To be fair... Photoshop was never for casual or hobbyist users. None of Adobe's software was.
Photoshop used to cost $700... and $249 for upgrades. And the entire Adobe Suite was $2,600... and $1,300 for upgrades. Most people who bought it did so for business purposes. Thus it was a business expense.
Now that Adobe has switched to subscriptions... they're still geared towards professionals. Their focus hasn't changed.
You're right... the casual user doesn't want to pay an exorbitant amount of money for something they only use once or twice a month.
And that's why Adobe now offers one-time payment software specifically for the casual user: Photoshop Elements
Or they can use any of the wonderful packages from a variety of other companies... Affinity, Pixelmator, etc... for a one-time payment.
Though I must say that the $10/mo subscription to Photoshop/Lightroom is a hell of a deal. It's a small monthly fee and you get continual updates and new features during your subscription.
With the old model... you'd pay $700 for Photoshop and be stuck with the same version unless you paid $249 every couple years.
Or you could subscribe for $10/mo and get new versions when they're released.
You'd have to subscribe for over 5 years to equal the same amount of money you spent on the one version of Photoshop.
Sure, but it's the you'd have to that bugs me.
I made my living for years using Adobe products, and I faithfully upgraded from 2.0 to 3.0, 3.1 to 4...5... 6.5... 7.... CS... CS3... CS5... when and if *I* felt they'd innovated enough to invest in an upgrade (often skipping a release or two of a particular product that still worked fine). I'd have no doubt stayed on that train, but they decided the upgrades should be bought when THEY wanted payment, rather than when I thought payment was warranted. And for the first several years, I never saw anything that seemed to warrant the ransom they were now demanding.
Frankly, there ARE better options now, even if price were not a factor here (Thanks to Adobe, though, as our company would have never explored these options if Adobe hadn't favored its investors over its users): In the years since the subscription plague began, we've moved to Final Cut and Motion for video production; Affinity for photo, print and pre-press work; Sketch and Figma for UX/UI, and Screenflow for training and e-learning asset production -- and it's all arguably better in many respects.
As an old-timer, I'll admit I DO miss working within the old Flash Studio every once in a while, but even Adobe doesn't have anything as cool as old Macromedia Studio MX, these days.