Adobe stagnation is not surprising given that they've switched to a subscription model. Perpetual licensing means that software vendors are essentially competi

Adobe stagnation is not surprising given that they've switched to a subscription model. Perpetual licensing means that software vendors are essentially competing with the previous versions of their own products and have to provide compelling improvements to their customers for them to upgrade. Ongoing revenue, and with it, vendor survival, depends on continual improvements. In contrast, subscription models combined with cloud-based vendor lock-in allow software vendors to extract economic rents from their victims indefinitely. There are no previous versions to compete against and victims must pay in perpetuity to access their own data. Vendors get paid without needing to do work, so they do no work, make no improvements, and reap disproportionate profits. Software subscriptions are a perfect example of rent seeking, with all that implies about the relationship between vendor and victim and the prospects for ongoing product improvements.