Adobe is absolutely unique in when you quit paying a month fee, you lose access to your IP in Photoshop, Illlustrator, or AE. Autodesk still lets you use autocad, Revit and 3DS max, Maxon let’s you use C4D, Skethcup let’s you sketchupC and on and on and on.
No S____ there’s other ways around it, but WHY would I want to go dig up some 3rd party software for my professionally created work when I’ve paid thousands now of dollars in Software costs over the last decade? It’s absolute nonesense that adobe does this. Paying an extortion fee may work for you, it doesn’t work for me and thousands now of others. I’m not going to let Adobe hold me by the balls to access my art.
I get why some people don't like subscription software, but what you're saying is untrue.
1. There are MANY companies with subscription software. On most of them, you have reduced or zero functionality if you cease your subscription. Examples:
- Microsoft Office 365
- Fonts.com (when you stop subscribing, SkyFonts removes all your fonts)
- Many accounting packages have a subscription version, from QuickBooks to Dynamics
- Cloud-based, Hosted Email
- MSDN/Visual Studio subscriptions
- Services like DropBox, OneDrive and iCloud beyond the free storage limits turn read-only when your subscription expires
2. There are programs other than Photoshop that can open PSDs, as has been previously posted.
3. There are programs other than Lightroom/Photoshop which aren't subscriber, that can open DNGs. If it's important to have continuity post-subscription, work in DNGs or TIFFs instead of CR2s. And you can still open your (original) CR2s, TIFFs and all that anyhow, PLUS you can view and print your LR modified RAWs.
4. Nobody is blackmailing you. If you're a user of an old version of Photoshop/Lightroom, it hasn't stopped working, and if you aren't, nobody is forcing to use PS/LR. Extortion would be if Adobe said, "Give us money every month or your fully licensed PS/LR will stop working!"
5. The irony is, at the price that PS/LR cost
now as a subscription product, it no longer costs thousands of dollars a decade. In fact, you get TWO copies of each, with all the new versions, for just $1,200 in 10 years. In buy-it-and-own-it model, you got 1 copy of photoshop for $600, and you'd be forced to upgrade if you wanted it to work properly in a new operating system, with 64-bit, new plugins, or whatever.