Adobe editing software the most used in the world for a reason.

Yes.
And for open-source, like Darktable, the main concern is whether there will be volunteers willing to contribute to the project (see issues with Mac port).

Yup.
I am a casual user in this hobby, just documenting my life along the way. I used to buy LR updates every 5 years or so, for new features and in response to upgraded hardware. $125 every 5 years is very easy to do. Now it would cost that every year with no upgrades that are really meaningful to me. That's about a 500% increase for a user like me. So, I have been hanging in with 6.14 for the last few years, and not sure where to go from here. My Z6 is a jpeg only camera now, which I am OK with, but this subscription leaves me wondering if I have any future with Adobe at all. I haven't really warmed up to the interface of other programs. I guess I am going to have to.

I realize with software you are only buying a license to use it, and that can be yanked, but it still feels like I own 6.14 rather than renting it. There are so many subscription based everythings out there...TV networks, satellite radio, Adobe, Microsoft, etc etc and I know shareholders love the guaranteed revenue stream but these really add up. When I am in fixed income retirement, all that stuff is gonna have to go. Subscriptions for software suck.

When we shot jpeg, we just used the magic of photos on the Mac.

Raw, I use DPP4 (free) and Affinity Photo ($25 three years ago).

That’s my lifetime photography software expenditure.

Does the free software from Nikon not work for you?
www.nikonusa.com/en/learn-and-explore/a/tips-and-techniques/nikon-capture-nx-d-software.html

I'm not sure why the distinction between losing access to your edits and losing access to your pictures seems to be causing so much mis-understanding.

Once your subscription lapses, all you can do is output RGB files like jpgs or tiffs and print. This is retaining access to your pictures. No argument there.

But it is not the same as retaining access to my raw file history stack. The only reason a raw file history stack exists is to provide you with a non-destructive means of making changes to your files. As soon as you lose the ability to make changes to the history stack, you have in effect lost access to the stack because it only exists to make changes. You can't use the stack for anything else. Stopping the subs effectively turns your history stack & raw file into the equivalent of a fixed RGB jpg.

If I wanted to do raster editing, I would never bother with raw in the first place. Adobe might as well say "if you let the subs lapse, we will convert all your raw files into jpgs and delete your history stacks".

It would be different if the history stack could be used in a different program, but effectively they can't because different programs have completely different processing pipes that are not compatible.

So, I stick to my point. Anyone who cares about their raw workflow and the power it gives you to revisit, rework and non-destructively play with your raw files, including allowing you to create virtual copies with completely different editing outcomes, has to accept before signing up for the subscription model, that they will be obliged to subscribe for a lifetime if they want to avoid losing access to this workflow and seeing all that work converted into a frozen RGB file. If you are happy with this deal, good on you, but I'm never going there.

Huh? I did lots of raster editing of raw files before Lr came out. It worked fine. There are lots of reasons to use raw other than to use proxy editing.

Then you wouldn't have the option of re-upping at some point in the future and being able to tweak your edits, which is an option now.

no - all raw converters are parametric... when you buy Adobe's tools ( or any other closed source tools ) you are locking yourself in the situation where you labor is not fully yours... you can't take your parametric edits ( not the output, but adjustments) elsewhere ... funny how Adobe & Co want camera manufacturers to fully document info in raw files and yet they don't want to fully documents their own parametric edits so you can take your work elsewhere.

It's also retaining access to the edits you made previously and being able to apply them to the raw data and create an output, which is not the picture you took but an edited version of it.

Yeah, it is.

No, it also exists so I can create an output.

I don't just have recipes in my kitchen so I can play with recipes. I might also want to cook the dish and serve it.

Why are people still arguing about this? Its not going to change. Adjust and move on.

What "adjustment" do you suggest?

13 programs at one point (early in the game) to get all the combinations of basic editing, noise reduction etc, a dozen 3rd party plugins. And looking back at my old files, I have like a multiple versions of a single image, all with file names that indicate some processing done to each jpg, none of which I can remember any more. A nightmare to manage for someone who wants everything neat and tidy and with one copy of each file. I know some of those edits had something to do with Velvia and some to do with Fred Miranda, but who knows what they are after the passage of so much time :-) Switching to LR cleared away all that clutter.

I'd be a subscribing LR user now if it wasn't for the "holding my edit stacks to ransom" policy.

But not a feasible option for me because it just gets right back on the "Hold my edits hostage unless I pay them forever" dilemma. The last thing I want to do is up the stakes by adding more edit stacks to the pile.

The picture I took is a raw file. It does not exist as an image until it has had a set of history stack edits applied to it. If I stop subscribing I'm left with a plain raw file and a fixed stack of edits that can only be used to output a jpg (etc). In effect, I'm left with an edited jpg, not an editable raw file stack. That stack is no longer usable to me because I can't change it. I may as well as produced my output in Paint for all the difference it makes. Stopping your subs is functionally equivalent to having all your files converted to jpgs/tifs and losing all ability to tweak them as a raw edit.

Clearly you place no value on the time and work you put into making an edit stack you can continue to tinker with and are happy to forget your edits once you reach some kind of outputtable state. I do and that is why I can't sign up to a subs model that freezes editing for pre-existing files. Change it to a model whereby the import module gets locked instead of the edit model and I'd happily sign up. LR remains a fine product.

Adobe won't change their model, but the pros and cons of whether to sign up to a subscription service are something to consider before you dive in (if you are not currently a subscriber. If you are, it's too late for you and I'm sorry).

I don't understand why you keep saying this when it isn't true. They don't hold your edits hostage, they just don't let you make new ones.

I hate the subscription model and don't subscribe, but for reasons that are actually factual, those being that they force me to pay for upgrades whether I want them or not and they force me to pay for Photoshop when I don't use it.

I have lots of images that I haven't changed in years. I just make a print whenever anyone wants one. I consider those stacks usable.

Whatever...they want you to pay for the ability to edit files (LR is, at its heart, an image editor - Adobe Camera Raw or ACR. While you are paying, you can edit. When you stop paying, you can't edit anymore, but you can do most everything else aside from applying geo data (I think they stop that one because they have to pay for your use of map data).