Adobe jacked up Creative Cloud to $69.99/month from like $55 because fuck us, I guess. That's over $800 a year, forever. Miss one payment? They lock your files until you pay the ransom. I shit you not - your own work becomes hostage.
The Subscription Trap Explained
Just Photoshop through their Photography Plan is $22.99/month now - they killed the cheaper option because of course they did. That's almost $280 a year for software that cost $600 once and you owned forever.
The math is fucking brutal. After like 3 years you've basically bought the old version twice over. Five years in and you've blown almost $1,400 on software you'll never own. Adobe knew exactly what they were doing when they killed perpetual licenses.
The AI Credit Scam
Adobe gives you a taste of their AI garbage, then hits you with credit limits. The "generous" monthly allowance? Burns through in like two client projects. Run out mid-deadline? Fork over extra cash or your AI stops working. It's the freemium mobile game model applied to professional software.
Forums are full of people complaining the AI breaks after updates, credits vanish randomly, and half the time it produces unusable garbage. But hey, you're paying extra for this privilege.
Why Freelancers Get Screwed the Hardest
Seventy bucks a month is car payment money for students and freelancers. But Adobe doesn't give a shit - they've got enterprise customers paying bulk rates. You're subsidizing corporate discounts with your individual subscription.
And the cancellation fee? Pure fucking extortion. Try to bail mid-year and they want 50% of what's left as a penalty. I watched a friend pay $300 just to stop paying Adobe. It's a subscription designed like a cell phone contract from 2005.
Performance Issues They Don't Advertise
Photoshop 2025 crashes like a drunk driver. The forums are a shitshow of complaints:
- Takes forever to start up even on SSDs
- Eats RAM like a starving hippo
- AI works great in YouTube demos, fails when you need it
- Random black screens that force restarts
- Crashes on basic shit like making selections
Adobe says 8GB RAM is enough. That's a lie. I've got 32GB and it still runs like garbage half the time. Their "minimum requirements" are pure fiction.
The Real Cost Analysis
Let's break down what Adobe's pricing actually means for different users:
Student/hobbyist: $275/year for just the Photography Plan. That's laptop money for photo editing.
Freelancer: $840/year for everything. Trapped by cancellation fees, you're looking at $2,500+ over three years minimum.
Small studio: Almost $90/month per person for business licenses. A 5-person team hemorrhages $5,400 yearly just on Adobe.
Meanwhile Affinity Photo costs $70 once and does like 90% of what people actually need. But Adobe spent decades killing competitors and trapping us with their PSD format bullshit.
This isn't just expensive software - it's a rigged game. Adobe turned buying software into paying rent forever, with prices that only go up. And since your subscription renews automatically whether Photoshop works or not, they have zero incentive to fix the crashes, memory leaks, and general shittiness.
