The way I understand it is that ACR 8 will ship to CS6 users without some of the tools available in Lightroom 5; people who switch to CC will have full tool compatibility with LR5 -something you really could do with when using the likes of CameraRaw Smart Objects etc.
I've now had words with Adobe myself - isn't Live Chat fun
- and have now been assured that an existing monthly single app subscription to CS6 will seamlessly change to a monthly single app subscription to CC when it launches.
Though they would not totally refute the possibility of one-off extra charges for their kindness and consideration - so here's hoping.
As someone on a monthly single app subscription it all seems financially acceptable to me, but I can understand anyone whose paid £600+ for a perpetual licence being somewhat "miffed" to say the least.
I can also understand Adobes move to subscription-only "rented licences" - how much money were they losing to pirated software; millions and millions I'd suspect; so going "subscription only" and dropping the price is understandable.
But it seems to me that perpetual licence holders are being put in a position where they are going to have to write-off a considerable amount of money just to keep fully updated, which isn't really fair at all because they have been Adobes main income while vast rafts of people have been downloading illegal copies of Adobe products.
I'm just glad I jumped on the subscription band wagon when I did.