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This is interesting, but not for the obvious reasons:

The era of Photoshop may be ending, as Adobe stocks take a battering
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/era-photoshop-may-ending-adobe-165724311.html

tl;dr Adobe's stock is down because "AI" so Yahoo concludes this is the end of the "Photoshop era".

What's interesting here is that "Photoshop era" is ending – according to Yahoo – not because users are turning away. It's because *investors* are.

The "market" for software and services is a side-show. Only the stock market matters.

1/2

#AI #Hype

Kerplunk

@Kerplunk@mastodon.scot replied · 3 weeks ago

@rysiek

What's interesting here is that "Photoshop era" is ending – according to Yahoo – not because users are turning away. It's because *investors* are.

So I am an outlier, I turned away from Adobe some years ago.

Gimp is very different Darktable too but get my work done.
Without extortionist Licensing costs..

troy_friz_zell

@troy_frizzell@mstdn.social replied · 3 weeks ago

@rysiek

I swear I'm starting to think the source of most of the world's ills is the stock market.

"Billionaires" are only that rich in terms of stock valuation. Stock valuation is only valuable because people in the stock business say it is and bankers believe it.

It looks more and more like a house of cards to me. It's based on magical thinking and fart gas, yet it takes food out of the mouths of regular people all over the world.

The financial "industry" is why we can't have nice things.

Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

@rysiek@mstdn.social replied · 3 weeks ago

@troy_frizzell

> The financial "industry" is why we can't have nice things.

The term you might want to research is "financialization".

Rhodes Center Podcast is also a great resource:
https://rhodes.watson.brown.edu/podcasts

meowki

@meowki@meowstodon.eu replied · 3 weeks ago

@rysiek For 9/10 of us, Krita+GIMP ought to be enough.

Mike Elston

@notsle@kzoo.to replied · 3 weeks ago

@rysiek Affinity is now free and apart from some edge cases, provides most of Photoshop and Illustrators features.

There is word they are working on a linux version as well.

There is almost no reason, except for lack of understanding, and a false belief of "industry standard" to stick with Adobe.

Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

@rysiek@mstdn.social replied · 3 weeks ago

@notsle eh, my partner is a graphic designer, hates Adobe with the power of a thousand suns, uses Affinity whenever possible – but I have to begrudgingly accept that it is not yet enough to fully replace Photoshop.

It is getting better though, no doubt.

Flux the Fox

@whattheflux@mastodon.social replied · 3 weeks ago

@rysiek @notsle I like Graphite's public roadmap: https://graphite.art/features/

That way you can set a reminder to check up when they plan to have some essential missing feature. It might be years, but it's probably in there.

Graphite

Graphite features

Mike Elston

@notsle@kzoo.to replied · 3 weeks ago

@rysiek im curious whats missing for your use case.

For me, designing/printing stickers, and web work. it I've not come across anything that i cant do in Affinity.

I guess if you need to open PS files from others daily, I do miss some of Photoshops scientific/engineering features like measuring tools and scale.

Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

@rysiek@mstdn.social replied · 3 weeks ago

@notsle it's not my use case, it's my partner's, who works in graphic design. I am not competent enough to tell you what exactly is that, but I can tell you there was a whole lot of work put into de-Adobing as much as possible.

Mike Elston

@notsle@kzoo.to replied · 3 weeks ago

@rysiek fair, i'm just curious, not trying to make a argument for.

I trust every ones needs are different from my own. Just yesterday, a co-worker and i were discussing Mockups and wire-frames.
They prefer to make full site mockups in Penpot or Figma, and it helps their process to see a closer to visual end product.

I prefer creating a UI style guide and to make faster wire-frames for flow and UI/UX. rather than spend the time in figma.

MacCruiskeen

@maccruiskeen@social.linux.pizza replied · 3 weeks ago

@rysiek The article does sort of allude to the fact that users are looking for alternatives because everyone hates them. It just assumes Ai is going to be it.

Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

@rysiek@mstdn.social replied · 3 weeks ago

@maccruiskeen the lens, the focus in the article is the investors. People using these tools and services are an afterthought at best. It illustrates the priorities.

It's like saying "people should be prescribed more opioids because it's good for business – oh and sometimes it actually also helps some folks with pain".

MacCruiskeen

@maccruiskeen@social.linux.pizza replied · 3 weeks ago

@rysiek It's in Yahoo Finance news--that is literally their job, reporting on the stock market and money stuff.

Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

@rysiek@mstdn.social replied · 3 weeks ago

@maccruiskeen as is the job of pushers of opioid painkillers to push opioids. It's still something we can – and I'd argue should – observe and comment on.

MacCruiskeen

@maccruiskeen@social.linux.pizza replied · 3 weeks ago

@rysiek Yes, but it's a pretty trivial observation.

Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

@rysiek@mstdn.social replied · 3 weeks ago

@maccruiskeen you are welcome to dismiss it.

Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

@rysiek@mstdn.social replied · 3 weeks ago

This explains the disconnect between what huge publicly traded tech behemoths are doing, and what people actually want from their products.

Tech monopolists like Adobe have nowhere to go to bring in more users, to make the line go up. Their market is all but saturated. But the line must go up, otherwise investors are going to leave.

