Yeah, I guess it sucks for regular users who just do it as a hobby. But for real photographers it's a drop in the bucket. I bet what happened is their cloud costs have dropped and their regular development costs have increased with inflation so they are wanting to increase the price and are hoping to see this as a way to do it without seeming like it.
As a serious hobbyist, I can justify the $10/month rate. I cannot justify twice that. I would probably go LR only for that price then find a PS alternative.
No, I bet the pro photographers you mention don’t bat much of an eye at Adobe’s cost of managing their photos, as it is their livelihood. However, this pricing pushes on the hobbyists who like to post-process for recreation. This “photographer” is a hobbyist with a $500 camera that just doesn’t see an incentive in a monthly fee for software. I did, however, see the value in buying LR6 with the notion of using it for my very light workload. I might have even upgraded it every few years if there was value in doing so. I’m not committing $120 to $240 annually for this hobby.
No. It’s time to test out alternative apps like the excellent Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo, Pixelmator Pro, etc. The best way to break the stranglehold Adobe has you in is to slip free of it—NOT to run off and compromise the security of your system by downloading questionable software.
You could also try running CS6 in a Mojave VM. Depending on the program you would be able to drag and drop between operating systems.
