I was never a paying user of Adobe products, but my understanding was that they'd release a new (yearly?) version as a paid upgrade. It would presumably have a

I was never a paying user of Adobe products, but my understanding was that they'd release a new (yearly?) version as a paid upgrade. It would presumably have a killer feature that would encourage enough of the users to buy, which (hopefully) retroactively funds the cost of the new version's development. From the perspective of their business, it's advantageous to have the consistency of $X / month forever instead of "hopefully a huge yearly sales month, followed by mostly nothing until next year". Businesses like predictable revenue.