AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire

You are correct in some respects, but you have to recognize that the old "buy a license and beat it into the ground" model is just as vulnerable, more so in some respects. You're not buying the software itself or just the right to use it. And a software giant can still blow the competition out of the water through a combination of marketing, product design, and other business techniques. In fact, Bill Gates had effectively destroyed the competition long before MS moved toward the subscription model. Whatever the product and scale, the subscription model makes more sense for the companies, the investor, and ultimately for the consumers, as long as it doesn't turn into a monopoly. And the status as a monopoly has nothing to do with how the product is distributed.

I'm not especially happy about it - there is certainly a loss of self sufficiency and independence involved for most users. But I get a better product, with a constant stream of upgrades, and some reassurance that if pricing starts to increase rapidly, other players will enter the field of competition. As I noted above, virtually every specialized form of business software our company uses has switched to subscription pricing or has notified us of their intent to do so. Some of these are very small firms, with highly specialized client bases, and they're worried that with the low overhead and relatively shorter term profitability of the subscription model, other competitors will decide to enter the fray. That's why they're keeping the prices down.


Word Perfect is now owned by Corel, which is a fairly large software company. At $250 for standard edition and $400 for professional, their newest release (May 2018) is going to have to sell a lot of copies to make up for their lost market share. I recall reading that it was down to 5% or less of the word processing market.


We'll see how it all plays out, but I'd still be shocked if the "standalone" market in any software sector doesn't decline significantly and at an increasing rate over the next couple of years.

You WILL be assimilated. Resistance is futile.
Andy

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Adobe makes its money here on volume. And the volume is driven by a good product at a reasonable price.

When I started using LR/PS I don't recall the prices back then but LR was around $100-150 and PS was like $400-600. And major revisions were every 2 years or so (upgrades were probably half the initial prices). The $120/year is cheap by comparison. And it's a minor part of my photography budget. It costs even less than the coffee I drink. I don't see any basis in people complaining on how Adobe is making millions off us. They're not making anything like that off me.

AlohaJim Loc: Retired. Hawaii >> N. Arizona.

Stand Alone programs. No subscriptions.
Capture One 11
Photoshop Cs6
Lightroom
Others.

AzYooper Loc: Sun Lakes AZ (Almost Phoenix)

Is there evil in a company making a lot of money? Generally, it is an economic yardstick to measure who is successful and who is not. I submit Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, etc. as other examples "making a lot of money." In America, we usually call that success. To do that in today's constantly changing market is quite an accomplishment and I applaud Adobe for finding the way to keep in front of the market as they provide, arguably, the best post-processing software available, using that yardstick that you describe. I don't mind that some of that "lot of money" is mine as long as I, personally, receive a fair value for it.

beorn80 Loc: Battle Creek, Michigan

My go to's are in order photo elements 18,ON1,luminar,topaz studio, for HDR aurora, I have affinity but have not really tried it.my like for E18 is that ON1,Topaz Studio, and Luminar can all be used as a plugin, or filter. Both ON1 and Luminar have knew batch processing while both have added speed. Luminar does a very capable job, while ON1 capably is as good or better in some instances as Lightroom! Aurora is a very handy HDR program , I have heard good things about Affinity. Hope this little bit of info helps you out!

beorn80 Loc: Battle Creek, Michigan

P.S THESE ALL ARE ONE PRICE YOU OWN IT! ALL UNDER $75.00.Subscriptions are fine ,Iguess for some. I personally like to own it.!

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Just so you really recognize that you don't own it, you purchased a license to use it. Not the same thing.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

Not sure what you mean by entering their walled garden. If you purchase the subscription plan it is no different then purchasing the standalone versions of Lightroom and Photoshop except that they will always be up-to-date and will cost less. There is a reason that so many users of the Creative Suite here have taken advantage of the subscription plan. They did the math as I have. I think it's a great deal and I'm not even an Adobe user anymore. I personally use DXO Photolab Elite with DXO's other add-in packages, which serve my particular needs much better, but at a cost of almost $300 for this standalone software.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

Exactly, you never actually own it, only a license to use it on one or perhaps two devices, depending on the license agreement. And as soon as the next version of standalone software comes out, support for the previous version generally ends. That means no bug fixes, no feature enhancements and if you're shooting raw, no new cameras added. If you want that stuff, you have to buy the upgrade. In the long run for those who like Adobe software, and use it regularly as their post-processing workflow, the subscription approach is an affordable godsend.

