Not strange at all. Even though it was a success, it wasn't a cash cow and only had limited ability to be milked though micro transactions and other revenue opportunities.
When the axe comes, all that matters is the numbers in the balance sheet. Creativity, enjoyment and artistic value be damned.
Still saves a ton of time from learning from either somewhat related tutorials. Garbage courses. Or digging through the modern spam infested web.
It's a decent tutor, never said that it's perfect. I will not hesitate that using it as an assistant has bumped up my productivity and learning by roughly 50% when it comes to programming.
Of course, it has it's myriad problems, specially in bleeding edge fields like AI development with libraries iterating sometimes nightly. As well as it's trend to not exactly teach, but instead answer your specific question. So you still need to have some initiative and still rely on a few human resources.
HOWEVER, I do agree that blindly copy pasting code from an AI is a TERRIBLE idea. And all the buzz about AI developers seems like a disaster waiting to happen (and it certainly will!).
Correction, AI in the LLM/Diffusion sense is a decent tutor for cheap. Can cobble together rough temp art, and if used by an actually capable artist, make cool stuff.
Anything else and it's a garbage firehose, it's the undisputed king of mediocrity. Which, given the standards of SPAM and the modern web, is exactly what it's being used for.
What a shame.
I initially thought about installing UBlacklist on Firefox and block the spam, but then I had a thought? Let us do the HouseFresh.com test on Duck Duck Go and see how far up it is?
Apparently, Housefresh.com stands behind world famous Air Purifier reviewers like:
Well, nevermind guess. I can have either HouseFresh and literally nothing else. Or an ocean of spam, intermixed with the rare human written article that was produced by the main branch of the publisher, rather than its SEO garbage chute.
The web search is a lost cause. No wonder Kagi keeps growing in popularity.
(Also keep in mind, in that giant list? Some of those websites are so GOOD at their Air Purifying review job that they get to be featured more than once, thrice even at times)
If the assignments are in Maya, you'll have a hard time passing the class in Blender.
Long story short:
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Sigh... Why...? Why is it too hard? Why is it that in this day and age, we can't simply have something we pay for and keep with no worries. Once I started owning software, Affinity was my choice. They had a long track record of not selling out, retaining high standards and a fairly priced transaction.
You pay for good software, the company works hard to make the software better, and then sells you a better version that you can upgrade at your own choice. Plain, simple and honest.
Nothing lasts in this day and age.
You used to be something Serif, but now you're in the big leagues along with Adobe, and against them you're nothing.
Undramatic PS: Affinity Designer is damn solid, like it more than big A's Illustrator, shame I'm now afraid of pressing the update button >:(
EDIT:
Speculative decision thoughts
Apparently in 2022 when V2 came out, they made triple of what they expected and that number was something like 10-20 million pounds. Even though it sounds like a lot, it might have not been enough.
After blowing off some steam to think clearly, there is the chance that Affinity might've been sinking and hoping for a payday. They have always been a couple steps behind Adobe and . Whenever Adobe makes a new feature they brag about it from the mountains as they got the R&D cash to power those, while Affinity is churning along just polishing their software. This makes it hard to sell at a glance, also FOSS alternatives are getting stronger. So their new user aquisition probably hasn't been great.
They might have been stuck between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, they're not free and competing against free software which is just as good if not better. On the other hand while they require payment, Businesses do not mind paying through the nose so long as its "THE BEST" and using alternative NON BEST software introduces unwanted friction.
That 1 billion might've really been the offer they couldn't have refused.
What a straightforward and clear way to put it, thank you kindly!
Been a Windows user for a really long time. A few times I tried to switch over to Linux, but it just wasn't doable for a myriad of reasons. Windows 11, I have words with it. Many bad ones, but thankfully there are many users like me that for one reason or another did not switch and put time in to beat the badness out of it via mods.
Windows 12... I'm not so sure if I'll even "upgrade" to it. It really depends on how much Microsoft decides to wire up the OS to their servers. Look, I wouldn't mind at all if I could have "smart" tools with AI assistance, but the problem for me is the lack of choice. Currently, if you don't use their crap software, what mostly travels over the wire is telemetry, and if you go offline no harm done. But make no mistake, useful AI models are too fat to run on most computers. Heck I built mine with AI in mind, but will Microsoft even give me the choice of using my own AIs? (Here's a hint, it starts with N, has a V and ends with an R)
But what if the OS starts requiring it to be online only because of their AI features? Maybe we'll have to start paying for Windows again in subscriptions to pay for the obligatory AI? Or what about scrubbing options away from the settings so you can't "misuse" your own device and have to ask nicely to their AI to do it for you?
There is a road here, and I do not like it. Thank goodness Linux is better than it has ever been.
PS: As for the notepad thing, I'm completely in agreement that it should remain without AI. Such a simple tool for scribbling down notes should be kept lean, simple and fast. Things that Microsoft and their engineers have long forgotten how to do.
Cheers for the punctual maintenance. Just logged in, but no issues so far.
There is actually something I'd like to chat about, but the time is too soon.
Here's to another six months of db0!
Not sure, but the blast radius is tremendous, even games from the Atari 2600, a console released more than fifty fucking years ago have been taken down.