Artists got an unpleasant surprise when they opened Photoshop this week, as they were shown a pop-up window asking them to agree to new terms of service. Among the changes: Adobe now says it has the right to access customers’ content through “automated or manual methods.”
Now it’s true that when we use cloud services, we sacrifice a certain amount of privacy. And it’s not unusual for social networks, for example, to claim similar rights — when you share your photos on Facebook, you’re also giving Facebook the right to use those photos. But we’re not talking about your personal Facebook or Instagram photos; Photoshop is used by many, many professional artists for their livelihoods. They might also be working on sensitive or confidential material.
The moment you upload your data to some company cloud you no longer have control over it. They can use however the want it.
Yes, I am being a jerk because GIMP gets routinely thrown around as a Photoshop alternative,which is not. You say I cherry picked a user base, but who are the people that actually pays to use Adobe Cloud? I assure you that they are mostly professionals, because the subscription is expensive.
Now, the “many people” don’t need Photoshop. In fact, there’s no reason they should even install it. But people say “Photoshop” and hear “GIMP” as alternative, and this should stop because the app is objectively bad. There’s Krita, there’s Photopea, there’s Darkroom, there’s myPaint, there’s even Inkscape. Anything is light years ahead that thing, yet it’s recommended again and again like a sad joke made to inflict pain on its users.
GIMP is not a good tool. Stop using, stop recommending it.