Why is Publisher being phased out, and what is Microsoft replacing it with? Will Microsoft 365 be cheaper since they are phasing out the program?

I have used publisher since version one in 1993, and 100 percent agree word has never been capable of performing tasks that publisher so easily does. I have always found word to be very cumbersome to say the least. Word does have its place, but publisher runs circles around word from day one. I was the first in my family to master the program and passed it on to other family members creating thousands of files and still reference many of them to date and was planning on maintaining until the day I die. This is not the first time I have experienced these issues with Microsoft. I also mastered the Front Page web authoring application that they also left behind and I have yet to find anything today that was ease of use as it once was. Why does Microsoft choose Publisher to end and not Word instead. Word doesn't do even close to what word does. I don't get this at all????? I would rather see Word retired versus Publisher!!!! There will definitely be many people and business likely creating lawsuits against Microsoft as they hold us all hostage to their stupid decisions retiring the application but what do they care? They don't give a rats ass because they are making billions chasing other projects and make us purchase their never-ending subscriptions until they are pleased with the revenue then they pull the plug and leave us all stranded once again. I do not have enough time in my day, weeks or even years enough to go thru all our publisher files to convert them, it will never happen. I have thousands of hours in creating some of these files and other family members have countless hours creating and we depend on them to be there when we need them and we would like to edit them at our own leisure and not have Microsoft BULLY us into stop using. This is an ubsurd action on Microsoft once again. If they retire the application, they better make a way to either continue using an older version forever without further cost and a lifetime or never ending version to fulfill its long term loyal customers who have spent lots of time and money investing in their lives and work and businesses. Sorry (not sorry) Microsoft, you do not have the right to force us to trash all our files without being able to edit them further, it is nothing but unacceptable!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am very disappointed that we’re losing Publisher. It was the best of the MS package and other than using Excel. It was the ONLY thing I used! I’m moving to Canva, similar but not the same as Publisher. WHY??? A great program and you get rid of it!

I’m with you!!!!

Got an email from Microsoft to inform me that it is time for me to renew my subscription. Instead of being cheaper since we are losing Publisher, the yearly subscription is $30 more.

My only thought concerning Microsoft's decision is that they didn't want to support the product any longer and are trying to push us away from that kind of software. I'm not familiar with Canva but I'll need to investigate. My thought is that there are other companies that might consider buying the code and picking up the product so maybe MS just isn't talking until it's sold. On the other hand, MS did have a product to create websites which I used for years too, and they dropped it without a replacement. Why do this? Let's call it money .......... they want to push into the AI arena further and don't want to add headcount so might shift people to that product from others. It really makes me wonder about MS as a company. There must be millions of us using MS products and Publisher. They don't care about the customer base as much as the decision to make more money. If someone has other alternatives, l'd like to know about that alternative software. Now, let's thing about this further............what else might they drop? If I add software as a need, should I even consider MS products in the future?? I've been around using MS products going way back to MSDOS when Windows was only a way to keep up with Apple.