An Affinity for Free

Jaron Schneider writing for PetaPixel:¹

Affinity was always an alternative, but it never felt like it could really compete. Going free is going to be hugely helpful in convincing users to try it. Affinity needs users in order to drive value, and users are going to be far easier to get when points of friction are removed. The blueprint is already there, thanks to Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve — Canva just needed to copy it, and it did.

Jaron misses a key point here which is the main reason I’m skeptical of this transition to making Affinity free: market share doesn’t on its own equal money.

Blackmagic doesn’t need DaVinci Resolve to make money, they have a robust hardware business. Resolve is a superb and popular video editing tool, but I seriously doubt it makes a dent in Blackmagic’s income statement. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a money-losing endeavor given the robust development support it receives. Resolve has always had the vibe of being a passion project for the company, but one that most importantly feeds into their main business by helping them sell hardware.

Canva, on the other hand, doesn’t have another business — they are all-in on selling subscriptions. In some ways, having a great free product can be a gateway drug to said subscription. If Canva’s AI features can ever rival Adobe’s, the addition of Affinity’s pro-level tools will present serious competition for the software giant.

The reality is that professionals who use this software to make money will gladly pay a subscription for whatever tool helps them get work done faster. That is likely the tool that they are most used to working with, but it might someday be the tool with the best AI features. The latter is the bet that Canva is making here, because there is almost certainly no money in consumer-level editing software.²

This feels like a bet form the bygone venture capital era of the 2010s: Canva is making a great free product to attract a huge amount of users and will likely enshitify it in the coming years. The old adage again rings true: “If the product is free, you are the product.” I can only imagine the creative new ways Canva will devise to extract money from its users.

In the short-term, this looks like a big win for cash-strapped creatives and hobbyists. Affinity’s software has always been great³ and now it’s a whole lot more accessible. Personally, I’m excited to have a great, free, and local way to resize images on all my computers, in addition to the already great Photoshop alternative. In the longer-term, I’m worried that we will look back upon this transition with hearts jaded by a once-great software’s fall from grace.