> design tools market stays competitive
Adobe killed their Figma competitor (XD), so the reality of the UI design tools niche in the design tools market is that Figma actually has a near monopoly. Sketch still chugs along, but its market share is negligible. Penpot is a neat idealistic community effort that is lightyears behind.
This is one of the reasons why Figma continues to tighten the screws on their userbase, who doesn't like it one bit, but continues to pay.
Now, this is all not to say, that it would've been any better with Adobe's involvement, more like lamenting the fact that Figma lived long enough to become a villain.
Figma has a near monopoly because it built the better product. This is the preferred outcome compared to Adobe broadening their monopoly not by building a better product, but just by acquiring/squashing their competition.
Monopolies aren't illegal. Preventing competition is the thing we want to stop. As far as I can see, Figma doesn't do anything to give themselves an unfair advantage or prevent other players from entering the market.
Figma had 8 funding rounds in 10 years, according to crunchbase. That is an advantage compared to other players on the market that do not receive VC. If it's fair or not, that’s up to everyones own standards.
It’s fair, because they earned it by building the best offering on the market.
Fairness doesn’t mean everyone gets funded regardless of their quality.
You do not "receive" VC, you sell shares (and control). You write as if it's some sort of grant that Figma uniquely got access to.
I think the more common term is to "raise money". But at the end, you receive money that you should spend. With strings attached, of course. That’s the nature of VC.
Yes but that's pretty common and in no way an unfair advantage.
Should the other players not have also raised VC money if it was such a differentiating advantage? Perhaps they should have sold even more equity than Figma did and raised more money if that would have been the difference maker.
Figma is also a company that starts with an "F". Whether thats fair or not is up to everyone's standards.
Adobe is in maintenance mode. They aren't willing to compete with figma because they have basically never had to compete with anyone since the 90s. They forgot how
Adobe would have killed one product regardless. If they had been allowed to acquire Figma, they might have killed the better one.