The conspiracy theories go way back. About 10 years ago on the old forum there was much grousing about ‘dongle calls’.
There was a period during SX3/SX4 where Cubase went through a serious reliability crisis. Part of it was that the ‘dongle’ phoned home literally every few seconds.
Adobe’s system works well… you can use it on several machines without ‘dongles’. And they do provide added value for their ‘cloud’ deal.
-However-, unlike Cubase, their prices are ‘professional’. They cost what they cost because they are in line with what people pay for what they need to make a living. People who make a living doing graphics don’t find their costs exorbitant at all. So comparing Creative Suite with Cubase (which is mainly sold to amateurs) is not apt. It would be fairer to say that Adobe Elements is like Cubase and Creative Suite is more like Nuendo.
And Adobe, being much larger, does a much better job of outreach. They have conferences and meetups and all manner of systems to show they are ‘listening’ to customers. Whether true or not, they make one -feel- like they are and that has smoothed many feathers. Frankly, when Adobe cloud came out I expected open revolt. Nope. --Most- (not all) guys seem to take it in stride.
SB ain’t ‘American’ like that. They’re like NI and RME, etc.
What kills me about Nuendo (while I’m ranting) is that you’d expect their customer service and fora and so on to be more ‘Lexus’ to Cubase’s ‘Toyota’. But it appears not. I never switched to Nuendo, not only because I don’t see the feature benefits, but also because for the extra dosh, I expected that one would be getting more personal attention, faster release cycles, better docs, etc. But one doesn’t. It’s simply a different feature set. IOW: you’re not treated ‘more special’. Maybe that’s good from one POV, but it’s -bad- from another POV. Adobe can ask higher fees because beyond the features, the perception really -is- more ‘pro’.
In short: the companies that have done well with ‘the cloud’ have succeeded by providing great customer service. That’s gonna be a challenge for SB… they make great products, but ‘service with a smile’ they are not.