I’ve written about Adobe before.
I’ve always been very happy with Adobe in regards to their products, but seriously, their upgrade policies are just a pathetic little example of how a monopolist can manipulate the market without any punishment.
I consider myself a loyal customer, but even with that, as a freelancer it’s a big bite out of your finances if you have to upgrade a package like Creative Suite Premium. So what I do is skip a version all the time. I bought PS2, PS3, PS4, then went to PS6 and from PS6 to CS1, from CS1 to CS3 and from CS3 to CS5 (I still have the 3,5″ floppy disks from PS3, I wonder if they are worth anything already 😀 ).
But anyway… In previous posts about Adobe I was ranting about the price differences between upgrades. In this neck of the world an upgrade has continuously been more than double the price compared to the US upgrade prices. Marketing and translation, they say at Adobe (after cutting of any and all continuous questions from my part). I say that’s bull shit. With whipped cream and a cherry on top.

And guess what? CS6 is coming next year.
And hidden in a blog post on Adobe’s website they quietly address their new policy regarding upgrades:

With regards to upgrades, we are changing our policy for perpetual license customers. In order to qualify for upgrade pricing when CS6 releases, customers will need to be on the latest version of our software (either CS5 or CS5.5 editions). If our customers are not yet on those versions, we’re offering a 20% discount through December 31, 2011 which will qualify them for upgrade pricing when we release CS6.

So the sneaky little bastards in the money-gathering department at Adobe are basically FORCING you to upgrade every single version, otherwise you have to pay the full price for an upgrade.
With CS5 I’m still ok, but I guess my “skip a version”-technique will stop here, if I want to be eligible for an upgrade price to CS7. I know the “skip a version” is very commonly used, and I know a good number of people who were planning the CS4-CS6 step. But I guess that’s out the window.
Only surprise now will be what the actual upgrade prices will be. I won’t be surprised if we’re paying the jackpot again.
I don’t approve of software piracy, but with these kinds of “policies” the big guys do make it very tempting for the little guys to go down that road.

Shame on you, Adobe!