While your whimsical comment might apply to some rent seeking subscription products, as phrased, it does seem like you are totally out of line with it application in this thread.
Adobe CC not strong enough? That's not it.
Subscription retention practices like this are to juice quarterly numbers to delight analysts on the earnings calls. If Adobe was a private company this level of lock-in desperation wouldn't be necessary. We'd still be able to buy the software once like we used to.
This kind of product economics comes from Wall Street. It's led to a world where companies, rather than charging at a stable price point that allows them to keep the lights on, offer something at an unsustainable $10/mo to build marketshare. Then they raise the price every year after that, whether or not the additions made have any added value.
It's not that Adobe's depending on subscription engineering, it's creative pros 100% dependent on Adobe products being willing to put up with this shit because they have quality products with no alternatives.
Unfortunately, the same is true for Illustrator. There are competitors that have 95% of the features, but that remaining 5% is critical for serious professionals.
I work for a huge org, and we tell companies like this to go fuck off with terms like this. The real scam of Adobe is that there is no way to assess engagement rates with their tools. The only way to get this data is by metering PCs or datamining your IdP.