Hence the incessant, insufferable AI hype. It's marketing for investors. The hype itself is the product, the investors are the market:
https://rys.io/en/180.html

2/2

Songs on the Security of Networks

The Hype is the Product

Large publicly traded tech companies seem to no longer consider their customers – that is, people and organizations who actually buy their products or pay for access to their services – their core foc

⁂

More from

Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

GhostOnTheHalfShell

@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai replied · 3 weeks ago

@rysiek

The crazy thing about it though is that inclusion of AI in Photoshop or any of these products won’t expand the marketplace. The only thing left is a bigger price tag to be demanded. AI is a convenient excuse.

Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

@rysiek@mstdn.social replied · 3 weeks ago

@GhostOnTheHalfShell yeah, because it's not about expanding the market for the actual tool, but convincing more investors to buy stock.

GhostOnTheHalfShell

@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai replied · 3 weeks ago

@rysiek

Yeah, everything AI is that. The things AI can do an image processing are quite preferably or demonstrably real. It’s just it’s not gonna make the market bigger as you pointed out.

Kerry Mitchell 🍁

@KerryMitchell@mastodon.social replied · 3 weeks ago

@rysiek I don’t know… The reasons cited in the article seem pretty bang on. Adobe adopted generative AI pretty early, but it isn’t helping them much because the market is moving to low cost, easy to use tools, and especially AI tools with no learning curve. Adobe software, partly because of its history in professional print work, is complex and skilled users are needed to get the most out of it.

Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

@rysiek@mstdn.social replied · 3 weeks ago

@KerryMitchell it's the framing that I find interesting.

Kerry Mitchell 🍁

@KerryMitchell@mastodon.social replied · 3 weeks ago

@rysiek I think that deskilling (or replacing) marketing/design is something that is considered to be part of the rationale for the AI companies valuation. Altman said he expected AI to completely displace marketers within 5 years. I don’t like this trend for obvious reasons, but AI is getting a little better at automating this work all the time.

Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

@rysiek@mstdn.social replied · 3 weeks ago

@KerryMitchell he also said we will need to build a Dyson Sphere to power the AI revolution, and that we should not worry about OpenAI's losing money now, as soon as they get to AGI they will ask AGI how to make money and that'll solve it.

Dyson Sphere was a scientific paper version of a sarcastic troll (Sam did not get the joke). And a few months ago Altman started saying that "AGI" is no longer a "useful term".

What I am getting at is that what Sam Altman said is basically irrelevant. 😉

Kerry Mitchell 🍁

@KerryMitchell@mastodon.social replied · 3 weeks ago

@rysiek I guess we’ll see what happens. This is the year when CMOs at bigger companies are really coming under pressure to cut. https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerdooley/2026/01/05/is-2026-the-year-ai-finally-comes-for-marketing-jobs/

Forbes

Why AI’s Progress Deadline For Marketing Is Coming In 2026

The 2026 deadline for cost savings is creating a collision course. Ninety percent of marketing leaders expect workforce changes, but zero have achieved AI transformation.

pettter

@pettter@social.accum.se replied · 3 weeks ago

@rysiek this is true of everything. There are no remaining traces of consumer demand impact on the production, if there.ever was. Fast fashion will just produce more stuff and if we don't buy it just goes directly to be dumped in the deserts of Chile or deltas of Nigeria or whatever. If we do buy it the quality is so shitty that they reach the same destination in a matter of weeks or months anyway, and whatever we do, it'll be off the shelves and a new set of fast fashion there to replace it.

pettter

@pettter@social.accum.se replied · 3 weeks ago

@rysiek for computer and IT hardware, it'll be windows computers that don't work (consumer/budget line) or windows computers that kind of work (pro line) or windows computers with LED lighting (gamer line) and anything else nope sorry can't do it (except apple but there you have even less choice).

The only people that might have an impact (and the only on the pro line) are procurement officers at massive orgs, and mostly not them either.

Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

@rysiek@mstdn.social replied · 3 weeks ago

@pettter well there are companies providing Windows-less laptops. I've not paid the Windows tax on my laptop purchases for a decade and a half now.

pettter

@pettter@social.accum.se replied · 3 weeks ago

@rysiek Those are niche and about as important in the larger perspective as people moving from PS to GIMP.

Chromebooks or tablets are probably the other 'mainstream' option, but those also suck and are only a thing because Google has decreed they are, again consumer interest essentially notwithstanding.

C.Suthorn :prn:

@Life_is@no-pony.farm replied · 3 weeks ago

@rysiek@mstdn.social and now for something completly different: Yesterday, the German IT company "modern solutions" went bankrupt. Three years ago, the managing directors decided to violate the GDPR on a sustained basis. Since then, (corporate) customers have turned away, and when a cloud service provider demanded payment of a five-figure invoice, the managing directors went to the bankruptcy judge.

Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

@rysiek@mstdn.social replied · 3 weeks ago

@Life_is nice. I am going to go out on a limb here and guess that that company had nowhere near the scale and market saturation of Adobe though?..

C.Suthorn :prn:

@Life_is@no-pony.farm replied · 3 weeks ago

rysiek@mstdn.social They operated a merchandise management system for a large number of retailers on Amazon Marketplace and eBay. Shutting down the cloud could have caused these retailers to go bankrupt and left millions of people in Germany without their paid orders. However, the cloud was reopened during the course of the day so that the affected retailers could make emergency backups.

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