Windows 10 fails kids by not offering affordable alternatives to Adobe CC
Source: Windows Central
As a youngster, I was lucky enough to have parents with the foresight to realize computers were the future of industry. After watching an episode of the UK show “Tomorrow’s World,” my parents took out a very risky loan to get me and my brother a PC. It had a blistering 8MB of RAM, and a 700MB HDD, rocking Windows 95 in all of its pixellated glory.
Tomorrow’s World talked about this mythical creation called the “Internet Superhighway,” where info could be shared instantaneously around the world, upending basically every industry on Earth. They talked about touch screen devices, mobile computers, and various other innovations that would make much of what we know about work and play obsolete.
Yohoho and a bottle of rum
Source: RarePirates in Sea of Thieves steal gold and treasure, not software, but you get the point: piracy.
There was no YouTube back then of course, but some small video hosting websites had sprung up. Newgrounds.com was one such website, and to this day, features tons of games and cartoons from users around the world. I wanted to learn how to make animations, and make them I did — poorly, but hey, it was something.
I also begun my journey into web design using a free tool Microsoft used to include with Windows, called Frontpage, which gave you a bare-bones GUI for making websites.
Source: BetaArchive.comWeb 1.0 was a charming place.
As a kid with no income, from a family with limited financial resources, piracy was effectively my only option if I was going to bludgeon my way to my goals of becoming a world-renowned animator. And that was back when you could buy software to own it. An insane concept, I know. Someone literally burned and mailed a copy of their Macromedia Suite for me to use.
I was a lucky kid. I had a PC with the means to run powerful tools, and lived in one of the first cities in the UK to get internet access. Many kids around the world are nowhere near that lucky, particularly outside of North America and Western Europe.
I didn’t end up working at Disney, but I did build websites that featured cartoons that entertained tens of thousands of people, across our own little site and Newgrounds too, which gave me the skills that eventually led to me working here, writing this article.
What are Adobe and Microsoft doing now?
Adobe also offers all of its apps to students for $20 per month for the first year, moving up to $30 per month after. It’s regularly priced at $53 per month. Both services require affiliation to some form of an educational institution, though, potentially locking out youngsters like my past self who may not have “gelled” with mainstream schooling systems.
Piracy is not a route any kid should be forced to explore, especially in 2020, where the desire for free or cheaper software licenses creates an environment ripe for exploitation, malware, and phishing. Could Microsoft be doing more here?
Where are the built-in creative tools for Windows?
Source: Windows Central
It really does feel like Windows isn’t oriented around creativity when you consider the lack of homegrown software.
Our Exec Editor Daniel Rubino has previously written about how the lack of video editing options on Windows leaves many creative types feeling “locked in” to Apple, owing to its popular Final Cut Pro software, which is a buy-it-to-own affair, far cheaper over time than Adobe CC, even when you consider student pricing tiers. But sure, people from poorer backgrounds like mine likely aren’t even considering MacBooks as an option, but that doesn’t mean Microsoft should simply wash their hands of including similar features in Windows.
I think if Microsoft doesn’t want to create its own creative tools, it should cut some form of deal with Adobe to have some pre-installed “Lite” versions of its software on Windows to offset the gulf.
It really does feel like Windows isn’t oriented around creativity when you consider the lack of homegrown software, leaving kids to yearn for expensive Apple devices or down the route of piracy for Adobe Suite, and that’s a bit of a shame. The Surface Go 2 would be an ideal affordable alternative for many, but it simply doesn’t have the affordable tools to match. Why?
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