From my standpoint, it was unfortunate that Adobe didn't clue us in to this change earlier. I might have made a different choice than to upgrade to CS6 Production Premium. I thought I was buying into an upgrade path, in which case, that decision made sense. If I had known that everything would have gone to CC, that decision did not make sense. So, I'm ticked off on that basis.

Long term, there are some Adobe tools that you simply have to use if you're going to do any professional freelance work in this field. I have, at times, sat out an upgrade when the features didn't seem compelling. I'll probably stick with the software I have until Adobe comes up with a killer feature or I get a job that requires use of CC for compatibility with the team. That'll probably be a year or two. Then I'll have little choice but to upgrade.

@DouglasHorn

What support can CS6 users expect?

Barring something unforeseen from Apple and Microsoft, we plan to update Photoshop CS6 for the next Mac and Windows operating system releases. Once Camera Raw 8 is completed for Photoshop CC, we are going to release a version of it for CS6 that includes any new camera support but without any of the new CC tools and features.

In addition, DNG Converter will remain a free option to convert new Raw file formats for use in older versions of Photoshop.

What assurances can our readers have that Lightroom will not become a subscription-only option?

[Bryan O'Neil Hughes] Lightroom is for photographers. And the Lightroom team is very aware of the reaction by photographers to Photoshop CC. We don't have plans to make Lightroom a subscription-only option but we do envision added functionality for CC members using Lightroom.

Source: http://www.dpreview.com/news/2013/05/08/Adobe-photoshop-cc

Take a commercial application. Adobe Photoshop is a good example. Take a teenager. Let's call him Phil. Now, Phil wants to create some graphics for a hobby web page he's making. He browses some forums on the net and talks to friends to find out what software he needs. The answers he gets are consistent:

"You need Photoshop."
"Photoshop is the best software for working with graphics for the web."
"All the professionals use it."
"Heck, Photoshop is even a verb nowadays."

So Phil is convinced. He needs Photoshop. Happily he goes online to buy it, but when he sees the $999 price tag for the best version, he thinks again. He's a poor student. He's got plenty of time on his hands, but there's no way he'll spend that amount of money on a hobby. But he still wants to work with graphics. He needs Photoshop! What is he going to do? The natural thing now that piracy is widespread is to download a pirated copy, so that's what Phil does. Now he can create good looking graphics for his web page. At the same time he learns the industry standard for graphics editing. If he'll work with graphics professionally in the future, he'll probably buy a Photoshop licence. In the meantime, Adobe doesn't lose a sale because Phil wouldn't have been able to afford Photoshop in the first place. Nobody gets hurt.

Everyone is happy, right?

Wrong. Someone does get hurt.

In this scenario, Adobe are probably the winners. Because of piracy, they have gained a possible future sale. It's not a problem for them. But everyone isn't happy. Who gets hurt? Adobe's competitors.

Imagine that there was no such thing as piracy: that in some strange way it was impossible to run software without having paid for a license. In that weird parallel universe, what would Phil do when he realized that he couldn't afford Photoshop? He wouldn 't just forget about the idea of making graphics. He would do what people normally do when they can't afford something they need: Find a cheaper alternative. If you need a car and can't afford a Porche, go buy a Toyota or a Saab or a Fiat, whatever you can afford that suits your needs. It may not be as good as what you wanted, but it will do the job. Phil would find one of the other graphics editors out there, and there are others. Most if not all of them are cheaper than Photoshop. Some are free. They might not have all the features that Photoshop has, but perhaps you don't even need those features. (Some made-up statistics: 99% of Photoshop users never use if for anything above file format conversion and very simple editing.)

So while Adobe doesn't lose a sale from Phil running a pirated Photoshop, their competitors do. The competition can't compete with a lower price, since pirated software is even cheaper.

Via: http://www.librador.com/2008/02/01/The-Real-Problem-with-Software-Piracy/

I think Apple understands that and is why they made fcpx so cheap. (speculation from my side off course)

Generally, it is other side of the story. Apple can do this as they are sponsoring FCP X development from other sources of income. Force them to make it fully independent and separate company, cut ties to banks and you'll see completely different picture.

No one mentioned getting your password compromised when Adobe was hacked, as mine was. Luckily, I have wasted no money on Adobe products, and I never will.

Adobe had outage with their system that prevented any account verification to prolong license. Apps just stopped working for such people.

We also had trouble with our online job application form which was hosted through Adobe Forms Central.

Annoying to say the least.

I've terminated my Cloud CC subscriptions and have bought licenses to CS5.5 across the board. The main reason is that Adobe consumerized Adobe Camera RAW in CS6 (ACR V7.x) to subordinate it to casual Lightroom users. Unfortunately, this burdens Photoshop with the same auto-exposure Process 2012 that is the default in ACR CS6. This was an obtuse and heavy-handed move on Adobe's part, and they made it impossible to set up any version of ACR beyond CS5.5 to default to anything but Process 2012.

Another issue has been the chronic "diagonal rain" bug in the MainConcept H.264 decoder bundled in CS6 and CC. Neither Adobe nor MainConcept have acknowledged multiple requests to confirm and fix this insidious flaw.

For me, the most alarming aspect of the CC subscription program is that it forces you to upgrade to the latest version as soon as it's released online. In my view, that makes CC an ongoing public Beta Test platform.

Adobe profits quadrupled after full year of subscription only products.

@Scot

Not much, offline sales of such software where pretty small lately.

@NickBen

Actually in various interviews and such they openly stated that they will slow down major updates and that goal is to keep updates small and not very important but make people pay constantly.

Same approach is now used by many companies.

I am sure that in a year or so we will see same thing from Microsoft. Windows 10 will be declared free, if you do not use any updates and will cost you each month if you want to keep holes patched. All the breaches will be openly published and code for using them will be provided from same day.

833,000 new subscribers signed up for Creative Cloud in the company’s 4th quarter this year, a much higher count than analysts were expecting. 52% of customers are paying $50 per month for the full “All Apps” plan, while the rest are paying for individual apps — Lightroom CC is the fastest growing app in the stable.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-adobe-systems-results-idUSKBN0TT2WF20151211

I think most part is best to go into

http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/3306/h.265-topic.-same-quality-half-file-size.#Item_112

or

http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/6597/adobe-premiere-pro-cc-and-other-cc-suite-2014-products#Item_302