Still, I feel like a subscription is a service-as-a-software-substitute [1]. At least when I don't need continuous development.
There are plenty of free and open-source programs. I have gotten by with Gimp for a lot of my needs. There is also Krita and darktable, and even the browser-based miniPaint [2].
[1] - https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-s...
Lightroom as in Adobe Lightroom?
miniPaint is very impressive, thanks for sharing.
Are you implying it should be even more granular? i.e. People with IP addresses in Hollywood neighborhoods should have to pay $10,000/year for Adobe software but people with IP addresses in Compton neighborhoods should only pay $10/year?
But that pricing would be terrible; I am pretty sure the stated numbers are far from maximum total profit - at some point, even Hollywood execs turn down deals.
And number of deals is a factor in total profits (multiplication).
The problem then becomes that users in ‘rich’ countries use a VPN to get the ‘poor’ country pricing.
But I am pretty sure the total profit will still be greater than in a single-price scenario.