thephotoman Loc: Rochester, NY

I was a participant in one of the first surveys before cloud came out. It topped me off they were going to institute a monthly subscription. I have had 2 others since then. Like Searcher, if the price is moderate I will pay, if not I will look for alternatives.

Reinaldokool Loc: San Rafael, CA

I hate to say I told you so. Everyone got suckered in with the $10 a month rate. "That's a decent price and they keep upgrading it." Yeah! Not too bad. But Adobe's history is that they are arrogant, and will squeeze until they get your blood. And their support stinks.

I've never made the effort to learn Corel well enough even though I have it. Too easy to go back to PS. But when they raise the price. . .

Boone Loc: Groundhog Town USA

Ditto, for me! Boone.

Boone Loc: Groundhog Town USA

Ditto from me. Thanks, Boone.

Tomcat5133 Loc: Gladwyne PA

A knowledgable friend and work partner Adobe is moving towards having all your work on their cloud. I thought he was crazy but not anymore. As the gentlemen said you can buy external drives to store all your files with duplication backup
for a couple of hundred dollars.
Apple has iCloud. And the system they have that is supposed to go across your devices is really too much for me. I don't wan't a time machine (doesn't work well) recording everything I do.
And iCloud does not work well. Just post a new appt and see when it comes up on other devices. We have lost control and that is the idea.

Searcher Loc: Kent, England

Not yet lost, losing . . .

Desert Gecko Loc: desert southwest, USA

The way I see it is that at $10/month it would take me many years to equal the cost off buying a current copy of Lightroom and Photoshop (to replace an antique version of PS that is not even upgradable.) By the time three or four years comes if I decide to abandon the cloud I'll be left with no software (no outdated software either, for that matter) but I will have used the best post-production sure available during those years to help produce more than a few keeper images.

If Adobe raises prices too much, Adobe's customers will opt for a viable alternative (this cloud plan is probably already an effort to keep customers since full Photoshop costs a couple thousand dollars and watered-down versions like elements already have worthy competitors.) I am pretty sure this is why Adobe is pushing the surveys. They probably want to know price points at which customers will abandon the cloud's PS & LR despite all the time they have invested in it.

Micro$oft Office kept getting pricier until alternatives such as Open Office, LibreOffice, and now even Google Docs presumably drew away enough clients to force it to reconsider its steep pricing structure. The same may happen with Adobe if it's not careful.

Regarding cloud storage vs. a large external for backup, I heard someone here on the hog say that if you keep your backup images at your computer, they are not a backup, but just a copy. I buy that. I admit I have not yet backed up mine, but I am working on it (I, too, have just copies on another drive.) I plan to use Amazon's cloud which is free to Prime members; otherwise, I probably would have gone with Carbonite, which topped my research list before I learned that I already had access to a good cloud backup.

EddieC Loc: CT

I really liked and used Aperture from Apple for the longest time. Then Apple cancelled Aperture and decided to go with Photos which stinks. Lots of people were pissed. I hesitated for a long time to go to LR, but finally made the jump with the subscription. I like it so far. I have taken online classes and am fairly proficient now with it for my uses. However, if Adobe really starts to bump up monthly prices to an uncomfortable level, I'll look for an alternative program.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Interesting... But not very surprising.

Adobe has also just announced that the next update to Adobe Camera Raw (9.1.x, if memory serves) will be the last that's compatible with CS6. So, if you buy a camera next year, you won't be able to directly work with it's RAW files in PS CS6. You'll either need to go to the subscription based CC or convert your RAW files to DNG and work with those instead.

I see they've also dropped support for all versions of Windows XP. So PC users will need to get a later OS to work with the latest versions of PS CC and PS CS6.

I always thought that as soon as they'd established the "cloud" version to their satisfaction, Adobe would start turning the screws and increasing prices. Why else would they go to the "subscription only" model? Since they've gone to download delivery of their software for the large part, there really is no reason not to offer a choice of subscription or licensed and keep both up to date... Except that by limiting it to subscription only, those subscribers are entirely at your mercy with price changes.

After all, when they first offered it, Adobe apparently felt $29.99 a month for PS CC alone was "a one year, introductory offer" bargain price, which I passed on as way, way too expensive. It took them a year and a series of price reductions, finally settling on the current $10 a month subscription for both LR and PS CC, before they starting sucking in new customers to their satisfaction. (Incidentally, that $10/month or $120/year works out to be about the same I was spending for occasional upgrades of licensed versions of LR and PS in the past.)

Too bad... I'm using PS CS6 (version 13) now and it may be my last version. I've been using Photoshop since version 4 (close to 20 years). But I won't be doing the cloud subscription thing. So once I upgrade to cameras the software can no longer accommodate, I guess I'll be using someone else's software.

russelray Loc: La Mesa CA

It works out vastly less expensive for me because I couldn't do just "occasional upgrades." I had to have the most recent just in case a Client called me with questions about something. I couldn't afford to lose Clients simply because I didn't upgrade and they did, or to lose prospective Clients because they had the latest and the greatest, and I didn't.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

That's a good point...

I never had a problem with a client, with respect to the version of PS or LR I was using... but I guess it could happen.

I found I upgraded about every three years or so (which roughly coincides with how often Adobe introduces new versions of both s'wares anyway). The last upgrade copy of CS6 cost me $235, while LR5 cost me $135... I.e., ever-so-slightly more than $10 a month, on average.

russelray Loc: La Mesa CA

The historical record disagrees with you, especially with the release of the CS series. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Photoshop_version_history