Strangely enough I signed up earlier today for the month trial of Creative Cloud. Its GBP 210.96 inc VAT for a single application, or GBP 562.56 for the suite. That's the annual (minimum) cost for individuals and includes a paltry 20GB cloud storage.
Considering that I very regularly use Acrobat Pro and the upgrades often cost around GBP 200 I don't see an annual subscription as a 'rip off', but more as a managed way of controlling costs.
If you want LGB you have to pay a premium. If you were into BRAWA then a large premium, and then there is KISS!
Photoshop was never aimed at amateurs and my first copy was Photoshop 3, a very long time before Creative Suite. Believe me, the upgrade costs through to Photoshop 5.5 (I think PS6 was the first CS app) then to CS and through the various versions make the subscription pricing seem like a reasonable alternative.
As other people have mentioned there are alternatives available aimed at non professional use. You have a choice.
If you want to join me in complaining about consumer rip offs then consider the music industry which 'sells' you the rights to listen to a piece of music, so long as no one else can hear. For that you need a PRS license (not literally true, but close). However now that you own the right to listen to the content, you have to 'buy' it all over again at full price if you decide that 'your' vinyl record needs to be updated to an audio cassette, then again to a CD. And once again when a download version becomes available. Then you can't 'sell' the download to anyone else!
Sorry, this is GSC. For a moment I thought I had logged onto the DailymailOnline.
Its good to rant.
Its better to run trains!