Interestingly, looking at the original thread on CC [1], most of the top comments on HN were quite positive:
> I'm looking forward to switching to Creative Cloud at work [...] Going CC-only makes sense for business.
> I love Adobe CC. I would consider it the first thing Adobe has done right in a long time.
> I've been using CC since it came out [...] it's fantastic [...] They've really turned around and made this pirate into a customer.
> I think it's a great move and will benefit independent designers and creators hugely.
> I think the subscription model is far superior.
A minority of users were frustrated and made flat-out incorrect predictions, as you mentioned:
> Adobe just priced themselves solidly out of the prosumer market.
> I wonder if Adobe abandoning traditional software licensing will spur new free software development.
> I hope antitrust regulators will look at Adobe with more scrutiny.
> Adobe is going to lose plenty of money and customers over this.
But again, these were by far the minority, even on HN. I would say that opposition to the subscription model has actually increased quite a bit since Adobe's announcement nearly a decade ago.
I agree the customer doesn’t always have the last say, especially if all market players move decisively and quickly enough.
That said, Adobe has a much more influential market position where it is than Ford or any auto maker does; and Adobe didn’t slap a recurring fee on top of the one time purchase price but made the full shift to a service model.
It is quite reasonable that automakers do the same transition. Most of the people finance their cars anyway, so they pay monthly. Just move the financing burden to the automaker and add usage/features flexible billing and there you have it. Nowhere as objectionable.
Company says it's the "future of business" and consumers are pushing for it, not companies. Then one day the company switches over to a new business model to milk us all even more and completely removes any other option. Other big players roll out an identical business plan within days. Cue blog entry/tweet from the company saying people clearly love it since profits are up and they'll never return to allowing customers to just buy a one-off product.
> I'm looking forward to switching to Creative Cloud at work [...] Going CC-only makes sense for business.
> I love Adobe CC. I would consider it the first thing Adobe has done right in a long time.
> I've been using CC since it came out [...] it's fantastic [...] They've really turned around and made this pirate into a customer.
> I think it's a great move and will benefit independent designers and creators hugely.
> I think the subscription model is far superior.
A minority of users were frustrated and made flat-out incorrect predictions, as you mentioned:
> Adobe just priced themselves solidly out of the prosumer market.
> I wonder if Adobe abandoning traditional software licensing will spur new free software development.
> I hope antitrust regulators will look at Adobe with more scrutiny.
> Adobe is going to lose plenty of money and customers over this.
But again, these were by far the minority, even on HN. I would say that opposition to the subscription model has actually increased quite a bit since Adobe's announcement nearly a decade ago.
Internet history is fun!
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5663581