DGStinner Loc: New Jersey

When you bought your laptop, included in the price was a perpetual license for Windows. That is what gives you "free" updates. When the successor to Win10 comes along, you may have to pay in order to upgrade to the next version (in my opinion, Microsoft is "giving" customers a chance to upgrade to Win10 from Win8 because they realize Win8 is a horrible OS).
You can purchase a perpetual license for Lightroom but you won't get any of the added features that are added to the CC version until, if and when, v7 is released.

Capture48 Loc: Arizona

:thumbup: :thumbup:

TheDman Loc: USA

Yes, but you did own a license to use it, whereas now you are renting a license. The two are not the same.

Capture48 Loc: Arizona

A great explanation of licensing, though I'm not sure I agree about Windows 8. While I'm not a windows guy, Win8 was built on Win7, 7 was a pretty solid OS as far as Win goes. I do think the 8 interface took people by surprise, but one can understand why they went this way. MS facing the competition from Apple who familiarized their device interface - was trying to make their user experience the same on their phone, computer and Surface Tablet. Probably copied this idea from Apple BTW!

I spent far less time fixing OS issues on my wife computer in Win7 & 8 than I did in any previous Windows release.

Capture48 Loc: Arizona

True at some point after one stops renting, the program will stop working when the mothership decides to strangle its baby. But you still have all your photos, edits and such.

donrosshill Loc: Delaware & Florida

Like I said in the beginning of this stream, I will probably be sorry that I ever mentioned this CC subject. I am now very sorry. OK, everyone back to your nap.
Don

fantom Loc: Colorado

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

Annie B Loc: Maryland

I'm curious what cloud service everyone uses? Been checking into them and the prices are all over the board. Don't take thousands of pictures but I've got about a thousand to date with lots more expected. Icloud and Google Drive are so expensive and some of the others I don't really recognize the names.

BTW, I'm using a Mac. I thought about buying a MS Licenses for $99 for up to 5 users which gives each user 1tb of storage BUT if you don't have 5 users you can't use the other licenses too.

Capture48 Loc: Arizona

**There is no reasonable priced cloud service that I know of, Unless you store very little data. I use dropbox, but NOT for storage, only for transferring some photos to specific people. There are many cloud services where you can get some free space like iCloud, OneDrive and Dropbox. The minute you go over their storage limits, you begin paying per MB in some cases. This can get very expensive. If you stay below their limits, then you have to manage what goes on which service. This can be a nightmare. Bottom line as far as storage, I find Cloud services to be expensive. Especially if you compare it to purchasing a external drive and a cloud backup service. Here is an example. I can buy a 1TB external drive for $50, I pay $60 per year for unlimited BU on Crashplan. If I spread the drive cost over 4 years, I am paying $12.50 per year. For 1TB. I'm already paying for Crashplan. Try to find your next TB of storage for $1 per month.

If on the other hand you are talking about backup services then there are a few very good ones, like Backblaze, Crashplpan etc. These generally have unlimited backup storage space. But be aware backup with unlimited storage for around $60 per year is a very different thing than cloud storage like Dropbox.