nope, this is even much worst that renting as in real estate deal, according to the details, even you just paid the rent yesterday, by tomorrow you will be kicked out, and no refund at all.

Well, the idea is the same, but yes this is currently "worse" as there are general laws that protect real estate renters, whereas the laws that protect customers in general are a bit less favorable.

But the fact that "rent" is slowly becoming the only, or at least predominant sales model, is definitely concerning.

[Karel]

I'm curious to see if Autodesk (Eagle) is going to be affected...

[BravoV]

I'm curious to see if Autodesk (Eagle) is going to be affected...

Your innocent question there is no different to ..

... "Does WannaCry ransomware author will not abuse the newly version of his/her work that already infected many computers ?" 

[dferyance]

The move towards cloud services has multiple causes. There are software companies (e.g. Adobe) trying to push software as a service on their customers. However, the customers themselves often are driving this move too.

Say you know of some useful program for your organization that cost $5K. Well, you need to get management approval, IT approval, order equipment to run it and that is a lot of red tape. Or you can find a cloud service for $100 a month that will go on your company credit card and bypass all those approvals. So software providers feel like they have to provide cloud services to be competitive.

What is difficult is the red tape of going through management and IT is important and necessary. Is the system secure? Are backups in place? How is their technical support when something doesn't work? How do we get our data if they shut down? Do they integrate with our user account management? All this gets bypassed. I've seen this happen where different departments all order different cloud services -- often ones that do the same thing -- with no regard for security or the long-term. But because they can slip it under the radar it happens. When an employee is terminated are they removed from all the different cloud-service accounts... maybe. Sometimes IT is the cause too. It is easy to justify signing up for a cloud service that has no big upfront investment than it is to order a system that is good for long term. IT expenses can be high and so there is pressure to go cheap -- at least cheap for the short term.

[Red Squirrel]

One of the many reasons I absolutely hate the subscription model.  You are at the mercy of the provider and it can be yanked at any time.  I'm a big fan of ownership (or as close as you can get to it at least).  Same with my home I would never want to rent.  If I started a business with a store front or shop or whatever I'd want to own too. Gives me more control and I'm not at the mercy of anyone when it comes to things like repairs or improvements etc nor do I need to worry about being evicted for any reason.  (ex: they want to tear it down)

Unfortunately it seems everything is moving to cloud now and it will get harder and harder to resist.   Even things that arn't necessarily cloud based still require you to make an account and have the product tied to some cloud.  Game consoles for example are all like that now.   Even Gopros and DJI drones and lot of similar products.   Pisses me off, there's no technical reason for it to require that.  It's just done to track you.

[Fungus]

It was never supposed to "work" for the users.... 

[Mr. Scram]

Not being able to refund due to the order is obviously bullshit. If they can provide services or a "grace period" until October 28 they can definitely refund before the order goes into full effect. They're just conveniently waiting for the door to fall shut and then claim they can't do anything because it's locked now. The whole Adobe cloud thing isn't a great experience to begin with but this just emphasises it's best avoided even when you do have access. It's not as if the software has been developed much the past 5 to 10 years anyway. History teaches us this kind of overconfidence ends up costing you your market dominance so good riddance.

[Mr. Scram]

I've decided to ditch Adobe and buy software I own instead. Paint Shop Pro can work with .PSD files and happens to be on sale with the Humble Bundle right now. Bye Adobe!

https://www.humblebundle.com/software/painter-create-with-confidence

[sokoloff]

I don’t work at adobe or have any other ties, but I’m quite sure Adobe doesn’t care about one month’s revenue from the entire country of Venezuela.

It’s important to realize that large companies are not single, unified brain organisms. A lot of what looks dumb from the outside is not out of malice but rather out of the inherent lack of coordination inside multi-national, tens of thousands of employees organizations.

There is almost surely no devious master plan to screw these users out of an extra month of subscription revenue. 

[Mr. Scram]

I don’t work at adobe or have any other ties, but I’m quite sure Adobe doesn’t care about one month’s revenue from the entire country of Venezuela.

It’s important to realize that large companies are not single, unified brain organisms. A lot of what looks dumb from the outside is not out of malice but rather out of the inherent lack of coordination inside multi-national, tens of thousands of employees organizations.

There is almost surely no devious master plan to screw these users out of an extra month of subscription revenue.

Malicious indifference is possibly even worse. Like you I doubt that Adobe cares about those subscription fees but they don't seem to make any effort to say goodbye to their customers appropriately. It's a shoddy situation anyway but this is akin to booting your paying customers out with an insult.

[Rick Law]

The move towards cloud services has multiple causes. There are software companies (e.g. Adobe) trying to push software as a service on their customers. However, the customers themselves often are driving this move too.

Say you know of some useful program for your organization that cost $5K. Well, you need to get management approval, IT approval, order equipment to run it and that is a lot of red tape. Or you can find a cloud service for $100 a month that will go on your company credit card and bypass all those approvals. So software providers feel like they have to provide cloud services to be competitive.

