Photoshop Perpetual Activation

You miss the point. Not having a need to activate/deactivate your software is not a reason to go to subscription. You comparing apples and oranges. You irrational argument makes me think you a bot.

Jerry

Actually that is not true. The only software I have that is subscription is Adobe’s Photoshop. The argument that no one has to activate/deactivate their license is not justification for subscription. No one other than Adobe, for the software that I use, and I use a lot of software, uses the activate/deactivate model. So your argument does not hold water. To the comment that activation can be handled by the user, are you smoking rope? I suffered from two major catastrophic crashes, which meant I could not deactivate my license, hence, I lost my perpetual license because of Adobe’s peculiar activate/deactivate model. They are the only ones that only allow activation/deactivation through their application only. The only reason I see is to force obsolescence so you have to move to subscription.

What subscription gives you is a need to rent your software. A perpetual license gives you the flexibility to only upgrade if there are features you need. This reduces the revenue of Adobe since not everyone upgrades all of the time because like me, they may not want the current new features. The subscription model make you pay even if you don’t use it all of the time. I may go 3 months without using it, when I need it, I usually need it right away and I may go a couple of months using it every day.

Jerry

To fix the problem is a simple database update, changing the count from 2 to zero but they refused to do it. 

Say what? 

Wouldn’t Adobe actually have to maintain their obsolete activation servers (with possible bonus security issues) to enable people to continue to re-register their licenses to obsolete program versions with perpetual licenses? 

There are many things I dislike about the current tech industry, but Adobe’s subscription model is pretty much at the bottom of the list ;-) 

I’m concerned about the continuous erosion of privacy and I’m concerned about AI eating itself and us in the process. I’m concerned with obsolescence and waste. We’re dumping so much perfectly good hardware nowadays because it’s obsolete, that we have no idea what to do with it all. The mountains of junk are building up. 

But subscription? It’s a blessing, honestly. Activation can be managed by the user in a way that was not possible with “perpetual” licenses. Keeping up to date becomes totally seamless and carries no extra cost. The forbidding entrance threshold disappears, making it much more affordable to everyone, and the total cost distributed over time - despite popular myth - is no higher than it ever was.

Keep in mind, a “lifetime” license never referred to the lifetime of the user. It referred to the lifetime of the product, and that product lifetime can be cut severely short by hardware/OS development outside Adobe’s control. Subscription takes care of that, by offering running updates entirely for free. It’s the best way to manage “the red queen problem”, where everybody has to keep running to stay in the same place. The added flexibility of subscription is a small contribution to keeping systems functional for a while longer.

As for making money, yes, it has been very profitable. They probably earn a little less per user, but the user base has exploded 2x or 3x since subscription was introduced.