The problem is that the 12 month contract is (a) pulled out of their ass and not reflective of the real costs for either party, and (b) until very recently not even disclosed (even in recent months, there are plenty of reports of cancellation fees from people with screenshots of having correctly chosen the monthly version). The very highest cancellation fee that makes sense is the delta between the monthly rate and what the annual rate projected on to the number of months of payment would be. If an annual subscription is cheaper because of risk or the time value of money, even that delta is a vast overestimate of Adobe's damages, and the fact that they're asking for 10x-20x is a blatant abuse of power.

> Find a perpetual software license or 12 month subscription that allows for cancellation for convenience.

All of them with Canadian customers, for example. It's a product with incremental costs and incremental value, so cancelling it (neither paying incremental costs nor forcing the service provider to do the same) makes perfect sense.

> It was easier to pirate back in the day

That's not the problem at all. Gimp is way better than the piratable photoshop ever was. It's not useful to ad hominem people who don't want to be abused.

No way. I have no problem paying. I don't even mind the price. When I signed up last time I chose the monthly option because thats what I was used to for nearly every subscription. I didn't do the math to notice it matched the price of the annual subscription and not once was the cancellation fee mentioned. I was totally caught off guard by the fee and was lucky it was close to the end of the contract.

It's the same shit internet providers used to do in the US that thankfully they can no longer do. I cannot understand anyone defending Adobe on this if they actually used that plan the way they explained it. Maybe it's better now, but it absolutely was shady as hell a few years ago.