What is difficult is the red tape of going through management and IT is important and necessary. Is the system secure? Are backups in place? How is their technical support when something doesn't work? How do we get our data if they shut down? Do they integrate with our user account management? All this gets bypassed. I've seen this happen where different departments all order different cloud services -- often ones that do the same thing -- with no regard for security or the long-term. But because they can slip it under the radar it happens. When an employee is terminated are they removed from all the different cloud-service accounts... maybe. Sometimes IT is the cause too. It is easy to justify signing up for a cloud service that has no big upfront investment than it is to order a system that is good for long term. IT expenses can be high and so there is pressure to go cheap -- at least cheap for the short term.

I don't have the current data for it, but based on circumstantial evidence ($) I guess the bigger pusher of clouds in business is IT departments itself and the reason is money.

Google can "sell" gmail at such low cost that IT departments cannot possibly match.  How would a CIO justify a budget of X for email to the CFO or CEO?  Email is but one, then there is Office 365, there is Cloud based HR, Cloud based Sales/Marketing, Cloud based ERP...

Clouds is in a way like outsourcing program development.  The benefits are immediate and visible but the problems and real cost are hidden and on delayed trigger.  If you ask Boeing how much the 737-Max software problem costs, they can't even answer it because the cost is still increasing.

As bad as this is for development, manufacturing is affected too.  A factory could be running on some machines requiring some connection to the cloud.  IoT is increasing that potential issue is increasing every product cycle - as more and more equipment and manufacturers are jumping into the Cloud+IoT band wagon using services like Microsoft Azure IoT Cloud and others.  Just think about all the PLCs in a factory (for lack of a better term) with it's balls in someone else's hand.

Even consumers are affected too.

FDA (US Federal Food and Drug Admin) Cyber Security warning re Medtronic MiniMed Insulin Pumps potential cybersecurity risks issued June, 2019 - In the list of do's and dont's... do not share your insulin pump serial number.

Microsoft will shutdown its HealthVault service come November.  What happens to your Blood Pressure Monitor data?  While I am sure the cloud service supplier will assist the manufacturers in transition to their next version stuff, but that no doubt costs would be > 0.  End users needing such connection would just have to buy the next model and that cost would also be > 0 also.

I am waiting for the News paper headline - John Doe is convicted of murder by hacking into his wife's car and remote driven it into the waterfall.

I am sure Cloud-based sex robot is but just another product cycle away.  A user of Sex Bot - The Next Generation who has a certain body parts inexplicably caught within the bot will get an automated call from the ransom-ware: Hey, want to keep it?  Click here to send money or you loose that forever.

Clouds/IoT has its use, but if you don't need it, don't add on additional layer of potential show-stopper.  I hope, may be in a few years, more and more users will see the light and kill this idea of Cloud and this IoT for everything madness.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

Adobe is cutting off users in Venezuela due to US sanctions

Can't they use a VPN?

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

I am sure Cloud-based sex robot is but just another product cycle away.  A user of Sex Bot - The Next Generation who has a certain body parts inexplicably caught within the bot will get an automated call from the ransom-ware: Hey, want to keep it?  Click here to send money or you loose that forever.

[wraper]

Adobe is cutting off users in Venezuela due to US sanctions

Can't they use a VPN?

They can. However old accounts will be axed regardless. The same thing happened with Crimea a few years ago. US based registrars started axing domains registered with Crimean credentials.
EDIT: also they will likely have trouble to pay for service.

[SiliconWizard]

Note that you could also be screwed with full licenses if the software uses some kind of online activation. If a regular check is required by your particular software, and the server gets permanently unaccessible, you could get eventually "kicked out".

[daqq]

Adobe is cutting off users in Venezuela due to US sanctions

Can't they use a VPN?

That's not exactly the point. While I'm sure people could jury rig some awful system that would eventually enable them to use and pay for said software (or just use a crack), the point is that you are essentially renting your core tools and at the end of the day and are subject to the whims too many people/institutions.

This is even different from previous restrictions/embargoes - if you buy a CNC machine, a pick an place machine or even a hammer, you continue to own and be able to use said tool. All the time you have invested in it will not go to waste.

The situation is different with software tools. So, let's take software like Eagle, you've built up a cool bunch of libraries and the past few years of your work continues to make dozens of (mostly) local customers happy are sitting happily on some cloud*. Whoops, one of your politicians said something insulting (but hilarious) about an orange man, or any other of a dozen political situations comes up, the situation gets messier up goes the sanction. Or for that matter your ISP provider had a drunk a admin get really disgruntled and the net will be down for a week or two*.

Using a cloud and/or internet access mandatory system essentially means that you are giving up a surety for no gain for you.

* - yes, I know, some software is offline-ish, and has a local cache that enables you to work without access to the net... for a while.

[Brumby]

I don't like the idea of anything outside of my immediate control having the potential to affect my ability to do work.

I avoid subscription service options whenever possible.  At this point, I have a 100% success rate.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

That an app is a web page does NOT necessarily mean it can't be run offline. EasyEDA for example, they give you the app so that you can run it locally if you wish. Just have to open it and point your browser to a local port instead, where the app is listening. And it works very well!

[Brumby]

That's all fine - so long as there isn't some server-side dependency.  Then you're stuffed.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

It's the same for programs that you "buy" but check the license online...