The Subscription Model

Ideas & Feedback
1

I should have no problem if a company wants to make money by sellings its products. Infact personally I am willing to pay for vectornator or any other product that you have in line.

But I have a problem if a company tries to play around on how and when (subscription) I can own a product. Its one of the reasons why people flocked to vectornator because they were dissatisfied with other products. What subscription model means to me is that if I use the app for 2 days in a month, that would simply mean that this product is not for me. Its for someone else who uses it daily.

A one time paid application is the best way to keep everyone happy. Infact I would very much like vectornator to be similar to procreate in terms of the pricing mechanism.
But I also know that it won’t happen, because there are investors sitting who wants to milk every bit of money the users have.

I do understand you have new customers particularly companies and brands using vectornator and you want to cater to them with new features. But you also have to know that the brand themselves don’t create the art. Its the user who fiddles around in their free time does the real art.

I particularly like the MN3 (PDF annotating ios app) way of solving the issue of providing new features for money. Build an entire new application and charge money for each new version. Let people have & own the old version of the application. And if you want to add completely major new features or changes then release a separate app and make it paid. Example they have MN2 and MN3 both do the same thing of annotating PDFs but MN3 having the most abundant features. People like me would have no problem.

I don’t like subscription model at all. Its the best model for investors to make money and its the worst for the users as it is like a hole in your gas tank that will make your tank go empty.

I just have to say this. World is changing, things are getting transparent, you were able lure users and people from other major players. Brands came in later. Same will be true again, people will be the first to “move” and then the brands. So if there is another app maker who comes up with another app and less pricing than yours then what do you think will happen.

What makes you think that the same won’t happen to you ?

I personally like vectornator very much. Don’t want it to get ruined. Even though the pricing doesn’t affect the original vectornator application. But I am particularly concerned about the upcoming app “Move”

However, this is too early to say. As the product “Move” isn’t out yet. It will be fun to see where the company is driving itself towards.

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Hi @user126 Alex! First off, welcome to the community and thank you so much for posting such sincere feedback. Your positive approach is extremely appreciated. :raised_hands:

While I can completely understand your concern and how it might look like to our users from the outside, I can assure you that we don’t intend on cutting down core functionalities. Our upcoming tool Linearity Move will also be included in the free plan as well!

This rebranding and our new focus paves the way to reach our ambitious goals, have the resources to continuously support our beloved team but more importantly, keep working on new, exciting features and offer more to our community. We are planning to be even closer to our community than ever. On top of our monthly events, we have multiple community initiatives in the pipeline that all center around peer to peer learning experience and put spotlight on your valuable efforts. So I’d say watch this space. :wink:

Once again, thank you for the thorough feedback!

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From my understanding, their goal is to expand their brand to create the most extensive, user-friendly, and streamlined yet capable set of design tools for everyone. Their goal has always been creating accessible design tool for everyone, from hobbyists to professionals.

Their goal is not to screw over free users.

All current vectornator features are and will be available in Curve for free, and Move will also be available for free. Basic collaboration feature seems like it’ll be available for free as well.

Pro subscription gives you access to additional AI features, unlimited real-time collaboration, and advanced presets for Move.

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I agree with every single sentence and every opinion expressed in your post. (user126) I discovered Vectronator at the very beginning of its creation and I liked it very much. I was and still am in complete awe of the creators and capabilities of this program of this application. I created more than 1000 drawings in it, mostly of a non-commercial nature. I basically jotted down my ideas, technical sketches and plans. Subscription model is fundamentally unacceptable to me.

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All the features will be avilable in free plan.

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I recently responded to someone on the Linearity team and echoed some of the comments here that I would be more than happy to buy the app for a reasonable cost but would drop it if it went to a subscription model. What I’m reading here looks like a tier system to pay for more features which I’d support. If it were priced similar to Procreate I wouldn’t hesitate to buy it.

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Hi @Climber and @zakcat thank you both for your valued feedback. It seems like @east-user124 has been following us from the early days and knows what we have been up to! :wink:

While I completely hear your approach towards subscription model, our free plan will still offer all the essentials, if not more than what you currently have access to! Should you decide to upgrade to Pro, it will be $10 per month. You can read all about our pricing details as well as FAQs on it here.

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It seems to me that Vectornator has benefited from thousands of hours of beta testing from the users as well as market research in the forums that Vectornator has benefited from so I find the term “free” problematic if by that you mean giving it away for nothing. However, my main question is will you continue to develop the program based on user requests. Will you still provide technical support for your free plan? Thank You.

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Hey @zakcat thank you for chiming in! I can definitely confirm that we have zero intentions on ignoring user requests or providing limited support.

