I don't know what your friends professions are, but if photoshop is a regular part of it, then the productivity gains are worth the cost. It's the same reason

I don't know what your friends professions are, but if photoshop is a regular part of it, then the productivity gains are worth the cost. It's the same reason I pay for JetBrains IDEs. I've got friends who say why in the world would you pay for an IDE when you can do everything for free with VS Code. But my productivity is so much higher with pycharm + webstorm, so I pay. And maybe I am weird, but I like to pay people for the work that they do that makes my life better.