I love cool software.  It helps out with my job and it's great to keep ahead of the game.  But I'm fed up with the cost of it.

Things I'd love to own is a copy of Adobe Creative Suite 4 (Web Premium) £1,315.00 one off and Microsoft Expression Professional Subscription ~£500 a year.

Oh this would be great I could carry around this cool software and do development for anyone without worry about licences.

Now subscriptions I can cope with so Microsoft seems attractive but Adobe don't offer subscriptions.  Then again Adobe seem to release a new version every couple of years so maybe it's not that bad.  I defiantly can't afford both though.

By the way don't forget that a msdn subscription is strictly for development only.

So why is software so expensive?

Well people steal software which means there is a huge hole of cash to fill.  I know one guy who told me that Microsoft are not bothered about individuals using illegal software as they like to focus more on companies where the big bucks are.  I'm getting the feeling that the large software corporations expect individuals to steal and use software.  Something which I'm totally against.

So I think the prices on software from these companies are for those people who've got the cash and companies.  They probably feel that the normal individual will probably steal it anyway and we should forget about the honest ones anyway as they're a rare bread.

I don't know what the solution is but again the honest are persecuted.  Not that it bothers me :D