- What about when Adobe makes a change when going CS2 => CS3 that I don't like, or that is detrimental to me? If I 'own a copy' I can just continue using it. With 'CS in the cloud' I have to upgrade because that's what Adobe wants.
- To step outside of software for a second, what happens when (e.g.) George Lucas decides that the "special edition" version of Star Wars is the 'real one' and replaces all cloud copies of Star Wars with the special edition version?
> To step outside of software for a second, what happens when (e.g.) George Lucas decides that the "special edition" version of Star Wars is the 'real one' and replaces all cloud copies of Star Wars with the special edition version?
Yes, this is huge. The cloud is making our culture ephemeral.
Just yesterday I was playing Escape Velocity Nova, a video game back from 2002. It's an excellent game, and since its initial release, people made tons of mods to it. I heard that Eve Online pretty much copied their story.
I'm pretty sure that if this game was made in a "cloud version", as a service and not a downloadable product, I wouldn't be able to play it today. I couldn't enjoy the story, I couldn't live through experiences that influenced the gaming culture ten years ago. It wouldn't make any economical sense for current copyright owners to maintain such abandonware. It would just disappear into oblivion, like most SaaS startups do after a year.
With CS in the cloud' I have to upgrade because that's what Adobe wants.
Not that I'm a supporter of Adobe's cloud strategy, but as of the past 6 month or so you have a choice between using the current version and the previous version. We'll see when the next version comes out if they'll only support two versions or if they'll let you chose any previous cloud supported version.
There are people still running PS6 because it suits their needs. That can't happen in the cloud. Well, it can, but Adobe is unlikely to enable this to happen.
- What about when Adobe makes a change when going CS2 => CS3 that I don't like, or that is detrimental to me? If I 'own a copy' I can just continue using it. With 'CS in the cloud' I have to upgrade because that's what Adobe wants.
- To step outside of software for a second, what happens when (e.g.) George Lucas decides that the "special edition" version of Star Wars is the 'real one' and replaces all cloud copies of Star Wars with the special edition version?