Figma will IPO on July 31

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

IPO & “enshittification” worries

  • Many expect the IPO to trigger a shift from serving designers to serving shareholders: more feature-gating, higher prices, and “value clawback.”
  • Others argue Figma is a professional tool whose seat prices are already trivial relative to pro income, so price hikes alone don’t equal “enshittification” unless quality degrades (ads, dark patterns, crippled tiers).
  • Some frame enshittification as inevitable in growth-obsessed public companies; others say a key green flag would be not needing perpetual growth.

Subscriptions, Adobe, and rent‑seeking

  • Long debate on whether Adobe’s move from perpetual licenses to SaaS was enshittification:
    • One side: subscriptions force upgrades nobody needs, lock out hobbyists, and enable endless price ratchets.
    • Other side: total cost over a 2‑year cycle is similar to old CS pricing, piracy is harder, and pros still find Adobe UX superior to GIMP and many rivals.
  • General resentment toward “software rental” and adaptive/pricing-optimization schemes across industries.

Alternatives & open source

  • Penpot is the main OSS Figma competitor; praised for features and traction but criticized for performance (SVG-based rendering gets laggy; they’re reportedly moving toward a WebGL-style engine).
  • Lunacy is mentioned as surprisingly capable for side projects.
  • Some users are actively planning to jump ship (e.g., to Penpot) if Figma worsens post‑IPO.

Why Figma won

  • Web-first, multiplayer from day one: easy link sharing, real-time collaboration, and design commenting across platforms (including Chromebooks and Linux).
  • Viral adoption: non-designers can view, comment, lightly edit; that expands seats far beyond core designers.
  • Strong execution on performance via WebAssembly and a plugin ecosystem; often perceived as smoother than native Adobe tools (though several users now report freezes and regressions).

Critiques of Figma itself

  • A vocal minority calls its own UX “bloated,” inconsistent, and a bad model for younger designers; claim core UX issues and long-standing bugs are ignored while resources go to growth products.
  • Others strongly disagree, saying designers understand tools, find real-time collaboration invaluable, and use Figma successfully every day.
  • Concerns about lock‑in: while SVG export exists, teams would lose components, prototypes, variables, and responsive behavior.

AI and the future workflow

  • Split views:
    • Some think LLMs reduce Figma’s value: designers can work in any tool and let AI generate code, or even skip Figma by going from sketches/screenshots straight to code.
    • Others argue Figma becomes more central: it’s already the de facto spec; pairing that with AI/code assistants could heavily automate frontend implementation and push down demand for frontend devs.
  • Ideas floated: Figma‑to‑code (React, SwiftUI, web/mobile), HTML‑to‑Figma via AI, Storybook‑to‑Figma, etc. Dreamweaver is cited as a cautionary tale for “design → HTML” pipelines producing unmaintainable code.

Sketch, history, and competitive dynamics

  • Consensus that Figma heavily borrowed from Sketch’s UI and interaction model but added browser delivery, multiplayer, and aggressive seat expansion.
  • Sketch’s Mac‑only strategy and relatively slow evolution (even after adding cloud preview) are seen as having ceded the market.
  • Balsamiq, Fireworks, and others are remembered as precursors; people lament that some of those older tools still have basic features Figma lacks.

UX trends & broader reflections

  • Some argue flat design and simpler design systems lowered the barrier to entry and made “Google Docs for design” viable; Figma is closer to Google Slides than to old Photoshop workflows.
  • Tension between convenience (web, cloud, multiplayer) and control (offline use, open formats, proper versioning) is a recurring theme.

IPO mechanics, valuation, and market talk

  • Commenters track details: IPO at $33, big first-day pop (first tick and close far above), ~$20B market cap comparable to the abandoned Adobe acquisition price.
  • Debate on bubble conditions; some plan to buy dips or sell options, others see the offering as insiders exiting to “greater fools.”