♟ Lange: Hello Kevin!
I believe it’s not about relying on any singular tool, or platform. Because software tools do come and go. As do platforms.
A good example of this was Quark, who in its heyday owned 95% of the market. They stopped supporting newer operating systems on OS. Ad0be InDesign then came and became the dominant desktop publishing software. Dependence on any monopoly can have long-term effects: cost; access; tiered features; and interoperability. What if the conditions change? What if the tool or platform you depend upon divests (shuts down). What if your access is revoked based on region? What if you suddenly cannot open a file format that is now proprietary? What if you cannot afford the increased cost of a perpetual licence? There’s an ever-evolving boom or bust cycle to software through access, popularity, subscription model, bloated updates over time, reliance, and divestment.
Isn’t the most popular the industry-standard?
It is an access and ownership conundrum. A software that gets popular because of its usability and functionality first establishes itself as the anti-monopoly. They then become the new kid on the block. They show the interface with familiarity over time, yet provides customizable options within each functionality. They show an infinite canvas, yet display ongoing file size. They enable extensive language support yet more accessible settings to customize. They make their tool interoperable across proprietary devices. They make the tool leaner requiring less compute load. They reduce memory needed to run. Yet is fast enough, and stable. This new software avoids crashing every few hours wasting days of our work (auto-saves). The company makes the conscious decision to avoid prying eyes in file surveillance and analyzing arbitrary productivity metrics(1). The company avoids gathering user data without permission. The company allows you to self-host your data ensuring your access. They do not perform sentiment analysis. They do not prod with a chat bot (often an algorithm trained by low-wage ghostwork/clickwork — real people). They allow loading files from proprietary file formats. They do not continually coerce with tiered deceptive design techniques. They do export to a variety a formats, and files in ways that lower file size taking up less server space (physical materials) in the computing cloud (physical materials). These are just some of the many reasons and needs a creative worker might look for in software.
Quark was the anti-Pagemaker. InDesign was the anti-Quark.(2).
Freehand was the anti-Ad0be Illustrator. Freehand was acquired by Ad0be.
Figma was the anti-Ad0be. Ad0be failed to acquire Figma.
When the network effect “cumulative advantage”, a rule that popularity tends to amplify exponentially, is applied here to hardware and software companies, it benefits the existing dominant monopsony/monopoly. After prolonged use, you get used to that interface, that hardware, that software. Then your favourite is bought, sold, acquired, consolidated, divested, and discontinued. For example: see: www.KilledByGoogle.com, which is a list of 293296 and counting Google discontinued tools.
Why are we paying creative rent?
The designer no longer owns the tool as software, or license, or service. Instead, they subscribe to an indefinite rent: a temporary yet perpetual license. If the code of the software has already been written, running on antiquated engines from a decade ago, and if the software is locally hosted, how exactly does it cost the company more to issue more licenses (or access to a service)? Why do companies opt for bloated server-side hosting that increases their demand on bandwidth and energy consumption? Is it to justify their maintenance costs? Is it to own your work and access to that work? Is it to justify subscription models which might be all the rage with venture capital investors to demonstrate growth no-matter-the-cost? And how did the software change from a tool we once owned with a 1-time fee — to a service we subscribe to indefinitely?
Exist to sell?
Companies and their software now exist to sell — rather than sustain and maintain support for their very audience who made them popular in the first place. Why do independents get acquired with unfettered care? (see: Chokepoint Capitalism by Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow). How do software devs and platform owners workaround this? How can software return to a model that works for the users (creative workers, casual fans, digital joy and delight) they serve — while balancing the need to compensate their staff and Keep the Lights On? Since when is this a neat polarizing either/or? How on earth did we get to this false dichotomy?
Aren’t they big because they’re innovative and better?
The challenges exist when singular monopsonies acquire independents without regulation, eroding consumer choice in the process. With every merger, acquisition, and divesting of a shuttered software/app/service, there is a balance undone. In order for there to be a winner, there is a loser. In economics, the consolidation of power means less competition resulting in less choice and access for the ‘consumer’, user, developer, designer, student, and person. But they are industry standard for a reason?! Monopoly apologists tend to think private growth consolidation is good for the economy and normal. By thinking this is business as usual, an attitude and ideology of superiority normalizes how we might think big tech is bigger for a reason. That through their foresight, efficiency, and innovation, the tech ‘titans’ are successful and big for a reason. I’m here to echo Cory Doctorow in saying that is bullshit. What is missed is how much speculative and real growth comes from their buying power: growth through mergers and acquisition. Consider public perception from network effects or cumulative advantage, and schools attached to the hip of big tech. This ideology that biggest has meant the best, starts early. And continues well into experienced creative workers careers.
What happens when my access is revoked?
