[ehurrell]

I'd agree that it's a precarious hold, but when it's lost I expect it'll be because Adobe did something, artists and designers I've talked to aren't interested in alternatives, or if they are they keep using photoshop alongside it, to check if the CMYK is the same etc, hesistant to trust a new product.

[Doctor_Fegg]

Adobe have done something - Creative Cloud and subscription-based purchasing - and it's given the indie Mac app market (Pixelmator etc.) a huge boost.

More, I suspect there's a delayed effect where people are still holding on to their non-subscription copies of CS. I'm a heavy Illustrator user; I'm still on CS 5.5, but when the time comes to upgrade it won't be to Illustrator CC.

[ehurrell]

I think the problem of staying on a version of Photoshop has existed for a long while. I agree Creative Cloud is a big misstep, but surprisingly to me some artist friends really like it.

[Doctor_Fegg]

Yes, I'd agree that it's been common to "skip a version" or similar. Effectively you get Photoshop (or whatever) at a reduced cost.

So you can see the logic behind Creative Cloud: Adobe have both prevented this behaviour, and struck against piracy. They're clearly betting that this will outweigh the reduced sales, and that Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign are so essential that few people will pass it up. I'm not convinced they're right.

[tormeh]

Without piracy Adobe would die. It's essentially their noncommercial subscription plan and keeps Photoshop available to students etc. It's a part of Adobe's business model.

[jorgecastillo]

>and struck against piracy

A known torrent site begs to differ!