I make money using Adobe software... so I have no problem paying $50 a month for the entire suite.
For the hobbyist though... I can understand the trepidation of a subscription.
But alternatives exist for that reason.
There are several problems with Adobe's subscription model.
The first and biggest one is that in order to just open your files you need to keep paying them forever! That is just plain wrong. Before if a version didn't suit your needs you could just skip it and stay with the version you had at that moment. You cannot do this anymore. In that way they're forcing you to give them your money wether you want to or not. I'm amazed by the fact that this is even legal.
The other problem to this model is that creative cloud is expensive in basically all other countries other than the States. in some cases it's closer to 80$ And in other areas 90$. It is still affordable but you easily see Adobe's greed through and through. Before when they had the physical product they could give a half valid reason that the differences in prices between countries was due to shipping costs. What is the reason now? Their thinking behind this tactic is that these countries were used to paying x2-x3 more money before so now that they will have to pay less, they will do it without a second thought. Even though the product should cost exactly the same (not including taxes).
It still is uncomfortable to watch Adobe's CEO answer about the difference in pricing in Australia
http://youtu.be/78yigV0GYGQ
These are tactics that showcase an arrogant company that knows it has a strong foothold on the professional market. So whatever they do people will comply. This is the kind of attitude Quark had and right now they are in no way a competition to in design.
On the other hand Adobe is also smart. And even though the tactics are questionable they also deliver really good products that only got better through cc. So even though I still use their products and will probably do so until I retire
I still feel uneasy with their bullying tactics towards their users.
Even though you didn't discuss bloatware I would like to also address this here.
Adobe was and still is (to a lesser degree) at fault here. Especially before cc when they were making their money through updates so they were forced to have something new every 6 or so months.
Prime examples. The red eye reduction tool. Something that no one needed and people could do it before with several different ways.
The same goes for their 3d importing tools in photoshop and the 3d printing through photoshop. I work with 3d every day and never in my life I have seen a more useless tool than the 3d tools in photoshop. You cannot do anything useful and it's just plain slow. This is the definition of bloatware. Like the red eye reduction tool this is something to target the non professional market with tools that are easy to use. Even though their pricing is targeting the pro market. A lot of missteps in that regard.
I could go on and on with bloatware features in photoshop and their rest of their apps but there's no reason to. You get the point. Thankfully though the bloatware tools after cc are slowly getting less and less. And this is one of the positives of cc. Adobe doesn't have to worry about cash flow any more, so they can concentrate delivering features when they're ready.
As much as I'm dependent on and love illustrator and Photoshop I can also see how scary some of the company's tactics are. Just a suggestion. Let's not be blind to some glaring problems just because we earn our living from this company.
