[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!