What you need to know
- Adobe announced that it will purchase Figma in a deal worth approximately $20 billion.
- Figma is a web-based design platform that allows artists to collaborate online.
- Many artists and designers have expressed concern about the deal on social media.
Adobe just announced an agreement to purchase Figma for $20 billion. The move has caused a stir among artists and developers, many of which are concerned about the deal. The FigmaDesign subreddit is full of complaints and calls to leave Figma for other programs, such as Sketch.
“Oh please no. If this is the great news that was being talked about yesterday on the zoom webinar, it’s not great. Nor good. Horrible. Adobe, please go away,” said Valkyra87.
“The product will get worse, but at least it’ll cost more,” added troubled-sleep.
Many users expressed their feelings with four-letter words. Multiple threads have appeared announcing plans to leave Figma or asking for recommendations for the best drawing apps for Windows.
Andrew Bennett, founder & graphic designer at desktopGeneration, shared his thoughts with us on the deal.
“Adobe’s acquisition of Figma is deeply troubling. They (Adobe) have already shown their willingness to abuse their dominance in the creative industry, and there is no reason to believe they have the best interests of the artists/designers using their software in mind right now.”
Others on Twitter appear to agree with Bennett and people from the FigmaDesign subreddit.
RIP Figma. There’s legitimate reason for regulators to get involved here, imo. https://t.co/F9AuHuzBt2September 15, 2022
We don’t want you buying out a program because you can’t make a stable one yourself with your unlimited budget. And you still charge us monthly with all the bugs.September 15, 2022
We’re not excited with your intent to acquire @Figma. pic.twitter.com/vE81ehM6NZSeptember 15, 2022
Product Designers, UI, UX designers in subscription era pic.twitter.com/Y26xVH7LOFSeptember 15, 2022
Translation:We’re excited to eat yet another tool you love and force our extortionate subscription pricing while we make it gradually worse with each updateSeptember 15, 2022
It seems that artists using desktops, drawing tablets, dedicated tablets, and other pieces of hardware may be on the hunt for a new piece of design software. We’ll keep an eye out to see if any particular app steps up to fill any void created by Figma becoming part of Adobe.
