What Amateur Barbarian said.
And even if it didn’t break, you’d end up paying for an upgrade to get newer features. So we’ve always had a “subscription” system.
And making it a monthly (or annual) payment makes the expense more predictable. If I pay for subscription now, and a new version comes out next month, I don’t have to pay to get it.
The CS revisions have come much faster than that - from around nine months to a bit over a year is my perception, without wandering off to check actual dates. I was using then-new CS3 in mid-2007; we’re now four to six generations past that. (CS4, 5, 6, CC and CC/2014… did I miss one?)
ETA: Yes, CS5.5.
ETA2: Which I find funny, because Windows users limped along with Illustrator 4 - oh look you can draw on your computer screen - until I think v8 was finally released for both platforms. (Now, of course, the tools are developed under Windows and ported to the other platforms.)
I think I may have accidentally thought “every two years” because that’s when I upgraded. :o 
CS1 was good, got that. Skipped CS2. CS3 was a game changer. Cs4, meh, didn’t get. CS5, another game changer. CS6 I skipped. Got CC. So I’ve been skipping every other version for a while now!
ETA: Wiki says release dates were: CS1 in 2003, CS2 in 2005, CS3 in 2007, CS4 in 2008, CS5 in 2010, CS6 in 2012, and CC in 2013
So I wasn’t too far off the first time, actually.
Maybe I’m thinking of announcement dates. It did seem like I’d barely finished configuring all the tools before a new version was announced. (I tend to use the tools in groups - video, web, print - in cycles, so I might not have, say, a video project for the first few months with a new tool set.)
But subscription is a better model all around. I can even dick around with the minor tools, see if Edge has come anywhere near Flash capabilities yet (nope), try to figure out who in the hell is using Muse and for what (no clue) and use very infrequently needed tools like SpeedGrade… for “free”!
Often, you don’t really have a choice. For example, Adobe isn’t giving you a choice anymore. QuickBooks Online does things that Desktop can’t, and Online can’t be “bought” like the Desktop version can.
Almost all of the original software subscriptions were online products, in fact. Things like BaseCamp come to mind. Since there was never an option to buy a license and download it, the choice was to put up with the subscription model or to use a different product. If there were compelling features, you might just deal with the subscription model.
But the subscription model also makes sense for faster startup and more flexible licensing needs. A business can pay for Adobe for a six-month project and then stop. My company just moved e-mail over to the online Exchange offered by Microsoft. At our size, it’s actually cheaper to pay by the year than to try buying and installing our own Exchange software - not to mention easier.
To me renting is generally a worse deal than buying. I wouldn’t rent/lease a car and I don’t want to rent software either.
My ignorance is fought. I thought Adobe’s latest and greatest was cloud based.
[rant]I was a consultant for a company that would only use Oracle DB. I personally did not enrich Larry Ellison’s life with my money (or talk to him) yet that software was crud. As is M$ implementation of SQL. [/rant] MySQL rules!
Thank you for bring this into perspective. Your points are spot on. Word and Excel users don’t require the latest and greatest versions. Users with more recent versions can save documents in formats Office 2003 can read. Even Office 2000 compatibility. I occasionally have to ask vendors to save a document they send me in a compatible format.
I didn’t realize compatibility was such an issue in the graphics field. I learned something today.
I can recall even in 1990 Autocad was just too expensive for me to get and use casually. That was back when they had the keyed floppy disk that had to stay in the drive. I never learned Autocad. There was some desktop publishing software too (Quark is one example) that I never got to learn. Required a Mac and the software was priced for professionals.
Photoshop used to be affordable. Especially with academic licensing. A lot of people learned Photoshop in the 90’s. I’ve used it since 1997 or 98. There were so many DIY books that teaching yourself was possible. Now its priced for professionals. Premier is the same. Its not something many home users can afford. Adobe’s focus is on the professional market.
I wonder if young adults today are learning software to enhance their resumes?
I invested a lot of money in software and books in the late 80’s and early 90’s. I was young and felt it was critical that I have those skill sets. I even bought the Office Resource Kit in the mid 90’s to write Office Apps.
That’s still a good strategy. Employers like to see Ms Office skills on the resume. People that know Access, Excel, and even Publisher are valuable in the job market.
Graphics and Desktop publishing has gotten so specialized that employer’s almost have to train those skill sets. The software is expensive and it changes every few years.
Um, how old are you exactly???
