As I touched on in another post, its all about the monthly's...
C1 don't want to do an Adobe and drop the perpetual license... but they may as well have done because buying the license, then paying £159/£199 a year in addition makes it more costly than subscribing.
All the suits have been on this monthly subscription for years, Apple, Google, Netflix, Amazon, Sky etc... its great for them, guaranteed income every month, everyone loves that. I even had a so called photography agent try to sign me up... monthly...!!! I explained that it was good for him as he can pay his rent and staff every month, but bad for me... he won't have the hunger to land me a job etc.
Looking at C1/Phase 1 as a company since Covid... they must be in trouble... rushed, weak and over hyped upgrades to garner yet more from us (we've not exactly been 'coining it' since March 2020) its evidence that some non photo suits have come in and said something like 'cut this, don't invest in that, go for this market...our research says...' Its what banks do when things get tight.
A true story to end with...
A person i know personally had created a very strong and profitable series of books... many titles and these books sold consistently all over the world.
He latest 'banker' comes in one day and says... 'get rid of all these titles, they are your weakest... they don't make money, they lose you money...'
She being quite direct, told him where to get off she later sold her company for many, many millions.
The point of the story is this, roughly 20% of your stock/titles/products/services make about 80% of your money, my small fine art sales bear this out, your too probably.
Any 'banker' that starts telling how to place yourself in the market by culling off your less popular items is very inexperienced, my friend's company was and is THE major player in this type of book and because she has so many titles, you trust that brand when you are looking yourself... If she had only 20 or 30% at stock, she would simply blend in with the rest...
I think Phase/Capture One is, like a lot of people struggling and they have to trim their sails a bit but over hyped, expensive upgrades won't work, short term or long term.
So keep versions 12, 20 etc and Lightroom close at hand...
S