Well Adobe has also done a lot of acquisition and (many of them they then failed to maintain those products, until a slow death. what they did to Macromedia still hurts.) let us not forget they purchased photoshop and most of what is there PDF software today came from the acquisitions of several companies.

Some call it price gouging and some call it a subscription to professional software that's constantly under significant development. Other professional tools in adjacent industries cost a LOT MORE. Nuke Studio, for example, costs 4k/quarter.

Sure Adobe should focus more on old usability issues in lieu of new features and many of their programs have such broad userbases that they couldn't possibly focus equally on everything their users want them to focus on, but when it comes down to it, people are mad because it's something they want, but not enough to pay for. Looking at their uservoice forums for 5 minutes dispenses with the notion that they're just giving these apps the bare minimum amount of work and using them as cash cows.

There are cheaper or FOSS alternatives that suit most non-professional's needs but if you want Adobe's professional tools and have those tools keep up with our ever changing technical landscape, that costs money. I professionally use Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premier Pro, After Effects, Audition, Acrobat, Lightroom Classic and XD, so the CC subscription is an absolute bargain.

Adobe software is user hostile, bug infested spyware perched atop mountains of tech debt.

That's funny I never thought about that. Is their pay low?

Still chugging along on CS6….

Will get better when Scott Belsky takes over.