This is very disappointing. I bought Affinity because I thought a "pay once, own the software" was a business model worth supporting. In fact, people loved to point to Affinity's transactional model to contrast it with Adobe's subscription model.

Now it will become freeware, and by "freeware" I mean "nagware" because it will keep telling you about pro/AI features that you don't have access to.

Just like on Windows you don't own the system, on this "freeware" you don't own the software. You're a renter, a freeloader. So you can't complain about the ads. But you WANTED to just buy the thing so you wouldn't have to deal with ads. That option is now off the table.

Imagine if you bought a boat and you can't just enter every room of the boat, because the boat comes with a bouncer that stands in front of a certain door and he won't let you enter. That's what it feels like. Not only the boat isn't yours, it is also not a welcoming place to be. It will always feel like you're an outsider being conditionally allowed on someone's software instead of just being a guy using a thing you own.

I don't know. On some days I feel I just don't like software anymore.