Here’s the reality. I used to pirate Adobe software because there was no way I was going to pay 1500k or whatever Photoshop was. Adobe got $0 from me.
Now I subscribe to get access to Photoshop. Adobe now gets £100 from me a year. I’m not the only person I know who went through this.
Of course, cheaper alternatives always existed. Adobe’s adoptance of subscription pricing hasn’t changed that.
Software used to be an investment. At university, our physics department had a lot of old computers standing around, whose only purpose was to run some specific legacy software that was no longer maintained, but still worked perfectly.
During my time there, I convinced the theoretical physics department to buy a few Illustrator licenses so we could make better diagrams. I think the academic license cost 300€ per seat. They probably never updated, but I'd assume they still have a PC somewhere with one of those licenses installed, and if someone has a PDF from Inkscape with an incorrect Color Profile, they could still use that machine to fix it.
I think you underestimate how many people use old software out there. Sure, we tech folks update every year, but people who work outside of the tech bubble don't always upgrade a system that's working perfectly fine.
If you need more than just photoshop, the deal is even better.
I do some vector design work maybe once a month. I'd love to buy a license for Illustrator, if it cost whatever it used to cost before Creative Cloud. I would use it for a long time.
But 50€ per month is too much. So I bought a license for Affinity Designer instead. It covers most of my needs, and it's no subscription. I also bought a license for Sketch, since the subscription is optional.
I'd love to use the same tools as professional designers, but they've become too expensive.