I think you may be overstating the risk for fiction writers.  AI/LLMs cannot produce a satisfactory story.  To get something good, it needs to be edited and rewritten and reworked.  If someone is a good writer, that's a lot of extra work that could have been avoided by writing everything themselves in the first place.  Thus, it makes sense for good writers to write their own material.  That leaves the mediocre and poor writers using AI/LLMs to produce novels or other works.  Since they are bad writers to begin with, they are not going to have the skills to rework the AI/LLM output into something satisfactory.  Again, the highest risk to fiction writers will be all this AI drek that will be out there hurting their visibility and making it harder for the quality, human-written works to be noticed.

As for factual writing, credibility has been a challenge long before AI/LLMs.  There were scraping tools and spinning tools and all sorts of dodgy tools used to basically copy and paste pieces of articles from assorted sites to create a new article that would pass copy protection services and fool search engines into not ignoring.  And now you have search engines with AI/LLM where people can ask instead of search and end up getting answers of questionable validity.

I think what we may see in upcoming years is the return of gatekeepers--human not AI/LLM--that will essentially curate content to make it easier for others to discover quality fiction and factual non-fiction.

If you don't want brutal honesty, stop reading now.

First, let's quickly deal with some of the excuses.  Too often, writing groups or critique groups are filled with people that endlessly write and rewrite their material, subject it to critiquing, and endlessly revise and rewrite and revise and never finish anything.  So be careful if/when joining a group.  As to family and friends not wanting to read it, unless they are regular readers and readers of the genre and type of book you are writing, why would they?  Even if they do read it, their input may not be valid if they are not familiar with your genre.

The other common excuse is a lack of time.  Rarely is that true.  What is usually true is that the would-be writer does not make the time to write.  The prospective writer could be writing instead of posting on forums, scrolling on social media, watching television, and so on.  Yes, the reasons for not writing, for not completing a book are legion.  The difference between those that finished their books and those that do not is that the former stopped making excuses and instead made time to write.

If a would-be writer's work is not important enough to them to make the time to finish it, why should anyone else care about it?

In my opinion, would-be writers don't need a website to justify their excuses for not finishing their books.  Instead, they need to sit down and write their books.

It took me about 25 years or so to finish my first novel, so I know all about all the excuses.  And then I made the time and wrote regularly and finished and then later published the book.  If you want to finish a book, you sit down and finish the book.  It's as simple as that.  And, I know there is going to be but this or but that, but there are numerous writers who faced the same issues yet pushed ahead and finished their books.

If a would-be writer cannot make the time to finish their book, yet can find time to post on forums, waste time on social media, watch television, watch TikTok/YouTube/Facebook/whatever videos, or sit around doing this or that, then finishing their book is obviously not as important to them as they pretend it is.

And, honestly, it's never been easier to find time to write.  Think about writers in years past . . . Writers that had to write by candlelight or moonlight.  Writers that had to write everything by hand and then rewrite by hand.  Even when typewriters came, writing a second or third draft meant retyping everything.  And now we have word processors on our computers.  Think of all the time saved by not having to literally rewrite every word or retype every page to make changes.  And, most people have laptops or tablets, which means they can write anywhere, anytime.

The bottom line is that would-be writers need to stop making excuses and start writing.  Either that or they need to accept that maybe writing just isn't important to them and they should move on to other things.

FWIW, and in case this might help anyone else, I keep a dedicated external hard drive for storing applications.  I started doing this after the Adobe switch to subscriptions and it started as just an Applications folder on my hard drive, then I later moved it to its own external drive.

On the drive, I have directories/folders for software vendors with individual directories/folders inside for their applications.  I keep copies of installers, instructions, patches, upgrades, etc. in there so everything is readily available.  Also I try to keep a text file for each application with purchase info, license info, special instructions, etc.  I also have a master spreadsheet where I keep a list of all my applications, along with the license or activation codes (when applicable), purchase date, purchase price, whether it was a full version or upgrade purchase, initial install date, system requirements, OS compatibility and so on.

