Adobe to Ban Users From Venezuela
Adobe (Hacker News, Reddit):
The U.S. Government issued Executive Order 13884, the practical effect of which is to prohibit almost all transactions and services between U.S. companies, entities, and individuals in Venezuela. To remain compliant with this order, Adobe is deactivating all accounts in Venezuela.
[…]
We are unable to issue refunds. Executive order 13884, orders the cessation of all activity with the entities including no sales, service, support, refunds, credits, etc.
[…]
You have until October 28, 2019 to download any content that you have stored in your Adobe account. After this date your account will be deactivated.
I’m not sure what happened to the English version of this page that was originally at the linked URL; it now only shows Spanish.
CM30:
What makes this even worse is that this is only a huge issue because Adobe moved to the whole ‘Creative Cloud’ thing rather than the old ‘buy each product outright’ model. With the old model, it wouldn’t hurt these creators all that much if their accounts got deactivated, since the software would just not get updates. Now on the other hand… they’re screwed. It’s a ‘brilliant’ example of how these ‘cloud’ based services are a bad deal for the user, because it puts them at the risk of getting locked out their own purchases due to legal hassles like this.
And the old non-subscription version is stuck at 32 bits and so won’t work with Catalina.
Microsoft-owned GitHub also banned users from Crimea, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Syria following previously imposed U.S. economical sanctions.
Previously:
- Adobe Case Study in Why Customers Don’t Like Subscriptions
- Lightroom CC 2.0 and Lightroom Classic CC 8.0
- New Lightroom CC and Lightroom Classic CC
- Record Adobe Revenue
- Lightroom Never Fully Expires
1 Comment RSS · Twitter
Software as a service has many downsides, this is one of them. Had these customers paid for a license rather than a service, they could keep using software. Unfortunately, Wallstreet pushes much of this "innovation" in sucking money from consumer.
