For what it's worth, I think the $10/month would be very reasonable is there was an exit strategy. I think if adobe had a policy that once you have been paying rent for 3 years you can opt out any time and keep using what you currently have. If you want back into the rental model later the clock would start ticking again.
This model is totally tilted adobe's way. If they fail to innovate and improve the product the customer is SOL. The customer can't leave cause then they have nothing.
At the end of the day actions speak louder than words and adobe's actions haven't been encouraging.
Yes, this remains indeed true.
Having decided to buy into the model doesn't mean I am happy about it or have more appreciation for the kind of arm wrestling Adobe is inflicting to his customers.
But cheaper makes it less painful to wait until a transition to the perfect alternative when it shows up. I intend to keep encouraging alternatives by funding their development through the purchase of licenses.
I could have decided to sit with CS6 for the foreseable future, but I expect upcoming OSX evolutions to make it a non workable solution sooner than later. I assumed that this would happen in 2-3 years and that I would have no choice but to upgrade because of other software I am using that may not work well anymore on 10.8/10.9 OSX.
So assuming it happens in 3 years, I will have spent 360 US$ till then.
Assuming that prices stay the same, if I had started to use CC then at 24 US$ a months then (in 3 years from now), it would take 2.2 years to break even.
So after 5 years and 2 months it would have become more expensive not to have bought into CC now.
My guess is that a very good alternative will be available by then... so it may not have been a wise decision.
Future will tell.
Cheers,
Bernard