I have a retail copy of Photoshop 7 I bought decades ago with hard earned money. A full copy of Photoshop then was hundreds of dollars. I still use it to this day.

I learned Photoshop well enough back in the day to do cool stuff and make a few bucks on the side doing graphic design. I'm not a professional graphic designer at all so it never made sense for me to get on the version treadmill. Even today it does everything I need and more.

Adobe got paid for the work they did. I've gotten incredible value out of my purchase since I've used it so long and the cost has amortized over decades.

Subscriptions imply change. I don't necessarily want change. If I buy something that suits my needs...it already suits my needs. Adding more shit isn't necessarily a boon. Changing the behavior or look with a new update is infuriating. This is especially true of complex software that takes time to learn.

For a developer selling a subscription the strategy of locking up data is entirely rational. They'll keep getting money no matter what they do because they're holding my data hostage. It's a model I have no interest in.

Even better is when they decide to shut down or get bought out. If the subscription shuts down there's no amount of money I can pay to get it back.