Don't shoot the messenger!!!
But I do spend a lot of time studying the financial news, and know more about valuation methodologies and other worthless drivel than I like to think about in my time off.
These changes aren't about "you" as in the hobbyist photographer, Adobe created Lightroom and Elements for you.
1) this is about pros in many categories (not just photography) and that is why Adobe went to Creative Suites. Full Photoshop's greatest importance is to pros within the overall creative world, including illustration, web design, publishing, video and so forth. This concentration drives all corporate decisions, and I suspect Scott Kelby was a minor factor at best, as photographers are only one part of the picture.
2) Wall Street is semi-retarded, and Adobe did this primarily to please Wall Street. That is many analysts aren't all that bright, they want a nice smooth upward stream of corporate earnings, and if they don't get what conveniently fits their models, they penalize the stock instead of revising the model.
Adobe had a huge surge in revenues every two years when the new suites came out, and then sales would be lower for the next two years. Earnings are not actually as important as earnings growth rates, and because Adobe was "disappointing" the (simplistic) valuation models 7 quarters out of 8, they were getting penalized.
So Adobe's solution is to try their best to drive corporate and pro clients to subscriptions with level revenues every month, in lieu of "perpetual license" customers, the way their past business model worked.
They are not ready to do an all or nothing, and kill the cash cow just yet. But, they really, really want everybody paying on a monthly basis. So the monthly subscription deal gets all the great incentives, and those who only want to pay a small amount of cash to upgrade every six years get the back of hand.
Hey, I don't like it, and I particularly dislike the half-brained investment analytics that drive this. But if you want to know why - this is why...
