What do we want:

Adobe to lower the subscription costs for retirees to the same of what they offer for students and teachers.

Why do ask for this change:

To allow individuals to continue sharpening their skills with the products they love and engage in creativity which brings a multitude of benefits as we grow older.

What’s the benefit for Adobe:

• Adobe can differentiate themselves and create brand loyalty from all ages. 
• Adobe can keep more of a customer’s lifetime value as more people will stay with Adobe as they grow older
• Adobe can influence preference in coming generations as many grandparents often serve as daycare for their grandchildren, thus allowing them to share some of their skills and reasoning why they have always used Adobe
• Demonstrate that they care and reward loyal customers

Many people spend a lot of money over time during their professional careers with Adobe. My father’s generation even purchased the Creative Suite before it became a subscription-based offering and then adopted once Adobe changed the business model to that of today.

The subscription-based business model has increased, in many cases, the average revenue per customer and in return has increased the velocity of feature updates compared to earlier times when software was shipped in a yearly cadence. Companies became more profitable, and customers received more value for their dollars spent.

Hopefully one day, we will get to retire. Which for many means having a fixed income and cutting down on some of the costs that we have easily paid during our professional careers. Many companies and government services acknowledge that by offering lower prices for seniors. The big exception here are subscription based “software-as-a-service” solutions like Adobe Creative Cloud.

In my personal example, my father has always used Adobe for as far back as I remember. This has been a huge factor for my own loyalty as an Adobe customer. Because when I had a childhood school project, I would use my dad’s computer with the software available to me, and since he knew Adobe, he could give me tips & tricks.

In it’s most basic form the creative cloud all apps plans cost an individual US $54.99 plus tax per month. Multiply this by 12 months and we’re talking about roughly $659.88 plus tax yearly. There might be a discount if you pay annually vs. monthly. Now, in the past, all Adobe apps were greater than $1,000 and the updates to newer versions were below that mark. As a retiree, I would have the option to only update let’s say every 3-4 years. But not anymore.

And if you're like me and use the options like uploading all pictures to Adobe Cloud, so you can have access through lightroom from all your devices at any time, then you’ll pay more for additional storage. After all, you always use more storage so that makes sense.

But compare this to the student and teacher’s version which costs only USD $19.99/mo vs. the $54.99 mentioned above, that is more than 50% lower in costs. So why not offer that same pay model for retirees? Well Adobe could say that some graphic designers, video producers, and photographers might still offer their services while they are retired. That is a possibility, and if Adobe desires to mitigate this, they could adjust the licensing terms permitting only for non-commercial use.

We would appreciate it if you could take a few minutes and support this initiative and help lower the costs for retired people and enabling them to continue to engage with their creativity.

We also hope that this initiative will inspire other software-as-service, e.g., Microsoft, to follow in Adobe’s footsteps.