Granted, it's not as up to date as it should be and I still have some software obtained the past the year that needs to be added, but basically my goal is to keep everything in one place so I can easily get to them when and if needed.

FWIW, I came across this on the VS forum:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Affinity/comme … r_offline/

Reportedly, Affinity v3 (or whatever you want to call it) will stop working after a year offline.

Which pretty much means your v3 "license" is only good for as long as their servers let you use it, if you let it connect to the Internet periodically.

Also amusing that VS users are complaining about Affinity v3 not being a perpetual license when VS is pretty much in the same boat.  As it requires Internet activation, if VS's servers are one day gone, you aren't going to be able to use it either.

I have InDesign CS6 which I still use.

But, I can't activate it on a similar machine if I need to.  That is, I run InDesign CS6 under Snow Leopard.  Snow Leopard doesn't support the communication protocols Adobe's activation servers now use.  That means I would need to switch to a newer OS version.  But that also means the software I run alongside CS6, namely my font management software, would not run.  And I don't know of any font management software available with a perpetual license that will run on older OS versions that CS6 would run best on.

I keep my fingers crossed that maybe Adobe will one day release non-activation versions for CS6 that would let me activate InDesign on a new Snow Leopard install, but the odds of that happening are slim to none.

The only type of subscription I like is the type where you have a permanent license to the last version you got while your subscription was active.  Not many companies do that but a few do.

Unless you have/had CS3 or CS4 . . .

Quark seems to be run by scatter-brained half-wits that insist on shooting themselves in the feet.

Thanks!

I'll have to do some digging to see if downloads for prior versions are available for business licenses.

There is NO guarantee on that.  The apps require Internet activation.  That means that, if the activation servers ever go away, you will not be able to re-activate and use the apps again should you ever need to re-install in the future.

Should that happen, what can open an Affinity v3 file other than Affinity v3?  Not v2.  Not v1.  Not InDesign.  Not Quark.  Not Scribus.  You'd be stuck with a bunch of files you would no longer be able to access and use.

To me, that's an important detail.

Right now, I have files going back to the 1990s.  PageMaker files, Illustrator files, etc.  I can open them all.  I can still install PageMaker (any version) on a compatible system and open the file.  I have Illustrator CS3 (for as long as I can keep the machine it's on running) and can open any previous Illustrator file with it.  InDesign CS3 can open some of the older PageMaker files.  (Either PageMaker version 6 or 6.5 and up.)  If I need to open a PageMaker 4 or 5 file, I can open it in 6 or 6.5, save it, then open in InDesign.

With my Affinity files (v1 or v2), I can't open them in anything but Affinity but, as long as I have a compatible system, I can install and activate Affinity v1 or v2 without worrying about activation servers, open my file and then export to whatever is best at the time.

If I use Affinity v3, I have no future guarantees.  Ten years from now, I may not be able to install and activate it if needed.  There are no guarantees Affinity v4 or v5 (or Canva v4) will even exist or be able to open older files.

And that's what gives me pause.  Affinity v1 did not have Internet activation.  So, I was happy to buy and use the software, knowing that, at the very least, I could still use and open files in the software in the future.  Affinity v2 brought Internet activation into the picture, which I did not like.  I bought v2 but did not use it because I do not trust Internet activation.  Then I learned the v2 business licenses functioned similarly to v1 in that Internet activation was not required.  So, I bought the business licenses, so I have that guarantee in the future that I will be able to install and activate the software if needed.  And that's when I began using v2 because I had that guarantee.

It's nice that v3 is free.  I have no complaint about it being free.  But, it has Internet activation.  I might be willing to purchase a non-activation version, but that does not appear to be an option.  So, there are NO guarantees I can install and activate the software in the future if needed.  So, for me, I don't want to risk having my projects locked away behind files I might not be able to open.

You have to also look at software that will likely meet your needs in the future.  Yes, I have perpetual licenses for v1/v2, but someday they will not be able to run on a then-current machine.  Yes, I can keep an older machine available to run them or even a virtual machine, but those options are not convenient.  They are good solutions if you need to be able to open and export a file to some other format, but not necessarily good solutions if you want to take advantage of the then-latest tech.  So, you want to choose a platform that has a likelihood of meeting your needs in the future.

