It has been announced elsewhere that the Affinity Forum is being closed. No reason given. As a replacement, users of that forum are being invited to join Discord. I took one look at the offering on Discord and then ran for the hills. It seems that platform is aptly named.
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The statement from their forum:
Thereâs already an active conversation around it on Reddit too: https://www.reddit.com/r/Affinity/comments/1ntf8rb/affinity_forums_are_closing_come_october_6_2025/
(And speaking of which, for those who use Reddit, the /r/Affinity sub seems a good alternative if you want to stay away from Discord)!
Capture One forums are in read-only mode for non-staff users since 14/02/2025 â https://support.captureone.com/hc/en-us/community/topics . Still no solution to that.
The counting gnomes at Danish/Swedish venture capitalists are probably just maximizing their incomes and dropping/ squeezing âunnecessaryâ costs like the user services.
There is no active user forum for Capture one?
Mark
If I have a question I use to mail the support these days. So far, they have been answering at least.
Eight months is a very long time without a user forum.
Mark
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Well, since I have seen how important the user forums have been for the developers both at CameraBits (PhotoMechanic) and Photools (iMatch) when it comes to fixing bugs and meet user demands and problems I think CaptureOne will pay a price for that isolation. Still I think they have managed to deliver a lot of âCustomer Benefitsâ the last years but they get very dependant on their own developers imaginations of what âCustomer Benefitsâ really are.
From my own experiences building both productmanagement and pricing software and Photo-DAM-workflows in Enterprise DAM I think it can work to a great extent but it always get better with a tight give and take relation with the users. They see and feel more easily what really is rubbing.
Perhaps Affinity suffered from ai bot attacks, like DxO earlier this year?
But maybe itâs all about moneyâŚ
I was a passive user there and generally liked it, because some good advices and explanations were given by the staff.
I donât know but my guess is the shutdown is far more likely to be a decision by the new owners, to move Affinity away from the Serif name / brand, which carries a lot of âbaggageâ around being a small company with close ties to its customer base, and shift it over to the Canva brand, which as a very different, large corporation, feel to it.
I also wonât be surprised if in the near future it is announced that Canva are shifting the Affinity Suite to a subscription model, despite previous pledges to the contrary. Not having their own user forum on the open web will hide the rage that will ensue if such an announcement is made.
Donât quote me on any of this. It is just (wild) speculation on my part.
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By a complete coincidence (or, maybe not) today I got an email offering me a preview (Real Soon Now, an expression early PC users may remember) of their next offering. Creative Freedom, apparently! We shall see.
Yes, they are about to release something but no one knows if it will be Affinity V3 or v1 of something with a new name. Whatever it is thatâs coming, they have pulled all the Affinity products from the MS and Apples Stores as well as from their own website. Presumably to minimise the angst that would inevitably happen if someone bought the old version less that a month before the new one is released.
Affinity is not the only one to abandon their user forum and go to Discord, PhotoSupreme (IDimager) comes to mind. A very nice piece of DAM softtware that had a lively forum with lots of user interaction. From the few times I had a look there, some of the users have made the switch but is seems a pale imitation of the original. I hope this is not a trend.
If this forum were to go to Discord, Iâd be communicating WAY less. Iâd still come here for my own benefit, but Iâd not be reading everything and contributing when I can.
In my view, Discourse > Slack > Contact form > Discord.
I guess I might stop actively hating Discord if theyâd get rid of that infuriating, spinning ⌠thing ⌠and the endless updates it endures on Mac.
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Tell me more about what has happened with PhotoSupreme. New owners. Has the product changed. Pricing?