Users have always paid upfront for software, until software companies with lots of capital started this non sense. All copies of Microsoft Office were paid upfront. Users are just reacting to what the software industry did.
Remember how it became a meme to just pirate Adobe software because they were so bloody expensive? Well Adobe wants their earnings, regardless if their desire is justified, so Adobe and the rest of the industry changed gears to a model that greatly inhibits piracy and, at least in theory, reduces the upfront cost a customer has to pay in exchange for a higher cost over time.
Doesn’t matter how you edited a photo technically, it is still photoshopped.