On top, we are doubling down on bringing Linearity closer to our community than before so you won’t see me disappear anytime soon. :wink:

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if you look at goodnotes and notability saga. You get to know a lot about the current tricks in the market.

If you read the macrumors’s article end paragraph you will see the thing that I was talking about. Developers opting less divisive approach of releasing new feature packed in a completely new application. This way you can understand which developers care about its overall users by keeping a balance by giving both subscription as well as one time purchase options.

Developers need to make money, but when there are investors siting behind the scene then it is a whole new scenario, and the total direction of the application development and its usage changes, as we are starting to see.

Even though the base feature are free, but after the pricing in introduced there would be a conflict of interest between releasing upcoming new features to free or paid users.

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11

Edit: I have a few concerns with future plans for Vectornator/Curve, please read the subsequent messages in this thread for more context.

I’ve just taken a look at the new pricing (have used Vectornator for a number of years but only recently updated) and am pleasantly surprised. If you look at what they’re charging for:

  • “Additional AI features” will probably require cloud services, and are not free to run by any means. The CoreML features (bg removal, tracing) run locally and are remaining free.
  • “Unlimited editors & version history” - again, cloud feature. Free plan has version history, which didn’t exist before (not released yet either).
  • “Advanced templates & animation presets” - new materials require curation, fair enough. Templates still work in their current form, unlikely to go away.
  • “Sharing permissions” - cloud hosting is expensive.
  • “Advanced commenting (video & audio)” - cloud again, storing video is not cheap.

Linearity is now beginning to offer cloud-based features like RTC and generative AI, as well as pivoting into the enterprise space which, realistically, is going to be their main source of income. Github has a similar pricing strategy which works well.

As far as I can tell, nothing that Vectornator currently offers is changing at all, apart from a new brand - If that’s not the case then I retract this entire post. There’s no telling at this point yet, but I would imagine that most new local features will stay free. I don’t yet know whether Curve (and Move) will require cloud activation for the free plan - could someone from the Linearity team chime in on this? I hope not.

Move will be an interesting product to watch out for.

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12

@llui85 thank you for the valuable input and I’d say you are pretty much spot on!

Our plans on keeping Linearity Curve and Linearity Move free, with their core features remain the same. As we move towards migrating to Linearity Cloud later this year, you will be asked to transfer your documents to Linearity Cloud but there won’t be any costs for the migration or storing your existing files. Should you decide to access further features and storage options, you can always opt into our Pro plan.

Hope this helps!

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@Medet Brilliant, thank you!

Just confirming that with LinCloud (which replaces iCloud storage), local storage will still be an option? Am I correct in assuming that Curve will work continue to work locally forever as it does currently without requiring cloud storage/licensing/activation of any kind?

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Hey @llui85 local storage will not be an option when Linearity Cloud fully launches. You will still be able to do edits and work offline, but your file will re-sync once you go back online. This is to ensure our both products are able to communicate with each other and allow seamless workflows.

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Ah, @Medet thanks for clarifying that. Knowing that there will no longer be an option to work locally off iCloud Drive is really disappointing, and a bit worrying given all of the cloud-based AI related stuff that seems to be coming from Linearity. Sadly, every time I learn a little bit more about the new Vectornator/Linearity the less interested I become.

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Hi @Medet that sounds a little concerning at first glance. I have a few points I’d like to clear up:

  1. iCloud storage will no longer be available to use, and will be automatically migrated to LinCloud at some point - is this correct?
  2. If I have no desire to use any sort of cloud storage, and instead keep my sizeable library on an external hard disk, will that still be an option? Essentially, will users be “forced” to use LinCloud, or is local storage that doesn’t involve synchronization still possible?
  3. Will a final “iCloud” version of Curve be made available prior to the release of LinCloud?
  4. What kind of storage limits will be present on the free plan of LinCloud?
  5. If I open a file from my email, from a flash drive, or would like to quickly open a PDF file to check if it imports correctly, will that be uploaded to LinCloud automatically?
  6. What guarantees can Linearity make relating to privacy and security of uploaded documents? Many of the documents that I’m editing at the moment (e.g my resume) include sensitive information. What safeguards will be put in place to ensure that documents are not accessed by malicious entities or employee? Any kind of end-to-end encryption?
  7. Will uploaded LinCloud documents be used for AI training of any kind?
  8. Will these conditions around storage also apply to Linearity Move? (I wouldn’t be surprised if Move is generally more cloud-dependent as it’s a newer product, which is more forgivable)

Question 2 will be a deal-breaker for my continued use of any Linearity products.

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17

Hey @llui85 happy to try and walk you through all of these and very valid questions.

  1. Upon Linearity Cloud launch, you will be asked to migrate your files to Linearity Cloud. However, there will be a period where you can postpone this but eventually, Linearity Curve and Linearity Move will require a workspace to function.

