[dchuk]

Realistically though, your $350 one time buy was the equivalent of 5.8 years of this version of Final Cut Pro at $4.99/month. So while you using it for 8 years busts through the total cost of ownership numbers, seems like $4.99 is very reasonable monthly.

Plus as a low monthly, it’s more likely people will try the app out and start creating videos with it, vs having to stomach and justify a $350 up front spend.

This all being said: I’ve never understood the issue with subscription software assuming the developers keep iterating on it. Seems like that is actually BETTER alignment of usage and commercial model than one time buy, because one time buys technically don’t incentivize the developers to keep iterating on software…

[afavour]

> I’ve never understood the issue with subscription software assuming the developers keep iterating on it

That also assumes the iteration provides value to me as a customer.

I bought a license for Sketch years ago. It expired. Thankfully Sketch provide old versions for download so I’m still on version whatever-it-is… and it does everything I need. I know there’s new functionality but I’m not really interested in it.

[jwells89]

I believe that this applies to Photoshop for a lot of people and is what makes the Adobe CC subscription such bad value if PS is all you want/need.

CS2 is perfectly adequate for my needs and it wouldn't be that bad to have to get by with CS1 or even 7.0. Most of the features added since then just make it slower and heavier with little benefit to me as a user which was bad enough with the paid releases, but with the subscription and how one has no choice but to fund further bloat makes it that much worse.

[camillomiller]

To be fair, the vast majority of people that think they need Photoshop for what they do, actually don’t, especially considering how good the many, way cheaper, alternatives have become. For professionals, the Creative Cloud has many pain points but I personally would argue that the price/value we get is not as bad as many like to claim. Also, for professional the suite is a business cost that’s totally easy to deduct.

[sbarre]

I think this shows that the best option should be to be able to choose.

Use it all the time and want all the latest updates? Buy it as a subscription.

Casual user who doesn't need all the latest updates or support? One-time purchase.

[egypturnash]

You are ignoring the misalignment of user and developer needs that happens when the devs spend all their time adding new features that mean absolutely nothing to your process; in the pre-subscription days I would skip new versions of Illustrator that only added stuff for people who do text layout or whatever. Now I'm sitting here paying for them to spend an entire dev cycle fucking around with text-to-image generation garbage I have no use for, like it or not.