I would echo the sentiment of the OP (and am a 45 year old male if that matters), but less so for high-end Adobe software. My gripe is with new operating systems, and particularly shitty failure ones like Windows 8 or Vista. The fact new computers come with the ‘latest greatest’ operating system, which may or may not be compatible with your legacy programs is wildly frustrating to me. That’s where I want the revolt to come from. Every time a new operating system comes out, it seems there are people lining up to get it, and I want to throw eggs and piss-filled water balloons at those people. Yes, I know they are geeks who want to get the OS and start monkeying with it so they can become in-demand and defacto “experts” in the new thing, but who is really out there clamoring for Windows 9? I mean, versus the average consumer who bought their laptop at Costco and had the latest turd forced on them through no fault of their own? I suppose having everything be browser/subscription based is a way around that constant BS with operating systems, although I also often work offline, and hate “cloud-only” solutions.
Then don’t. If you need Creative Suite or AutoCAD, it’s better supplied under the old model of “leased with 100% updates and support” than as standalone purchases.
If you don’t need such broadshouldered apps, you probably have a dozen choices of buy it and own it options.
I do think the model of taking commodityware to a subscription basis is everything cynical and grubbing that’s being complained about in this thread. But then, MS could have left off with about Office 2003 and the world would have lost very little.
Well, that hits the nail on the head. A lot of people buy their first software as students and get these deep-deep-discount prices, which are offered to the academic market for transparent reasons. It’s unreasonable to expect commercial licensing for production-oriented software to match “teaching” licenses (that lack most support and upgrade options, for one thing). But it’s part of the Truly Unfair World new grads have to deal with, and often do so loudly and with great butthurtedness. 
While I am not terribly enamored of the model, paying $100/year for Office isn’t all that terrible. You get a LOT of functionality (which goes 99% unused) for that price. What I hate is all the little piece of shit apps that want to ding you 4 or 5 bucks a month to essentially fill ONE function.
For example, I have an app on my son’s tablet that limits the amount of time he can spend on it. There is added functionality available to let me adjust his allowed time remotely, let him do chores for additional time, and a few other things. To get this added set of features, the author of the program wants $4/month. Say what?
This sort of thing is happening all over the software marketplace these days, and that’s when it can really add up.
Well… as a word processor has pretty much been a word processor since the earliest WYSIWYG versions were optimized around Word 97, I’d say that paying endlessly for one is a bad model. There’s very little to update, support or add value to Word, Excel, Powerpunt, or even most of what users use Outlook for. They are, or could be, completely static apps, and are, and can be, replaced by several clones each.
The amount of functionality has nothing to do with it - with static apps, it’s built in, it’s done with, it’s amortized no matter how plentiful it is. Charge/pay whatever that functionality is worth and move on.
The subscription model is for expensive, complicated, frequently updated and upgraded software that works within a world of compatibility. Nothing in Office meets that criterion. The subscription model is for enterprise-scale users and to make MS money from a moribund user base. Making the menus purtier and fancier and bundling in more templates and useless dross is not worth paying for.
I think there’s a lot of complaints and concerns, but I will say that Adobe’s new pricing has allowed me to have legal, paid copies of Photoshop and Lightroom. As a serious hobbyist / very light professional, it’s been difficult to justify the cost of full-price software, but their subscription model for photographers really works for me.
My only lament is that there’s no cost effective way to get Illustrator. I love using Illustrator purely for my own amusement. Upgrading to the full creative cloud is way too big a jump, and there’s no ala cart options.
Fifty, Software was brand new in the mid 80’s. We had to invest in our own employment futures buying and learning this software. My first PC purchase was an investment in my future. Its paid off too. I’ve written some complex spreadsheets linked to Word Docs. Designed access databases for ad hoc staff reporting. Written a large database in MYSQL. I use my software skills every week in my job.
I learned Photoshop but I suck as a graphics artist. My art skills were always pathetic in school.
Isn’t that mostly dependent on the price?
The reason renting is usually worse than buying is that renting is priced for short-term usage, and you pay a premium for flexibility.
I’d gladly rent a car if it cost me less overall than buying. By my calculations and record-keeping, owning the cars I’ve owned costs me about $2000/year in maintenance and capital losses. If someone wanted to rent me a comparable one for $1000/year, I’d jump at the chance!
There are lots of nice things about renting compared to owning. It’s lower risk. It’s more flexible. It’s a more predictable cost to the renter, and revenue stream to the seller.