Open letter to Adobe
Nov. 11th, 2010 12:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fingertroubleHaving recently plunked down a LOT of money for Adobe Production Premium suite, I'm interested at how little I actually get. It arrived in a large mostly empty box, within that a large empty box which within that is another mostly empty box containing 3 DVDs with slip cases. That is all. It was like some hyper expensive geek Russian doll for masochists.
In the current climate of bitorrent and piracy you'd think they'd spend some time creating some sense of a quality product and value that you can only get by buying and registering it - a decent box, manuals, or extra content and subscriber only stuffs? A bit like switched on record companies making deluxe additions, extras, posters, stickers, downloadable content, free 7"s with their CDs? Seems not.
So when I got a lovely notice appear on my screen about Registration benefits I was all warm and fuzzy thinking 'ooh maybe this was worth it' - the Magic Bullet plugin looked brilliant - so I made sure my registration details were correct and waited. And waited. And waited.
Adobe wouldn't stiff me out of what they promised would they? Surely not? That would be a PR disaster!
Oh yes...
Here is the email I sent to Adobe - well tried to since the monolithic company doesn't really do stuff like generic feedback email addresses or support emails.
To: Adobe
As a paying registered Adobe customer (Production Premium, not exactly cheap) I get rather upset if I get a popup message promising certain benefits if I check my info is correct like this:
http://registrationbenefits.adobe.com/benefits/?&PRID=328&VERS=5.0&PLAT=1&LANG=en_US
I do so as asked, get excited at maybe getting something like Magic Bullet - then nothing happens.
Not really great, huh?
If you're not going to give any benefits, then please don't disappoint me by promising something you can't deliver - the warm fuzzy feeling soon evaporated as I realised the nice freebie wasn't going to materialise, and I posted my disappointment with Adobe on Twitter, thus actually making this a possible embarrassing PR own goal.
By the way as a designer for nearly 2 grand RRP your packaging is less than exciting - without manuals or anything the mostly empty box with a box with a few DVDs in slip cases feels rather, well, cheap. It certainly doesn't feel like a quality product - so when I saw this promotion I was glad because I then thought 'ooh maybe there was some real extra benefit to buying this after all!' but as I said that swiftly disappeared.
yours disappointed,
Tim Baker
Moral of the story? You get very little for being honest nowadays, not even warm fuzzies. And fuck me, nearly 2 grand is way too much for software.
In the current climate of bitorrent and piracy you'd think they'd spend some time creating some sense of a quality product and value that you can only get by buying and registering it - a decent box, manuals, or extra content and subscriber only stuffs? A bit like switched on record companies making deluxe additions, extras, posters, stickers, downloadable content, free 7"s with their CDs? Seems not.
So when I got a lovely notice appear on my screen about Registration benefits I was all warm and fuzzy thinking 'ooh maybe this was worth it' - the Magic Bullet plugin looked brilliant - so I made sure my registration details were correct and waited. And waited. And waited.
Adobe wouldn't stiff me out of what they promised would they? Surely not? That would be a PR disaster!
Oh yes...
Here is the email I sent to Adobe - well tried to since the monolithic company doesn't really do stuff like generic feedback email addresses or support emails.
To: Adobe
As a paying registered Adobe customer (Production Premium, not exactly cheap) I get rather upset if I get a popup message promising certain benefits if I check my info is correct like this:
http://registrationbenefits.adobe.com/benefits/?&PRID=328&VERS=5.0&PLAT=1&LANG=en_US
I do so as asked, get excited at maybe getting something like Magic Bullet - then nothing happens.
Not really great, huh?
If you're not going to give any benefits, then please don't disappoint me by promising something you can't deliver - the warm fuzzy feeling soon evaporated as I realised the nice freebie wasn't going to materialise, and I posted my disappointment with Adobe on Twitter, thus actually making this a possible embarrassing PR own goal.
By the way as a designer for nearly 2 grand RRP your packaging is less than exciting - without manuals or anything the mostly empty box with a box with a few DVDs in slip cases feels rather, well, cheap. It certainly doesn't feel like a quality product - so when I saw this promotion I was glad because I then thought 'ooh maybe there was some real extra benefit to buying this after all!' but as I said that swiftly disappeared.
yours disappointed,
Tim Baker
Moral of the story? You get very little for being honest nowadays, not even warm fuzzies. And fuck me, nearly 2 grand is way too much for software.