Your perpetual license on a fixed version of Photoshop would not have been transferrable across OS/compute generations for 25 years.

In practice most longtime Photoshop users paid the $600 once and some $200~ upgrade cost every 2-4 years. Adjusted for inflation its same or more than what you pay now.

If you think you'd be fine now with 25 year old Photoshop features you maybe forget how basic the product was compared to today. Further besides OS compatibility there were file format / camera raw version additions made over time that you'd have wanted.

And there are both cheaper proprietary programs and even free open source programs if they care that much. There are a lot of way cheaper software options, especially on the desktop, in many cases than there were 25 years ago.