A few days ago, I set myself to try and learn SD, it looked fabulous and I was really excited to begin. Well, speak about timing here
I'm reading all that can be read on the subject, it's interesting to say the least. The price and licensing argument aside, as I kind of see it as a separate issue, what really bothers me is what the future holds in terms of updates, functionality and Adobization.
I really dislike big companies like Adobe, as they tend to simply remove the "soul" of a project (I know, its a little idealistic word, but you got the idea). It simply becomes a corporate monster, not a loved and well thought product.
It generally inherits a cancer mutation culture, with wild bits of functionnality pushed by a management that has no understanding of what they are doing, less so what the programmers or founders are and were planning.
On top of it, you have so much internal ego and position battles between departments, changes in management, with every new one having a new idea about the whole thing and trying to put its name on it, or destroying it, slowly or quickly, for whatever reason, that the coherent vision is simply gone, not because the company has a satanic agenda, but because the
structure of such a company makes the outcome look evil.
The "Peter Jackson" blog post was painful to read. It made me cringe to be honest. It was all too excited, but in a... very corporate way. When I finished reading this, I was pretty convinced that something was a bit wrong here.
I kept thinking about a future blog post about an "OH SH*T moment", when he realizes that well, he's not in charge anymore, and maybe one day, have a Palmer Luckey moment and simply be gone, leaving his baby to strangers.
Keeping analogies, I think of Apple, that has been through several corporate phases, and is a bold evidence that a company needs a strong, coherent vision, despite shareholders. Apple was Steve Jobs' playground, today it's still going on Ive's views, but it has already lost something in the way. Those companies are very rare, and Adobe isn't one of them.
I'm a bit sad, I saw and felt a lot of love for this company and their software everywhere, it was like discovering ZBrush and its whole great community. You can feel that something was different, because let's be honest, everybody loves the little indie guy doing incredible things vs. enormous bloated cash machines. It adds something to the experience, it adds value and encourages creativity. Well, maybe I'm too emotional here, but using big bloated software everyday, I really enjoy the small ones, it makes me happy to give money and share.
The "petit poucet" (Tom Thumb in French) is the one everybody love, and I see a real cultural shift toward this, people seek it and it's great.
Good luck everyone ! Bonne chance les gars !
