LAUGHS.. Most of this profit is not from software or software subscriptions you would buy. It is from enterprise marketing software and cloud based storage. Go read their annual report and understand how software is being sold by big companies. I'm retired from IBM, Oracle and other multi-billion revenue companies. The model for years in that space is buying a perpetual license for a lot of money then paying a support fee yearly for updates and maintenance. My sales averaged over $850K per transaction with a 22% annual maintenance fee. One of the big issues for enterprise companies buying perpetual licenses was that maintenance continued even for products you didnt use (shelf-ware). At Oracle Safra Catz the co-CEO once said in a earnings call that Oracle could stop selling everything and still be profitable for over 12 years. This was in 2013. It is not true now. Other companies have been pushing the subscription based pricing model which has been successful two reasons - one is you can put those purchases to reduce capex (capital expenditures) which are handled tax-wise with depreciations etc. A subscription based license isn't because they never own the software (only renting it). The second is it a limited time contract (usually 1 to 3 years). In theory if you dont like the software you can stop your contract at the end of it (you owe all the money of the contract regardless if you use it or not) and switch to another product. This is bullshit because the implementation cost of a major software program is 5x the cost of software if it is perpetual and 50x if it is subscription. That is because if my average sale was $850k for a perpetual license it was more like 1/10 that for a subscription per year. So a company isn't going to changes its accounting system (called ERP), marketing, etc without a great deal of thought. For example when Disney decided to go to a single ERP program for the 63 divisions and companies it owned the software cost was $550M. The implementation cost for just the 1st phase (getting the basics out there) was $2.5B.. There were over 450 very highly paid consultants working at a building on Flower street in Burbank who work on a 24/7 schedule for 18 months to deliver phase 1. So the total cost was over $3B. Some of these functions are now done thru subscription based solutions but there is no way they are going to spend billions to change all of it.

All of these same thoughts apply to consumer software. You can either sell a perpetual license (but almost never with support fee) that when you put out a major release you will offer old users an upgrade price and for new users it is a new purchase. Companies like On1 Raw 2018 have further added to their maintenance stream by offering 'plus' models where you get the software updates as part of the fee plus lots of extras like classes, pre-sets, etc. Where this model has been at issue with lots of photographers is when the major releases happen too often. This is especially true if the software is deemed not ready for release by the users. Both On1 Raw 2018 and Luminar ran into this where people felt they were getting the value they had paid for and werent ready to purchase it again. On1 Raw 2018 has successfully managed to get them out of the quagmire in my opinion by opening admitting to issues then fixing them. Luminar didn't but has gotten the 2018 release out which works for Macs at least. But they have lost my faith in them by some pretty questionable acts on their FaceBook groups.

The other side of the coin is subscription based license with Adobe being in the forefront. Someone said they are making more money this way but from their fiscal reports that certainly is not true yet. A couple of reasons for that are if perpetual licenses are priced correctly they should be about 10x higher than a subscription product. If you could still purchase LightRoom and PhotoShop as perpetual licenses you would have had a cost of about $800. Those products released new major versions on a 18 to 24 month schedule so the cost if you were looking at 5 years of TCO (Total cost of Ownership) with 18 month schedules it would cost you about $1600 ($800 initial, and 2 upgrades at 50% of List or $400 each). For subscription you would pay 5x$120 or $600. Adobe makes less revenue selling subscription per license so it has to increase volume. Thus CC.. aimed at a market not shared by the members of this forum - casual photographers using cell phones. Honestly I dont see this working as there are too many choices at much better pricing than $120 like Affinity etc. Plus i feel LightRoom and PhotoShop are way to complex for most casual users. They might try it but quickly decide it is too difficult to use. So what have they done - alienated a number of users like me by their pricing. I dont use PhotoShop and $120 a year is too high for LightRoom in my mind. So I moved away and initially have spent that money on On1 Raw 2018 and Luminar. And while the professional users here might be willing to spend big bucks that market is so small it means almost nothing to a company like Adobe. On1 Raw 2018, MacPhun and the other independent companies have to succeed with that market or they will be toast like Nik and Aperature as there is NO pricing model that works unless they gather a larger market. MacPhun may do this because I feel it is a bit more user-friendly than other apps but has to get its support and R&D under control. On1 Raw 2018 in my mind is the best replacement for LightRoom but honestly if Adobe offered a subscription plan for just LightRoom I would probably go back to it and use the others as plugins for specific functions. Subscription pricing will not work for the smaller companies as there isn't enough revenue to support it unless they owned a large share of the users out their like 25% or higher. Pretty much impossible when there are apps like PhotoShop elements, Corel, Affinity, etc with market shares already.

Although I am in fact retired and living on a fixed income, I CAN afford the $10/mo for LR-PS now. But I have decided NOT to get on the subscription boat because of concerns about what can happen down the road. I am somewhat concerned that the monthly subscription amount will go up in the future, perhaps substantially. And IF the monthly fee goes up at a time when I CAN'T afford to keep on paying it, I would essentially be locked out of all the adjustments I make in LR from now until then. I would have to figure out what software to switch to and how to get my images moved in the most usable form, perhaps in a short time frame.

By sticking with my standalone LR6, and PS Elements (which does all the pixel level adjustments I actually need), I retain full control/use of my images as long as LR6 will run on one of my computers. I can keep an eye on LR substitutes as they come along, and decide when and how to switch to one (or more) should that prove desirable and feasible down the road. Hopefully, there would be little time pressure to actually complete the move, as well as a mass of experience from others who have made the same switch already and can speak knowledgeably of the benefits and pitfalls.

Ever since our two Fits were a year old, we've been getting requests from Honda to trade them in and buy a new one - not an even swap, of course. The local Buick and Nissan dealers keep sending me mail telling me they are desperate for good used cars. I wonder what's wrong with all the used cars they currently have on their lots.

With weather like this - single digits - I'm glad I have a car, rather than a horse and buggy. After just a few miles, the heat starts pouring out of the heater.