Access issues arise when a standardized file format, program, language (code), or even colour (Pantone) becomes proprietary over time, through copyright. It might even start out as open-source and free. For example, look no further than the freemium business model. It becomes easier to revoke access based on physical location, tier, and on the whim of the platform owned by the big tech company.
“When a decision like this gets announced, and you’re three years into a five-year journey, you have little to no choice. You’re stuck with a partner who may be actively working against your interest, and who you increasingly cannot trust.”
—Xalavier Nelson Jr. “Devs React to Unity’s Newly Announced Fee for Game Installs: ‘Not to Be Trusted’ [UPDATE].” 2023. Kotaku. September 12, 2023.
Teaching software-agnostic?
So it becomes tricky to provide a one-size fits all approach. I try to teach fundamentals that work across proprietary software. I think it’s important to consider context and nuance here, understand that tools, needs, funding models, and conditions do change. For students: depending on the course and year — I try to teach fundamentals and principles that apply regardless of the software. I try to be software-agnostic.
For example: hierarchy in typography exists in physical signage, printed material, as well as on a screen or in motion; paragraph and character styles exist in text editors, WYSIWYG editors, desktop publishing software, and in writing code such as CSS (cascading style sheets). Another example is in creative coding, there’s often multiple ways to achieve a desired (or surprise) result. It’s an oversimplification to believe that Example One is the only way. I think people that follow rigid ways of thinking and subscribe to an ideology tend to seek comfort through convention. They might be allergic to any sign of discomfort. It's just how they were taught, and what they are equipped with. Though change can happen. Change is constant.
How to avoid narrow answers?
So, I try to show there are options by showing multiple ways, multiple possibilities. Natalia Ilyin once explained that this was one of the reasons she wrote Chasing the Perfect — to show there are multiple directions one can take. Part of the implication of text-response AI generators such as LLMs (large language models) is that it gives you one answer (which can produce hallucinations, inaccuracies, and derivative model collapse). While image-based AI generators have been often trained on scraped (stolen) datasets from artists, photographers, illustrators, and designers under the guise of efficiency, innovation, and improvement. Often it comes down to cutting labour costs — and tried and trued wage suppression through deskilling. Even with the gamified and advertorial drivel-filled search engine results of today, at least some can provide multiple results, at a fraction of the compute energy. (Note: There was an AI-related bloated compute reason why Google went back to paginated results instead of infinite scroll). Why have dominant search engines transitioned to instant-faith answer engines relying on bloated-AI-driven compute loads?
Are you tired of search engines installed by default through cumulative advantage without knowing you do have choices? You do have options! Check out: www.searchenginemap.com
Because if we do look at Pagemaker to Quark to InDesign to Affinity Publisher, there is change. Or from Dreamweaver(!) to Sketch to Figma. Lets ask ourselves, our studios, and our schools: is my current software of choice opting in users automatically for AI features, training off my own labour? Is it giving me the choice to opt-out of content analysis? What if the industry standard has limitations that newer alternatives can provide? What if bigger doesn’t actually mean better? And what if faster, doesn’t actually mean more accurate?
“IBM has unveiled the first quantum computer with more than 1,000 qubits — the equivalent of the digital bits in an ordinary computer. But the company says it will now shift gears and focus on making its machines more error-resistant rather than larger.” —Davide Castelvecchi & Nature magazine
“Don’t try to go too fast. Learn your job. Don’t ever talk until you know what you’re talking about... If you want to get along, go along.”
— Sam Rayburn, 1963
How can I change my workflow?
As a teacher: I do want students to learn and hone and be able to survive. To pay their rent and afford food, by finding employment. If I didn’t, I think I wouldn’t be living in reality. Unemployment kills, and can have dire outcomes in a wage-based economy, especially with privatizing social services that were once public. These massive inequities are not the individual’s fault. The onus is often on political policy (minimum wage, universal basic income, health benefits, access to healthcare), and corporate accountability such as anti-trust legislation. Placing the onus on the individual has the habit of creating apathy, reductive pessimism, and nihilism. I try to convey to my students that in a state of a ‘never-ending present’ (Guy Dubord) and cultural amnesia — That Things Do Actually Change. Leaving subscriptions can save you multiple forms of perpetual rent. So hopefully unsubscribing provides an ounce of relief in a pound of pain. And independently-owned, community-owned tools, might just be an ounce of prevention worth a pound of cure in protecting creative agency.
“Dominator culture has tried to keep us all afraid, to make us choose safety instead of risk, sameness instead of diversity. Moving through that fear, finding out what connects us, reveling in our differences; this is the process that brings us closer, that gives us a world of shared values, of meaningful community.”
– Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope, bell hooks, 2003
But DOESN’T the alternative lack quality?
