First of all, I trully appreciate you adding your opinion and perspective here.
For sure, there are a lot of factors that I cant see it from my point of view. For instance, the cost issues, it affects differently for different people, specially depending on what part of the world they are from.
Im not a company owner, Im a one-man studio, so these costs of subscriptions, for me personaly, escalate quite quickly by the end of the month, and with a non steady income (some months I might get some projects, others not so much..) it feels quite scary the idea that I might not be able to have access next month to my own essential work files. Sure, C4D monthly is alright.. (not cheap.. but alright) but add other things that are piling up to this weird subscription model, and suddenly, you are paying for a full C4D license every year, without actually getting a license... not really owning anything.
You mentioned that C4D finds a lot of traction with people that have a choice, but this is ultimately the big issue here. There isnt really a choice anymore, there is this fading impression that we have a choice right now as a customer... but in reality we dont. Maxon is punishing whoever doesnt pick the "right choice" for them (i.e subscriptions) by putting whoever picks perpetual licenses (the choice they dont want you to pick) in extreme disadvantages:
- No more access to a great learning database for the software!
- Only 2-3 months of bug fixes on a 3.5k dolars software. (whoever bought the R23 last year, didnt get the horrible timeline copy/paste bug fix for instance, and never will)
- No more maintenance, only the giant price for updates.
- No access to mid-year update, having to wait 6-7 months to have a chance to get a new feature on a software.
It just feels very short sighted to treat people, who have worked with the software for such a long time this way... removing them from the possibilities and features features they were able have acess to since the beginning of the C4D's history.
Look at what Pixologic is doing for example, I bought Zbrush 4 years ago, perpetual, full price, etc... and they continue to offer free updates ever since.
They started the subscription model 2 years ago, and they continued to give equal support and updates to both users, perpetual and subscription. There is no shady "Hey subscription users, you will get this first! Perpetual.. well.. later this year" type of business.
I guess the keyword in the end is choice.