Crash Report

Adobe has detected that the application Photoshop has unexpectedly quit.

Problem description:

I deactivated a used font and switched to PS then slected the text to change the font to something else and PS crashed hard. I had been doing the same thing several times before but instinctivly changing the font first to a placeholder in PS before deactivating it, but I thought, "Thats silly its 2011 PS can handle such things in an elagant way by now"...

: )

But more importantly I have other problems with PS...
My first copy of PS came on floppy, I have owned PS for close to 2 decades and dutifully upgraded it over and over. As you look into this problem, Please also consider doing something about the fact that anyone with even a casual interest can acquire a cracked copy of PS, learn it, never purchase it, compete with a small business like mine by using it, and yet I see little benefit from my long time loyalty, sometimes paying three times the going rate of any functional PS replacement just to upgrade.

Speaking of those modestly priced PS replacements, most have come and gone over the years not because they were necessarily inferior (although admittedly not as feature rich) but they likely failed because adobe has such a lock on the category and sets the price purposely high completely aware that it will encourage piracy on the low end of users and thus making any such alternatives redundant to a "free" copy of PS acquired from an acquaintance or online. Adobe wins in the long run from lack of viable competition and selling expensive licenses to businesses that can easily afford them. Meanwhile, independent people like myself who want to own the tools they use find it increasing illogical to continue paying the somewhat outrageous upgrade fees and feel tempted to search for pro level alternatives.

When someone pays such a premium for a product (the most expensive piece of software many individuals will ever buy) it should come with an expectation of added value. In my oppinion you should have been tracking us long time users all along and finding ways to keep us happy, but something tells me you don't even know or care who we are. I certainly expect to have more value from my sizable expense over the years than the people that I believe you expect to steal (while inflating my price) the product. Largely my value using PS is the same as someone that never pays for it. None of which would be grating to me except for the fact that I strongly believe your company is aware of all this and that it is part of your business model.

I would guess that an honest internal breakdown of your customers would look something like this:
Corporate accounts: 90% of users purchase a license (actively enforced I would bet)

Medium sized: business 50%-60% of users purchase a license ( not worth enforcing, guilt driven I imagine)

Small business: maybe 25% of users purchase a license (a small percentage will pay even if the price is too high out of a sense of honestly. Being in this category makes me feel like you see us as "suckers")

Enthusiasts: 2% of users purchase a license (so many people "have" PS that it is dominant, and thats the way Adobe likes it. God forbid people refer to editing images as something other than "photoshoping".

Students: 30% of users purchase a license (hell even with healthy student discounts I doubt most non graphic design students purchase PS, but I bet a huge number of them have a copy).

So, every time Photoshop crashes and I lose even a few minutes of work these are the sort of things I think about. So thats the "bug" I would prefer your company address before anything else.