There is also a misapprehension that the independent, open-source, free, and 1-time fee software is hard to use and lacks features. Perhaps this used to be the case in the past with a lack of equity to tech access. But nowadays alternative tools can actually be better in many ways: new functionalities, new approaches, more accessible options and customization, better workflow, and entirely new ways of working digitally. They can have better ways of organizing their interface. They could rethink conventions.
They could output in new ways, using less resources. They could show how much perceived infinite computing resources a file or function costs the planet (finite). They could serve a need to their community without tiers. They could show the interface. They could serve a community over a long period of time with maintenance and care through support, listening, thoughtfulness, and collaboration. Perhaps they are transparent about their AI policies, and refuse to train their own internal machine learning algorithm, nor partner with ghost worker-run Hype-Driven Company of The Day. I think there can be stubbornness and resistance to change (risk aversion) — and escaping one’s comfort zone — than that the new tool is actually harder to use. It’s just different from what you’re used to. If you’re frustrated, try again later. But to give up and assume the biggest is best for a reason, only helps to solidify monopolies and expand their reach.
For creative workers:
I know that my creative workflow can evolve. As creative workers, we’re stuck between a rock (dominant proprietary subscription service) and a hard place (devaluing working conditions in platform capitalism). Just when I learn a program and enjoy it, does the thing seem to get acquired, or updated in a way that ends up making it worse. And so I remain hopeful that there are options: to make with, to teach, to learn, to hone, and to sustain. An open source language or tool, or 1-time fee is more honest and transparent. A 1-time fee is more affordable over longer periods of time.
Owned by many:
If it’s open-sourced: then it’s community owned. Could a community land trust approach work as sustenance for software devs? If software is the steel of our era, would software become a publicly-funded utility? Could this avoid the rollercoaster boom or bust cycles of the market-driven economy? Lina Khan wrote about how public utilities of the 1900s were regulated due to railway tycoons privatizing railway lines. People depended upon these railways similarly people now rely on the digital for sustenance.
Shared language:
Is colour copyrighted? Is language copyrighted? Is language proprietary?
Making the switch:
Okay so you’re mentally ready to switch tools after using them for decades. It can be daunting but only so much as you don’t take the easy route and give up. This perceived pain point can be reframed as an opportunity. You might consider using a diversity of tools that you: try new ways of making; and switch out of your comfort zone. Own independently, or co-own as an open-source model. Though imagine using an independently-owned or community-owned software or tool that actually is better for you than the bloated big-tech ‘industry standard’. And really, we have to ask ourselves, since when is the most widely adopted better? I think we work harder to find excuses to not try something, than time spent actually trying. Which, I can very much relate to!
Path of least resistance:
Industry standards do change. This is a good thing. It means a Goliath is reduced to make room for more choice. I think knowing that tools do change is key to overcoming present day giants and an antidote to cultural amnesia (forgetting the past so easily when attention is a scarce and stolen resource). Finding ways to co-own our tools can alleviate the Sisyphean realities of creative workers. Schools, organizations, studios, etc can decouple from proprietary software deals and lead the way rather than follow. Experienced creative workers can organize together to counteract exploitive pricing from monopsonies and monopolies. Rather than being stuck between a rock and hard place for sustenance, there are ways around, and it starts with refuting that there is only one way to design. Instead of the easy inevitable and futile acceptance lifting up that status quo. Just as it’s not all or nothing thinking, it’s not subscription or nothing either. There are options and a variety of funding models before the time of a perpetual, tiered, and divided license.
So, thank you for the questions.
I’m still figuring it out. This monopoly-detox is a process. This de-tanglement in my own process, in how I make, what I recommend to clients, and students, in how I teach. It feels as if there is a turning point, a growing distrust and reframing of big ad tech calling the shots, and making their own rules to serve their own investments. Making it harder for the rest of us to live.
There is subscription-fatigue the more services get digitized, and companies try to cut costs by automating their machine learning off our own work. I think there is an appetite for change. Lets encourage each other (designers, studios, students, clients, schools, admin, and even the grifters) to refuse paying more forms of rent. I think no matter where you fall on the political spectrum, this is something the majority of people can agree on. And if we can agree on that, maybe we agree on more. This is no rule-based manifesto. It seems obvious but worth writing — rules change. It’s an ongoing collective action. Just like those Luddites were trying to protect the working conditions of their day. They owned their own tools and cared about their communities! And the authorities of the day would label any form of community-action as a riot. This much has not changed.
The past few years have seen workers organizing after decades of anti-worker union-busting deregulation. There’s also antitrust legislation occurring simultaneously, globally. That’s one piece of diggin’ through the muck, just as Ida Tarbell did against Standard Oil. She had patience. Hopefully there’s some useful seeds sprinkled throughout for you to watch grow and share the load.
—♟ Chris Lange