    The reasoning behind this is that having multiple products, we need to offer a single source of truth to allow our users to work seamlessly between them. (e.g. a shared clipboard across both softwares, commenting etc.) This becomes even more important when it comes to organizations with multiple stakeholders and our efforts in bringing real-time collaboration to life. :star_struck:

  2. Connected to above, you will be able to work on them for a while but eventually, it won’t be a possibility.

  3. We don’t have plans to keep a legacy type version at this moment.

  4. Currently we are monitoring the response and planning it accordingly. However, in any case, we will offer ways to expand your storage options through different initiatives, giveaways.

  5. When you import, the file will be treated as a new one and will sync with Linearity Cloud.

  6. As stated on our Privacy Policy we use Cloudflare EU for storage and we are subject to their security measures which are industry standards. Again, as stated by the policy, we are not able to access your files without your consent, therefore, your files cannot be processed to any extent.

  7. Not at all. We only ask for user permission to give feedback on how accurate our background removal and auto trace features perform and again, this is just for their accuracy and completely with your permission.

  8. Indeed. All the conditions listed on the pricing page applies for your Linearity account as a whole and that includes both Linearity Curve and Linearity Move.

I hope these help bring more clarity! Happy to take on any further questions you might have.

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Hi @Medet,

What is the approximate timeframe for Linearity Cloud launch?

I would like to ask if No. 2 can be reconsidered. This is extremely worrying and drastically changes the entire application for the worst; to be clear at this point, I am only referring to Linearity Curve. I have a number of concerns:

  • Privacy: Whilst yes, I’m sure the privacy policy will state that Linearity won’t access user data without consent, that does not change the fact that you will have the technical ability to do so.
    • Zoom was in the news recently relating to ToS changes that would allow AI training on calls. This was reverted after widespread backlash, but what is preventing Linearity, a far smaller company, from changing the privacy policy and utilising your considerable bank of illustration data to train AI models?
  • Performance: I have 40mb Curve files that I work on that would need to be continually synchronized, and will take up a large amount of storage space. I have sufficient space locally on an external disk which may not fit on Linearity Cloud.
  • Dependence on cloud: When there are network issues (either on my end or Linearity’s end), the application may not work. I have no desire to use Move or any other Linearity integrations. Adobe Illustrator and other products on the market all allow for local storage options. (Figma is web-based and an exception to this). I do not work in a team setting and do not need real-time collaboration or any cloud features.
    • Can you guarantee that in an extended offline period (i.e >1 month) Curve will continue to work?
  • Data safety: If Linearity suffers from financial issues and shuts down, or technical issues and loses data, I will have lost all of my documents, which is unacceptable.

I strongly urge Linearity to reconsider total dependence on cloud services, and allow local storage without LinCloud, even if it prevents integration with other Linearity products.

An optional “local-only” mode with a warning banner on the startup dialog (which communicates to the user that Linearity integration is disabled) would suffice and require little engineering effort.

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Hey @llui85 thank you for the quick response and listing further concerns, these are now with the team. The aimed date for the Linearity Cloud launch is potentially within a month or two away and the extended period for migration should be late '23 as it stands. While I can’t promise anything at this stage about local storage, we are aware of your ask and feedback. :raised_hands:

In regards to your further statements, I can only tell you what we plan and how we see things from our perspective. I cannot comment on what other companies are doing and how it’s impacting them. However, I kindly ask you not to make assumptions or allegations that disrespect the effort our team has been putting in and the work we do, as well as its scale.

I’m more than happy to carry on the conversation through messages or email and address your concerns.

Many thanks!

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Hi @Medet,

Thank you for your response! It would be brilliant if there was some form of local storage as well as Linearity Cloud, and I do understand if this can’t be implemented; it would be ideal though if that could happen. You’re welcome to reach out via email if you’d like to clarify anything or discuss further.

I do really appreciate the work that the Linearity team has consistently been putting in, and I truly apologise if my response came about in any other manner (it was very quickly written, perhaps too hastily, and I wanted to communicate my opinion of software freedom which I feel strongly about). The support and timely assistance has always been something that I’ve admired and valued from your team; I hope you can understand that my concerns are all from a technical perspective (software development does that to you…) that could take place in many years ahead if situations change, and I have no qualms or problems with the current (amazing) team at all. I’m incredibly grateful for all of the amazing work taking place on the new brand, new products, and new features (also a new Community Manager - Welcome Medet! I hadn’t seen your post earlier this year), as well as the abundance of support in all disciplines over the past few years.

Linearity’s new direction is very exciting! I’m mostly voicing concerns I see (again as a software dev, not necessarily realistically) that technically could be become problems in the future. The new features are particularly intriguing, and I look forward to seeing what comes next!

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