The biggest problem for design and collaborative canvas software companies is AI.

How to inform your professional audience that their Figma, Miro, Adobe files are used for training, a result which will remove them from the work market and give their knowledge to the unprofessional masses.

As a professional designer with more of 20 years experience, moving through graphic, web, UX, PM I have a strong disdain with all Adobe connected software.

In the past, when Macromedia started eating their market by introducing more affordable and capable software, I jumped on a bandwagon and supported Freehand, Firefox, Flash and Director. Only to be again in Adobe hell.

When moved from Sketch to Figma, the news of possible acquisition made me mad.

The Adobe products are total bloatware, and nothing of substance or innovation in their base offering has never materialized. They are the epitome of corporate greed, dark patterns and monopolistic hell.

But now we have a lot of monsters around. Microsoft. Apple. Google. Meta. And the new kid under the block: Closed AI. The same type of illness but in a new form.
They appointed NSA head for security and announced that will pursue profit first.
Surpassing in speed, Googles transition from "Don't be evil" to "Be evil at any cost".

The software industry is eating the world, killing careers, stealing copyrighted data, centralizing and integrating in a monster of deals to deliver nothing of substance. Just food for shareholders who have no ability of systemic thinking and did not see the elephant in the room: Communistic Tech driven Dystopia.

Propaganda of empty promises and no government control.
Future for the people who trust the machine more than a professionals and experts.

What bright future for humanity will deliver AI art?
The delimiting factor when removing technical skill set will be taste.
So how the next generations will form this taste without a curriculum and practice?

They will prompt the taste?
Good luck with this.

Here is a list of alternatives for the Adobe crapware.

Vector illustration:

Learn Inkscape, aside of instability under macOS, the software is capable and has fine tools which will deliver everything you need as a designer.

Affinity will become a subscription based software eaten by Canva and AI "art".

For digital painting: Apple Pencil removed 60 percent of my Wacom workflow, and Procreate is a monster of an app.
For the desktop stuff, I use Krita.

3d: Blender for polygonal modelling, animation, rendering, sculpting (Plasticity if you are into mixed workflow), Rhino 3d for surfacing and generative modelling (The price is high only at a first glance).

Photography: I learned that all the one app solutions are not future-proof. Moved my workflow into a system of folders and markdown notes. The capability of Raw Therapy combined with Krita are more than enough.

Video editing, compositing and Mogrpaph
There is a champion: Blackmagic Design with DaVinci Resolve and Fusion.

You can use Unreal Engine and Blender for Mograph to escape After Effects black hole.

Rive is a mix between After and Flash which is gaining popularity (sadly subscription based).

For UX/UI design, we have a real contender to Sketch and Figma
in the face of Penpot. Free. Open source. Possible enterprise goals with option of self-host installation.
Baked in interface for token centric design process, real grid and flex box implementation (not the fake auto-layout) and developer friendly without Figma upselling strategies or mac only dungeon of Sketch.