As a millennial born and raised in India, software is something we took for granted. Most of us never paid for software in our entire lives. Software was something that came with your computer for free, including professional tools like Adobe Photoshop, CorelDraw, etc. The cost of the software was the cost of the CD to write it on. However, this piracy-oriented system really helped people in India learn these tools and find direction in the creative field. Not all people who tried these softwares were making money, and not all people wanted to make money either. People just wanted to experiment or learn. Some of these tools were so expensive that you couldn't even think of buying them, especially if you were earning in INR. Software was priced in USD, and we couldn't afford most of these tools unless you had a rich background. Imagine you're someone who wants to go the no-piracy route if you want to learn Final Cut Pro? Good luck with that—there isn't even a trial version. So you need to spend 30K INR if you want to even try this tool. This is the case with many softwares today: you don't even get to try. There's no opportunity for you to experiment or learn. That's why I'm saying there's no country for hobbyists.
Things have changed a lot recently with the subscription model. Now acquiring software is comparatively cheap. It comes with a lot of other problems too. Let's say you're a professional but you only need this tool very occasionally—you still need to pay monthly. So if you're a hobbyist who just wants to try things, this requires you to make a payment every month. (There are exceptions like Canva, which you can purchase for a single day and comes with very cheap pricing.) This is where you need to let go of some of your favorite tools. A recent free model change in Figma made Figma literally useless for your personal work. Now the introduction of AI has made things complicated. Now AI is another subscription on top of your current subscription. I'm not talking about getting OpenAI or Gemini. The same tools come with add-on subscriptions. It's real and it's happening.
There was no purchase parity until recently. Now I can see lower prices for software for people from developing countries, which is a good thing. I always thought, why is software like Photoshop so expensive? From Adobe, I can see special offers for India these days. It looks like they finally realized it on their deathbed. I get it—any tool that requires cloud infrastructure needs money. You can't run a cloud business for free. There are still good tools out there that are offline-first; Sketch, for example, still lets you buy a perpetual license. Think about Photoshop: it's mostly offline with "cloud" in the name so they can justify subscriptions. I've used Creative Cloud for a while, and I don't see any significant cloud features that justify its pricing.
[Note] this rant is still work in progress ...