They could sell me Photoshop version 2024, and I could pay them $600, and just use that for the next 20 years. Instead, I'm being sold Photoshop: cloud edition for $50/month, for forever. I don't actually own my copy of Photoshop that I'm giving them money for, I'm renting it from them.
Photoshop is Adobe's product, so they get to charge for it however they please, but that's textbook rent-seeking. You could argue that they're improving Photoshop and deserve the rent, but what if I don't want those new features and I'm happy with Photoshop 2024, but regardless of that, I'm still only renting Photoshop (and the rest of the suite) from them these days.
Textbook rent-seeking is convincing a government official to make it law that people use your service. Rent-seeking isn't "charging rent" or "charging a subscription".