DHooch

With all do respect, I get suspicious when someone says they have spent x hundreds of hours using many software applications and y is at the bottom of the list, without sighting examples of why it was at the bottom of the list. This has happened in this forum, before, when the author gives examples of the lack of features for the software being analyzed and the examples can be proved not true. So, please give examples of why Aftershot Pro 3 is so limited and is at the bottom of your list.

Thank you, in advance.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

You can be as suspicious as you want. I provided my opinion based on my professional experience and a fairly exhaustive amount of time spent with each package. I'm not here to prove anything and you can accept my findings or not as you wish. I'm a retired IT software development person with 35 years of software programming experience, especially with regard to end user interfaces and the end user experience. I have six desktop and laptop computers at home all with fairly high-end processors and video cards, SSD drives, and 28 in 4k monitors.

Over an almost three-month period, I downloaded free 30-day full versions of virtually every popular mid-range and pro level post-processing package, and spent many hours reviewing each interface, each tool, each screen, each feature and each function, of every one of them. I also spent many dozens of hours reviewing their documentation as well as viewing online tutorials and videos.

When I said 200 hours, it was probably significantly more than that in the long run, perhaps as much as 300 hours. As a retired programmer, reviewing interface design is actually a hobby and I am a beta tester for several non photographic software packages. Most of my days, everyday, was spent in pursuit of understanding how these various packages functionally compared, and their comparative strengths and weaknesses. Aftershot ended up on the bottom of the list because of the poor implementation of its tool and feature set compared to all of the competition. The tools were awkward to use, were not smooth, the range of adjustments of many of the tools was poor, and the results were mediocre compared to everything else I looked at.

To be sure, every package I tried has interface differences that might appeal more to one person than another. And many of the inexpensive packages were somewhat lacking compared to the pro software. Of all the packages I tried the only one that was unacceptable in a number of areas was Aftershot. I was actually surprised how mediocre it really was. For those lacking experience in all the alternatives I can see why one might think it's acceptable. If you had tried all the software I did, I think you would come to the same conclusion. Most of these post processing software packages have many visual similarities which may give the impression to some that the cheaper ones are a better value. However, how they look, and how they work, are two very different things.

beorn80 Loc: Battle Creek, Michigan

Mr. Dirt Farmer with all do respect, picky, picky lol! just answering a question, and giving a humble opinion, yes I understand you get a license , lol , geez! I still like to own my license ok of whatever product .I also commented some folks like to do a monthly thing ,hallelujah for them. I like my 2004 Dodge truck its paid for, and would take it coast to coast I take care of MY stuff ,not that you don't as well .. My camera equipment is not the best ,it was good once, bought used and paid cash. Just prefer to own, good luck on your monthly! be happy,LOL!

francwoods

Also using Affinity... and it can use the Nik plugins. I bought into the Luminar hype but it is not ready for prime time for Windows so I'll stick with Affinity... lots to learn!

tomad Loc: North Carolina

Ok, I just counted and I have 18 stand alone editing apps including nearly all the ones mentioned here and a few not mentioned. The one I tend to use the most because it will do everything and it's easy and pretty straightforward to use is Luminar. The second most used for photos that only need a minor touchup is Photoshop Express. Probably third and fourth would be the speciality programs Aurora HDR and Landscape Pro. I've used both Gimp and Capture one but don't particularly like either interface. On1 is ok but I don't have enough experience with it to rate it yet; same for Affinity. I've used both a bit and don't particularly find them as intuitive as Luminar.

Yourstruly43

There is nothing wrong with choosing to lease Photoshop from Adobe. I choose not to. The reason is that I find PS6, Affinity, and some Topaz additions work just fine for me. Photoshop CS6 was a mature program when it came out with 12 versions before it. I used it and previous versions to create photo-montages and now for making large format digital prints. I view Photoshop and for that matter Affinity as image editing in the same way as I view Microsoft Word -- a magnificent program with multiple options, while useful to others, not useful to me. The only annoyance I have is that I have a Nikon D850, and Photoshop Raw for PS6 does not support its raw files, but Topaz and Affinity do, and from either of them or by converting my files into Adobe Camera Raw files, I can bring my picture files into PS6.

I make large photographic prints and each of my print cartridges cost about $160, use expensive roll paper, so I save where I can.