What is your point with this anecdote? Are you trying to say I have zero right to complain about what Corel is doing to change its upgrade policy for CorelDRAW?
No, you have every right to complain. My point was that even though you thought that price was bad on total investment, some have it a lot worse.
That I should just pay whatever the hell they want and be quiet? The story you tell above sure sounds 100% like that.
No, if you don't like what they are charging,
don't buy it. It's that simple. I have always stated in discussions like this, seek an alternative. Just go with Adobe alone if this gets you that much in a tizzy with DRAW.
I do, however, have a harder time with someone that complains and then still shells out money. For what they are charging, it still must be worth it, otherwise, y get it? If you are pretty much in vendor lockin, then ya, gotta pay what they charge.
Once programs start putting years on their products and saying they are coming out on a yearly cadence, writing is pretty much on the wall at that point. Time to think of an exit strategy.
This example you're providing totally undercuts your dislike for Adobe and its Creative Cloud setup. It's very obvious you've been avoiding them due to price.
Price plays a part. I made no bones about that. How many times have I told the story about it only taking 7 yrs to be saving money buying the perpetual license versus going subscription? That was upgrading every new release as well. I made no bones about that. I found it ironic when Adobe was offering both, their C/B only went 3 yrs out. 7 yrs is getting close to being here.
I also made no bones about a production computer with an internet connect (and I do believe some functionality from Adobe requires that all the time on their CC stuff, if I'm not mistaken, not just the once a month check in).
Control over the software. Again no bones about not liking the lesser amount of control that I have of Adobe software through this new cloud/subscription service (or any SaaS based software).
Factor in less control, connected to the internet and cost me more in the long run equals my not really liking Adobe.
I might also add, I have CS4, CS5 (I skipped 5.5) and CS6 Master Suites that I bought outright, no upgrade (didn't much care having to install the old version, then install the upgrade crap, that may have changed, but I wasn't taking that chance).
I have no problem with spending the money, it's the cost of doing business if it's worth it. It's the ancillary crap that gets me and then add on a higher price tag, no bueno.
I have absolutely no problem paying $15k for software as long as it still has value to me. It's not the same price tag with just less control for example. Although even then, this will probably be my last version of that software as I refuse to go to Win 10 (and it's not price at all, that's been well documented my issues with that).
IIRC you don't even use any recent versions of CorelDRAW due to the activation setup that doesn't let you install the same license on a bunch of different computers.
I don't use Corel period, it's not installed in my VMs, Adobe CS6 is, which stops me at 2 seats, so the amount of seats isn't an issue as I still use that (digitizing software is dongled, so it's only one seat, unless you get the network version (I hate to see that price)). Now, the last version that I ever messed with was X5 (that's probably what you are thinking and combining that with my use of portable production programs on Linux), but I have X5, X6 and X8 as it comes bundled with the same digitizing software (the digitizing software does come packaged with an older version of DRAW then what's currently available, so it's going to be behind even though the digitizing program may be newer).
