It's been 3-4 years now that, in most business meetings I have been with software developers/publishers, I hear "we can use the cloud (any variation) to make more money, to better control our users, to smooth the revenue curve, etc..." Software as a Service is seen as the panacea that addresses both the general downtrend in software prices (except in markets where there are significant barriers to entry or a captive customer base) and the eventual piracy issue. I haven't seen a case where the motivation was "so the customer gets more for less money". The only logically reasonable argument in favour of renting is that it will cost less if you only need it for short amount of times. But while this makes sense for cameras or lighting gear, everyone knows this is not what will happen with Photoshop et al.
There are of course real advantages to "the cloud' because it allows stuff that wouldn't have been possible a while ago (dropbox, amazon ec, on-line backups, etc...) but forcefully bringing techs that are essentially identical to what they were 15-20 years ago to "the cloud" by ways of legalese and licensing changes if fishy, and always to the disadvantage of the customer.
Stuff that would make sense, especially when upstream bandwidth has made some progress, would for example be to rent a rendering cloud for a few hours. That provides a clear benefit to the user. Leveraging the "cloud" concept to enforce stricter licensing terms and higher prices does not, no matter how they spin it.
But I guess this creates jobs in marketing departments who have to be more creative than ever to implant the idea that this is of benefit to us...
