Canva and Affinity launch new Affinity software

Over at blenderartists, many of us are suspicious that this is hiding either a data collection scheme for AI purposes or a bait and switch at some point in the future. Trying to figure out what the business plan is. Ironically enough I would have been entirely devoid of suspicion had they priced the new version the same as the old one, or even higher.

I mean, I want to trust them, but we've been burned too many times. Softimage, Zbrush, Autograph... all acquired by a big group and either discontinued or stalled. If they want to make it free and rely on cloud AI features to generate income, sure, open the source and license it adequately?

Using proprietary software is always a risky bet. And frankly Serif have done nothing to quell my worries by completely avoiding talking about their strategy. I have become so used to open source transparency that this kind of communication rubs me the wrong way. I'll be moving away from Affinity as much as I can in the future.