is this the end of Affinity?

Published 2024-03-29
Canva has acquired Serif, the company behind the Affinity suite. Is this good or bad news for the future of the Affinity apps? In this video I share the info we have available and my opinions on the acquisition. I love the Affinity apps and I would hate to see them change for the worse.

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- Chapters -
0:00 - Prologue
0:31 - Why Did Canva Acquire Affinity?
1:00 - Initial Reactions
1:25 - Where The Fear Is Coming From
2:04 - An Update From Canva (Canva's Pledges)
2:52 - Why Canva's Update Doesn't Feel Right
3:25 - What The Future May Hold
4:38 - What The Future Holds For Me
5:17 - Outro

All Comments (21)
  • The second canva stop offering a perpetual licence there will be millions of users ready and waiting to support the next up and coming software. And I will be one of them.
  • @unlockthepicture
    Based on the fact there was SO MUCH negative comments on the official announcement from Affinity. I hope they are smart and won't remove the one-time payment option. Otherwise I'm sure they will lose more than 60%-75% of their users who wanted to escape from Adobe's greed. But seeing Affinity removing their official announcement (with all those comments) and making a new one with comments being turned off, I have my doubts.
  • @jordanking7711
    It's clear that Canva saw the comments and the backlash and quickly back-pedaled and said that there would still be perpetual licenses alongside of subscription models. Because as Michael said, why would they not just say that from the outset?
  • @secretgoldfish
    Adobe once had its one off purchase AND subscription available at one time....before they phased it out.
  • Well looks like GIMP's one in a million chance - time for them to drastically up their game
  • @artgoat
    When companies offer subscriptions, of course they have to jack up the perpetual license cost to make the subscription more appealing. This is how Adobe built up most of their catalog—acquiring other companies, and either rebranding them or killing them outright.
  • @cisp360
    I am more worried about the quality of Affinity Designer in future updates than subscription. If supscription happens, I dont see any reason for not abandon Affinity to go with Illustrator
  • Thanks for the video! These kinds of acquisitions have ALWAYS led to costing the customer more, but we shall see if they remain true to their word. If they don't, I for one will go elsewhere. By all means, DIVERSIFY, never put all your eggs in one basket. A word of caution though, don't over do it so you lose time for each and most importantly, yourself!
  • @kjbill
    Please cover GIMP and Inkscape. Thanks
  • @pmonk1177
    You have great points that I agree with and more often than not, the company that gets acquired usually and eventually goes in an unfavorable direction. At least for now lets stay positive and hope that things don't change and hope that this business move turns out to be a one in the long run.
  • @STIboots
    Also, I am interested to see what other content you are thinking of creating. The possibilities are endless and I know you can pull off some good stuff.
  • @tom2point0
    Man, I found Affinity 2 after Vectornator became Curve and went subscription. Now Affinity is possibly following that model? Ugh. I bet there will be an Affinity 3 that includes AutoTrace which will be only subscription based. I know they say they’ll offer perpetual licenses but given every other company out there, I have my doubts.
  • @andystiller3793
    I agree with you. They may do the same as Xara designer where they still offer a perpetual license but make it so difficult to find that you are pushed to the subscription.
  • @aussirose
    They will integrate both products on a subscription basis. That is what big companies do. Buy out the opposition and kill it off. I pretty much only use my Affinity Photo these days for pano stitching. My go to product is Photoscape X which is powerful and easy to use. I might look at buying the Pro version of Photoscape X.
  • @STIboots
    It is unfortunate that one of the last hold outs will likely become a subscription based model. I think the trade off would have to be a significant increase in value added, in order to maintain customer interest. If they just change the pricing, but don't provide anything, people will likely find other solutions. There are ways to do a subscription model correctly, but most companies don't pull that off.... only time will tell.
  • @RuudKuin
    Same here, got that same feeling... Bought the upgrade to the Universal License today though, just to be sure I've the latest version. But if you're willing to consider, maybe compare Affinity to GIMP, if you didn't do so already. Guess people will eventually drop Affinity and jump over to another suite, if Canva is going for that monthly fee after all. Fingers crossed they will not.
  • @juurstudio
    How about Pixelmator Pro for photo editing and Vectorstyler for vector work?
  • @_HanaPanda
    oh my gosh, I've only just paid for the upgrade of v2 for affinity. I was going to stick with v1 but when I got my new camera for some reason the iPad version 1 didn't support the format, so I waited for the easter sales and brought v2. only to find a company I don't like has brought them out. oh goodie. well ill not be swapping my camera for a long long time, so ill stick with v2 even when its no longer supported.
  • @chandie5298
    Whenever a company buys another company.....they only do that with the expectation that they can make more from this purchase than the cost of the purchase. They have a plan to do that. Perhaps....they want this new suite of products and they intend to market it to their existing very large user base.....or perhaps they want to make more money from the existing suite user base via subscriptions in the future. We'll never know until they make a change....anything prior to that is nothing more than speculation.