But licenses for the old Creative Suite were an eyewatering $2500 USD for the full suite. Sure, you'll get there in four years with a full-on CC subscription, but for the large number of users who only want Photoshop, the ~ $10 USD / mo. plans are pretty appealing (and Adobe now makes money off of them, since it's easier than pirating it to pay for it).

The value really depends on what you need. Most people don't need the whole create suite. If all you need are the photo/design/print apps you really get screwed by the subscription.

Photoshop Illustrator and inDesign haven't had upgrade worthy releases since like CS5. Acrobat Pro seems to be getting worse.

The pricing difference really depends on what apps you use and what your update schedule was before, it was from a general paying at least double (yes, a lot of the professional users I know obviously did those calculations when the subscription stuff started. Enthusiasm about it varies accordingly)