548

Adobe’s employees are typically of the same opinion of the company as its users, having internally already expressed concern that AI could kill the jobs of their customers. That continued this week in internal discussions, where exasperated employees implored leadership to not let it be the “evil” company customers think it is. 

This past week, Adobe became the subject of a public relations firestorm after it pushed an update to its terms of service that many users saw at best as overly aggressive and at worst as a rights grab. Adobe quickly clarified it isn’t spying on users and even promised to go back and adjust its terms of service in response

For many though, this was not enough, and online discourse surrounding Adobe continues to be mostly negative. According to internal Slack discussions seen by Business Insider, as before, Adobe’s employees seem to be siding with users and are actively complaining about Adobe’s poor communications and inability to learn from past mistakes.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] throws_lemy@lemmy.nz 101 points 6 months ago

Adobe is an evil company that will do whatever it takes to F its users,” one employee wrote, echoing sentiments

Microsoft : first time?

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 94 points 6 months ago
[-] Static_Rocket@lemmy.world 120 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I was working at a company at one point that got a contract to build something I viewed equivalent to malware. Immediately I brought it up to several higher-ups that this was not something I was willing to do. One of them brought up the argument "If we don't do it someone else will."

This mentality scares the shit out of me, but it explains a lot of horrible things in the industry.

Believing in that mentality is worse than the reality of the situation. At least if you say no there's a chance it doesn't happen or it gets passed to someone worse than you. If you say yes then not only are you complicit, you are actively enforcing that gloomy mentality for other engineers. Just say no.

[-] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 52 points 6 months ago

It‘s exactly this dangerous mindset that‘s riding us in some AI service hellhole. Too many super talented developers have told themselves exactly that instead of standing up for their principles or even allowing themselves to have principles in the first place.

Only recently have they started leaving companies like OpenAI and taking a stance because they‘re actually seeing what their creation is used for and with how little care for human life it‘s been handled.

Of course many critics knew this was headed towards military contracts and complete Enshittification. It was plain to see OpenAI founders aren‘t the good guys but „someone else would do it anyway“ kept the underlings happy. This deterministic fallacy is also why anyone still works for Meta or Google. It‘s a really lazy excuse.

[-] Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world 15 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Only recently have they started leaving companies like OpenAI and taking a stance because they‘re actually seeing what their creation is used for and with how little care for human life it‘s been handled.

Is this true though? From my understanding, Altman was able to overrule the board largely because the employees (especially the one who had been with the company for more than 1-2 years) were worried about their stock options.

I wouldn't be surprised if the vast majority of the OpenAI team are ghouls just like Altman, that fundamentally lack humanity (incapable of honesty, inability to tell right from wrong, incapable of empathy).

Don't get me wrong, I don't mean this in the Hollywood sense, like the evil antagonists in say star wars, I am sure they come off as "normal" during a casual conversation. I am referring to going deeper and asking subtle questions referring to matters of ethics and self-enrichment in an off the record environment. They will always come up with some excuse to justify their greed as being "for the betterment of humanity" or some other comical word salad.

[-] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago

You know I‘m worried you might be exactly on point with this assumption. I still give some of them the benefit of doubt because humans can „reason“ themselves into pretty dangerous things by appealing to authority and the like. Doesn‘t make all of them evil but sure as hell way too gullible for the field they‘re working in.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] thejml@lemm.ee 8 points 6 months ago

One thing I like to tell people with that attitude is: whatever someone does, there’s always someone else who will see it as an example and challenge to do it “better”. Do you want to be the company that started that chain? Are you prepared to compete in that race?

For something borderline malware, someone will take your lead and make it “better malware”. If you are not prepared to respond in kind, then why did you even go there? If you’re not ready to be known as the top of the line malware creator, why start the product line?

It is unfortunately one of the darker aspects of the hyper-growth-focused tech and engineering is the often highly mercenary/transactional nature of many people in the field. Like, there’s a reason Facebook pays engineers 250-400k or more. Sure, the work can be difficult, but most of the time it’s not that difficult. They’re paying people that much so that they ignore their morals, shut the fuck up, and just take the paycheck and do the work that is helping to destroy society.

It’s immensely distressing to me as a software engineer. I am fully aware that my morality is limiting my earning potential, and that makes me kinda furious - not so much at myself, but that our economic system is set up in such a way that that’s not only possible, but optimal (in terms of earning a nice paycheck and being able to retire somewhat early).

[-] catloaf@lemm.ee 18 points 6 months ago

I doubt they're unionized. A strike without a union is just refusing to do your job.

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 20 points 6 months ago

That's what it is with a union too, it's just more organized. You can strike without a union, it's just a lot harder to organize and the stakes are way higher.

[-] catloaf@lemm.ee 3 points 6 months ago

And with a union, you have legal protection. Individually, you don't.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[-] assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world 7 points 6 months ago

In an ideal world, yes. But most people aren't willing to lose their jobs and healthcare, potentially putting their family's financial situation in dire straits, over protesting this.

Don't blame the workers. Blame the executives.

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 4 points 6 months ago

Not blaming anyone, just saying words don't mean a lot.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[-] TheFeatureCreature@lemmy.world 77 points 6 months ago

Good time to drop a reminder that Affinity's tools are 50% off right now and are buy-once software.

[-] IntheTreetop@lemm.ee 67 points 6 months ago

Unfortunately, they were also recently acquired by Canva. It may be all right for the time being, but I wouldn't throw my full weight behind them anymore.

