I think there's multiple downsides, but the biggest one is that it makes it a massive pain in the ass for any price-conscious users to decide whether it's worth paying for.
Right now if I want to install some software to edit images on my PC, I can look at how much Photoshop costs, how much rival 1 costs, and look at Free Alternative 2, and decide what I'm willing to pay.
But under your scenario, I have no clue how much more (or less) expensive Photoshop will be than the paid or free alternatives, unless I can first forecast all the individual steps that will be needed to do the editing I have in mind, and then spend time adding up each action's costs to get an idea of the total price. Not only would it be extremely hard to accurately list every action that would be needed before actually doing them, but even if I thought that were possible then the amount of hassle would be a big enough deal breaker that I just wouldn't be willing to bother with it.
> it makes it a massive pain in the ass for any price-conscious users to decide whether it's worth paying for.
The goal would be to dissociate the software from the price/value. It happens when people are enticed to get loyalty points for things like grocery purchases. No one would move if the deal was "save 30cents" but they would for "and get 300 bonus points!" (See McDonald's or every other loyalty system).
Entire ecosystems have been created around inflated point value too.
Adobe should just call them "Adobe points" and make it essentially a digital currency that can also be used for stock photos, etc too. Or maybe even for cloud computing for fast render farms of your increasingly complex video/3Dworks. Heck, it could be blockchain based too (AdobeCoin?)
They're already trying the kind of "buffet" model with their cloud subs. Maybe they can shift to a credit system to encourage other users.
Looks like they do it per day per user, so 1 token allows 1 user to use the software for 1 day. Really good idea for licensing teams to use expensive industry software IMO
Right now if I want to install some software to edit images on my PC, I can look at how much Photoshop costs, how much rival 1 costs, and look at Free Alternative 2, and decide what I'm willing to pay.
But under your scenario, I have no clue how much more (or less) expensive Photoshop will be than the paid or free alternatives, unless I can first forecast all the individual steps that will be needed to do the editing I have in mind, and then spend time adding up each action's costs to get an idea of the total price. Not only would it be extremely hard to accurately list every action that would be needed before actually doing them, but even if I thought that were possible then the amount of hassle would be a big enough deal breaker that I just wouldn't be willing to bother with it.