Like I said, it's usable as is for random things I do day to day like making memes. Maybe I'll run into some show stoppers, but I'm fairly optimistic so far. I suspect most people who aren't graphics designers don't really have terribly sophisticated workflows. Both Photoshop and GIMP are huge, and everyone who's not a professional uses a small subset of the overall features.

And I just don't see why we should care whether this post might help some company in some unspecified way over whether these apps might help people on this forum. Especially given how niche of a forum Lemmy is in the grand scheme of things. The reason this story made it here in the first place is because it already got mainstream coverage. As you point out, the business model these companies have is unsustainable, so I don't really spend time worrying about how many customers these companies get in the short run. We're very obviously in a bubble here, and there's no credible business model. These companies are basically subsidizing people having fun, and I don't really see much of an issue with that. The bubble will pop and most of the negative side effects will go with it. My expectation is that local models is where things are headed after the bubble.

And yeah that video is precisely why I think Photocraft is fine. He's a professional designer, and he is used to using parts of the tool I just don't need. The basic levels adjustment is all I ever use for example. But take something like adding a stroke to text. This is a common thing I do if I make a meme. In Photocraft, I just add some text, go to blending options on the layer and add stroke. Done. In GIMP, this is a whole adventure last I tried.