With v3, I cannot see that.  Like I said, the prospect of having files locked into software you might not be able to use five or ten or more years from now is not a positive one.

Adobe Fireworks is a good example.  I have Adobe Fireworks CS3.  I cannot reactivate it on another machine if needed.  I have a good number of files in Fireworks format.  Nothing can open an Adobe Fireworks file except Fireworks.  So, once I cannot use my licensed copy of Fireworks, I won't be able to open and use those files.  Even if I were to subscribe to Adobe's offerings, I could not open those Fireworks files because Adobe discontinued Fireworks.

I don't want to repeat that with something like Affinity v3.  I don't see this as unreasonable.  Back to my prior example, I paid for a license for Fireworks.  I don't let anyone else use the software.  I don't hand out the license to anyone else to use.  Only me.  Yet, at some point, I am not going to be able to use software I paid for even on a compatible machine because it is unable to be activated because Adobe shut down the activation servers for it.

Yes, I can keep using Adobe CS3 while it still runs on the machine it's on.  I can still keep using Affinity v1/v2 too.  But, if I am going to invest time in learning and using something, and especially if I will be spending money on software, I would like it to be with something that has a likelihood of being available and updated now and several years from now.

And, yes, there are no guarantees that any company/software will do that, but we all have to make our best guesses as to which may.  For almost two decades, that company was Adobe.  And, for a brief time, I thought it would be Serif/Affinity.

Now, I'm basically back to where I was before I placed my bets on Affinity.

Some people don't see Internet activation as a big deal.  I bet they may change their minds if they ever reach the point where they have hundreds of files locked away and software used to create and edit those files that they can no longer use because they can't activate it anymore.

My general feeling is that Affinity is dead.

This kind of reminds me of GoLive CyberStudio.  If I remember right, GoLive was the company name and the actual product name was CyberStudio.  I mean the full product name was GoLive CyberStudio, but GoLive was the company name.  (The company name was originally GoNet, but they later changed to GoLive.)

Then Adobe bought them and changed the product name to Adobe GoLive.  IMHO, Adobe CyberStudio would have been better.

And, then, Canva bought Serif which had Affinity Publisher, Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo.  And now Canva is basically changing that to one app which is Affinity by Canva.

It just reminds me of Adobe GoLive.

And I can kind of foresee Affinity by Canva eventually being renamed to Canva Pro or something like that which drops the Affinity name entirely.  They've already de-emphasized the Affinity name by doing away with capitalizing the name in the logo.

I mean, I don't know.  Like I said, I like the one-app concept.  I don't like Internet activation.  And, being free, it's easy enough for them to eventually discontinue it or stop activating older versions or whatever and use the argument that you didn't pay anything for it anyway.  But, I don't want to have an archive of files that I might not be able to utilize in the future if the software becomes unavailable.

I guess those of us that do not like Internet activation schemes or things that rely on an outside server in order to activate and use software are not loud or numerous enough to make a difference.  I think a lot of us learned the lesson from Adobe.  It's not just subscriptions that are undesirable, but also the notion that you can be essentially locked out of being able to use your own files at the whim of a corporation.

On top of that, besides being one app, does v3 really offer anything new?  Looking over things, nothing much really struck me as new, except maybe Image Trace.  When v2 came out, it felt like that came out before Publisher v1 was a mature product.  Designer and Photo had received multiple updates but Publisher was relatively new and didn't seem like it got much before v1 was shoved aside and we were all pushed to get v2.  And I'm not sure v2 felt like a major upgrade to v1.  I think they added StudioLink but was there much more?  So, v3 seems kind of like that all over again.  A lot of hype and anticipation, but then an underwhelming release.

I wonder if it would make any difference if a large enough group of people/us participated in the forums for Scribus, Inkscape, GIMP, etc. to make suggestions and maybe even contribute some money to the projects?