A number of years ago, I was a member of a stock photo club owned and operated by Fotolia. The Dollar Photo Club was a $10 monthly subscription with 10 images a month. Additional images were $1 each. Commercial use was included, though an extended license was available and required for some situations. The neat thing was, the image credits didn't expire, they carried over. I might only use one image in a month, but then in another month need several. I was always covered and with an easy to budget $10.
Then Adobe bought Fotolia.
The club stayed open and the subscription stayed the same. In fact, nothing changed except no one could sign up anymore. Any attempt to sign up sent you to the new Adobe Images site, where all the stock images previously available on Fotolia were now available for $10 per image.
I know you see where this is leading. At some point, (six months, maybe more. I really don't remember,) Adobe closed down the Dollar Photo Club and we were forced to create an account with Adobe Images or lose any unused image credits. Instead of those credits being good until used, they expired one year after our forced migration to Adobe Images.
We were offered a better subscription deal than the general public, if we signed up within a specific time frame, However, the better deal was for a set number of months. After that, our subscriptions would be the same, and we'd pay the same as everyone else.
In the end, I lost something like 78 image credits, (or $78,) because I was unable to use all the stored credits before the end of the year.
I was offended when Adobe went to a subscription only model. The problem I had then, and still have today, is there isn't an exit plan for loyal customers. Fortunately, I have the CS6 Master Collection. Even so, I'd have bought into the subscription model, which at the time would have cost about the same as an annual upgrade, but in 12 smaller monthly payments. But knowing I'd lose access to my own work when I could no longer afford the subscription, (because there are things in CC that are not available in CS6 and which won't work in CS6,) was a deal breaker. I'd have been happy with just getting the then current copy of Photoshop at the end of 5-7 years of subscriptions, but that's not an option.
So I said Goodbye to Adobe products, and continue to use programs from the CS6 era.
Given my first hand experiences with both the Adobe software, (and their don't-give-a-damn Customer Service,) and how Adobe treated the Dollar Photo Club customers after acquiring Fotolia, I am not optimistic about Allegorithmic being acquired by Adobe. To say the least.