[-] Pechente@feddit.de 16 points 6 months ago

Yeah same. I used to recommend them whole heartedly but now Im afraid they will go downhill

[-] k_rol@lemmy.ca 8 points 6 months ago

I guess I'm out of the loop, what's wrong with Canva?

[-] dustyData@lemmy.world 27 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Canva is an aggressively for profit company. They use the freemium model to manipulate users into FOMO, pay-walling the actually useful parts of their product offering. They are an unicorn startup from Australia. They want to engorge the entirety of the design and office market all at once, thus have expanded fast but entirely on the basis of venture capitalism and stock trading. ~~They, as far as I can recall, are not entirely profitable yet~~*. This means that their model is incompatible with Affinity's model and brings about the fear that they will enshittify Affinity very soon in order to either try to promote their desired monopoly or to flow in some short-term profits.

*: They are profitable, but still their model is embrace, extend, extinguish, just like MS. And subscription based monetization is still icky and contrary to Affinity's original vision.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] TheFeatureCreature@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago

You're not wrong! But at least for now I got a decent PS alternative for $45. We'll see how things go.

[-] JustARaccoon@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

Well the good thing about their licensing is that you can buy a version and stick with it in spite of whatever the parent company does, and you're not banned from using older versions like with Adobe's T&Cs

[-] singularity@lemmy.ml 10 points 6 months ago

And they are a really great alternative!

[-] Veraxus@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago

...for now.

  • See above convo about acquisition by Canva.
load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Resol@lemmy.world 61 points 6 months ago

You know how fucked up your company is when even your employees are mad at you.

[-] Croquette@sh.itjust.works 27 points 6 months ago

It's always like that. When the only goal is more growth, the C-Suite will fuck everyone and anything over.

But people gotta eat and be homed, so that won't change soon.

[-] deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 9 points 6 months ago

Remember: in most cases the c-suite consider you merely as resources(human) a source of labour.

To them employees are things.

Customers are just a revenue source, they are also just things.

CEO's are just chasing their next quarterly performance bonus.

[-] Resol@lemmy.world 4 points 6 months ago

No wonder why everyone hates corporate things.

[-] Churbleyimyam@lemm.ee 50 points 6 months ago

Imagine what projects like GIMP, Krita, Inkscape, Scribus etc could do with a fraction of monthly revenue of Adobe.

[-] uis@lemm.ee 29 points 6 months ago
[-] uis@lemm.ee 21 points 6 months ago

I don't think there any proprietary 3d software, where you can just call dev and he will make it 10 times faster.

[-] ApeNo1@lemm.ee 37 points 6 months ago

Conway’s Law in action.

Organisations which design systems (in the broad sense used here) are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organisations.

[-] Churbleyimyam@lemm.ee 31 points 6 months ago

Fuck Adobe. They are effectively a monopoly and are actively exploiting that position. I refuse to use their software, even if it slows me down.

[-] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 10 points 6 months ago

Their PDF signing service has essentially been dead since the government started using Digital sign... now they are bleeding whatever small segments are still left using their service. This won't end well for Adobe PDF products.

[-] corus_kt@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago

I hope we shift out of Adobe completely where pdf is concerned, Acrobat is the first program I've seen with such a massive userbase that's somehow updated to be worse with every passing year. I had to stick to that shovelware for company laptops but I NEVER want to deal with large documents on Acrobat again.

[-] nilzen@lemmy.world 31 points 6 months ago

Adobe has been exploiuting users for years. they are invasive, they already do wayy more snooping in your data than they ever should. I stopppeed using them years ago and always recommend for others to do so. they don't deserve your money and especially don't deserve even one MB of your data.

[-] ton618@lemm.ee 11 points 6 months ago

Which products do you use instead?

[-] 7355608@lemmy.world 57 points 6 months ago

Saw this in one of the Linux forums. I hope its useful.

[-] gdog05@lemmy.world 26 points 6 months ago

I want to point out, because I see this chart or something like it a lot. Adobe has an absolute monopoly in the professional design space. None of these programs can remotely come close to the creative suite if you're doing more than tinkering. If you're making memes or doing some personal image manipulation, you can get by with GIMP or something. If you're creating professional art or creating files for print or publication, you need Adobe. It's scary that one corporation holds so much sway over an entire industry but they definitely do.

[-] FellowEnt@sh.itjust.works 17 points 6 months ago

Affinity is the closest but still a ways off being a viable replacement for ID or PS. Source: worked in a design studio, every few years we would try Affinity in an attempt to de-Adobe our workflows but it's just not comparable.

[-] gdog05@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago

I've been pretty excited about what I've been seeing from Affinity. You're right, they're not there yet. But they're closer than anyone. They need more money and time and they will hopefully get there.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[-] uis@lemm.ee 3 points 6 months ago

LMMS is cool

[-] mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 19 points 6 months ago

Same with Unity's devs. It sucks to watch your life's work being flushed down the drain for stupid grasping at shitty, random fads.

[-] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 14 points 6 months ago

Oracle and Adobe seem to be the most evil companies, but we should be careful not to anthropomorphise them.

[-] JesusTheCarpenter@feddit.uk 21 points 6 months ago
[-] Lets_Eat_Grandma@lemm.ee 4 points 6 months ago

chiqita says hello

[-] scorpious@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago

I’d just like to know how the same fucking company that makes Illustrator and Photoshop can come up with something as astonishingly shitty as Acrobat.

load more comments
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2024
548 points (98.4% liked)

Technology

60130 readers
2810 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS