The affected products, the four AI products, are standalone that can be used as plugins. Three of the products also include batch processing.
Another photo editing software company recently got rid of one of their licensing models. But do you know what they did? They grandfathered in EVERYONE who currently had that model.
Eric had to know that he would alienate many people with his announcement. But when he became aware of the extent of it, he seems to have ghosted us, curled up in his office and put on his noise-cancelling headphones hoping we would go away. As you said - be careful what you wish for, because many customers HAVE gone away.
I personally do not want Topaz to fail. I simply want them to listen to and have some consideration for the customers who have made them successful to this point.
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“Today Mr. Morris has even more and links to purchase Topaz in his blog.”
And I suspect that is why it was removed. He wants you to buy the products through his affiliate programs, which generate revenue for him. Although unintentional, linking to his blog is free advertising for him.
That’s just my guess - I may be totally wrong.
It was moved to a more appropriate place, whereupon thanks were given to you.
Well said- everything.
I certainly understand where you are coming from but those of us who bought your plugins from the beginning (with the promise of free lifetime upgrades) made you money, kept you in business and let you expand… This is unexceptable.
“Make no mistake about it: this situation was 100% our fault.”
So why punish your customers who got you going and kept you going?
As far as refunding by sending our receipts… Those may not be available anymore as they where quite a few years back, can’t you just look at our accounts?
For me personally I used to use airmail (Mac email client) but they failed to tell you while you could backup your mail there was no way to restore it. I’ve already gone thru this with you guys after I bought clarity but never received a license.
This is why I’m not helping startups anymore. This is a bad, bad look Eric.
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I’ve been a developer for close to 20 yrs but I’ve never reneged on a deal.
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You should remove your mail ID from your name in preferences as this is a public forum and anyone can pick it up.
Thank you!
I just looked up Affinity’s history because of your post. Serif began developing Affinity Photo in 2009, and worked on it for over 5 years before bringing out the first version for Mac’s in July, 2015. The Window’s version was released in October, 2016. They are still on version 1.X.X five years later, despite having added many major upgrades to the product, not just bug fixes.
So in addition to being a great product, we are all still getting new features added for years now, for only our initial investment of $50 or $36.99 - their on-sale price. Frankly, I am still learning things that AP can do that I had no idea it even did! I am looking forward to when they do finally launch version 2.0 (sometime in 2021, probably) because I imagine it will be wonderful with true major upgrades to the program - and I will be glad to pay to update because Serif has proven it gives value to it’s customers, instead of nickle and diming them to death.
And throughout the pandemic, Serif’s emails have kept in mind that times are hard, by both offering frequent sales and help to students to get their products and upping the number of their tutorials and advice from working professionals to help both users and the industry going during these trying times. Topaz Labs could learn a few lessons from them.
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Well said! My sentiments exactly, when they do come out with 2.0 I will be one of the first to purchase it knowing how they have treated their customer base.
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Well, it looks like my reply to @PaulM and his reply to me - which I have an email copy of - has been deleted. All the more reason to walk away from Topaz.
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This is disgraceful behaviour by Topaz. Topaz offered free upgrades and people, myself included, paid hard earned cash on that understanding. I believe that is a contract and Topaz has broken it. Topaz should honour their contract to those who have bought software prior to this change in company policy. If the company wishes to change its policy for new products that is a different matter, but imposing new policies, on existing customers who have bought into existing products with ongoing upgrades, in my view, demonstrates a total lack of any moral backbone. As to the pricing structure, it’s laughable - for a small amount more than $99 a year, I can get Lightroom AND Photoshop. Before I sign off permanently, may I say to the software development team - Good Job! The software rocks but the managment decision making has lost this customer - c ya!
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Of course now when I open Denoise AI, I get hassled about a new version (2.3.x). I don’t care and I don’t want to be reminded. The only option is to snooze the reminder for up to a couple of weeks. Hey Topaz… Stop it!! I’m never going to buy your upgrade because you lied to your customer base. I don’t like liars and I’ll not do any more business with them. Get rid of your damn recurring reminder.
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They don’t seem to understand that if you annoy people who are ALREADY annoyed with you, you’re really pressing your luck.
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Maybe if you use an app like Radio Silence, you will be able to block Topaz from contacting you.
I’m on Windows so Radio Silence isn’t an option for me. Instead, I’m trying a simple firewall rule to block Denoise from being able to get to the internet. So far Denoise seems to still function, but I’ll know more in a couple of weeks.
Sorry I should have been clearer, since I didn’t know what system you are on. Check to see if there is a Windows app that does the same thing. There are usually more of them than there are Mac versions. Otherwise, I hope setting up the firewall works (which is what I suppose Radio Silence does).
So far, it looks like the firewall rule is doing the trick. I seem to be able to use the program and it does not prompt me to update, even if I tell it to check for updates.
For anyone interested, I created an outbound rule that denies all internet access to “%ProgramFiles%\Topaz Labs LLC\Topaz DeNoise AI\Topaz DeNoise AI.exe” (the location may be different depending on how it was installed). I will just have to create one of these rules for each of the effected programs as the first major upgrade is released.
I will be happy to pay for an upgrade when Topaz manages to release a reasonably bug-free and properly self-installing one on the first try. I resent being asked to pay to be effectively a beta tester. So far I don’t see that happening, so I will stay with the versions I have.
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