Canva Hikes Pices by 300pc as It Readies for IPO
ia.acs.org.au
ia.acs.org.au
I'm not a native English speaker, but I assume "to hike prices by x" means the new price = the old price + x, right? If not, ignore my comment.
In the example used in the article (team of 3 users), the old price = 12 * $39.99 = $479.88, and the new price is $1458. Let's see what a price hike of 300% looks like: 300% of the old price = 300% * $479.88 = $1439.64. New price = old price + that 300% = $479.88 + $1439.64 = $1919.52 which is nowhere close to the actual new price of $1458. When I do the same calculation with 200% instead of 300%, the answer is pretty close.
What they're _trying to say_ is that the new price is 300% of the old price, but what they're _actually saying_ is that the price is increased by 300%. That's _not_ the same thing. You could say that the price is increased by 200%, or that the new prices is 300% of the old one (or that it is 3 times the old one). You have to pick one of those, not mix them.
Yeah, but based on this post alone I can tell you have better English reading comprehension than the average US adult lol
U+0025 % PERCENT SIGN
U+FF05 ％ FULLWIDTH PERCENT SIGN
U+FE6A ﹪ SMALL PERCENT SIGN
U+066A ٪ ARABIC PERCENT SIGNSpeak for yourself. I have ﹪ bound to ⌘⌥⇧5!
Obviously Australians are somewhat more influenced by British usage than say Americans are, although not always (e.g. we say “truck” not “lorry”-although we define the word “truck” more narrowly than Americans do)
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/why-ai-i...
Creating elements like that even with Canva's existing tools would generally require a graphic designer or someone with that skillset, or even worse - an agency. All of those options can be prohibitively expensive relative to the benefit they provide.
I am not a "casual." I am a human being.
Put AI tools in an optional higher tier and have absolutely nobody that consciously upgrades to that tier?
Products which aren’t subscriptions to begin with, so the company can’t hike the price from under them with little notice and leave them in a position where they’re forced to pay and bleed money every day they fail to find an alternative.
While it is certainly a choice, and one people demonstrably make, it comes with downsides and tradeoffs - it is not unambiguously better.
And if you really need it, you’d be fine not upgrading until you find an alternative. Which with non-subscription software you can do at your own leisure. That’s my point.
The initial investment to start a company, especially a tech company, isn't all that big anymore.
Because yes, in theory a customer can 'just' switch to another product. In reality though, there are various reasons why it isn't so easy. Customers get invested with their time, build skills, have projects, or just plain inertia. It takes some mental load to compare alternative products and make the switch. People are busy.
We don't think of bait-and-switch business models as scams, but once you see them as basically scams-light it becomes clear it is at least an open-question if their existence furthers the glory of the free market, or hinders it. We don't have a problem seeing scams or criminality as basically obstructing a free-market.
Eventually Canva will perish if they make the deal bad enough, unless they somehow achieve a monopoly or sales stranglehold (my term), but not before they squeeze a good few bucks out of frustrated users. If they are successful enough at it, it hollows out the market.
Let’s say a full 50% of Canva’s customers eventually churn because of this. They’re raising prices 3x, so they’d still make 1.5x their previous revenue. And they’d make even more profit, because their customer support costs have been cut roughly in half.
Meanwhile, the 50% of customers who dropped are now on the market for a new design tool — and a big hole has just opened in the low end of the market. So it’s good for competition, too!
Of course, if 80% of Canva’s customers leave, that’s bad for them. It’s a gamble! But in general, increasing prices by Nx in hopes that you’ll retain at least (1/N)x customers is a totally reasonable strategy.
The point of this is imho likely to boost the numbers as much as possible prior to IPO at the expense of the UX, brand, and by extension product
If it saves 50 hours a year, it's a bargain.
Also Tech Execs: Raise prices!
As you near an IPO, you’d want to make your business look like it’s quite profitable to prevent the share price from nosediving on Day 1.
You’ve just pointed out a correlation but I’ve yet to see actual causation here.
Is that an Elon Musk thing? (Genuine question)
They’re also starting to question universal suffrage in public now. Good times.
Increasing production takes time. There's not a magical machine that can double it's production overnight: New machines & factories & supply chains need to be built out, and those can take months at best.
Of course everyone is operating with in perfect information so it’s impossible to achieve a completely stable currency.
We didn’t get 300% inflation. So clearly the value of all dollars isn’t simply a direct percentage of the size of the US economy or all wealth in the US etc.
Are you arguing that printing 80% of all the dollars ever created in a short two-year time span had no effect on inflation?
A few years of moderate inflation was an almost perfect outcome compared to the other possibilities.
Note: I don't consider CPI a good measure of inflation experienced by the average consumer. Unfortunately the measure is heavily politicized and thus highly distorted from real-world experience.
Nonetheless, using CPI as a benchmark:
- Average CPI exploded 382% between 2020 and 2021 (from 1.23% to 4.7%)
- Grew another 170% from 2021 to 2022 or 650% increase from 2020 to 2022 (2022 CPI was 8.0%)
- It subsided somewhat in 2023 and 2024 (to 4% then 3%) but remains significantly higher than historical norms.
Notably, CPI is now expected to remain at or above 3% for the foreseeable future, which is a sustained 50% increase over the previous target of 2%
The Fed is now working to normalize this new normal as there is basically no chance of us ever returning to the prior target of 2% CPI anytime soon.
Also note that the largest spikes in inflation align closely with the Feds massive money printing in 2021 and 2022.
source: https://www.investopedia.com/inflation-rate-by-year-7253832
In terms of an authoritative source the World Bank says moderate inflation is 15-30%. https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-rep...
I'm not sure if you are being serious or not. Think it through, are you telling me you believe that 29% year over year inflation for years on end with prices doubling every 3 years -- is moderate inflation? And do you really believe after making such a ludicrous statement that the world bank is a credible authoritative source on anything?
Do you also still believe that inflation from 2021-2024 was primarily due to COVID, the war in Ukraine and supply chain issues? Do you choose to ignore, like the government and the FED that printing 80% of all the dollars ever created between 2021-2022 was not an important or more likely the primary factor driving inflation?
Prior to this event, inflation was tame. After this event inflation exploded. Coincidence? I think not.
Notably, the government then blamed COVID, supply chain issues, and the Ukraine war as the reasons for inflation, but neglected to mention money printing.
[1] https://techstartups.com/2021/12/18/80-us-dollars-existence-...
What is the source of inflation then?
Or is it that they have always set their price to the maximum that their customers will bear, and it's just that now, their customers were willing to bear a bit higher (due to some external cause)?
It's ironic that it's an Australian company doing it.
> 1. We are committed to fair, transparent and affordable pricing, including the perpetual licenses that have made Affinity special.
> 2. We will double down on expanding Affinity’s products through continued investment in Affinity as a standalone product suite.
> 3. We will provide Affinity free for schools and nonprofits.
> 4. We are committed to listening and being led by the design community at every step in this journey.
https://www.canva.com/newsroom/news/affinity-canva-pledge/
If we should trust that or not is another matter. I’m inclined not to.