Photoshop is subscription too now right? So they’re just wanting a cut. It’s almost a funny way to indirectly protest the move to subscription everything.
Since only a fraction of Photoshop users need Pantone, they now need to pay a lot more.
All the dev team talent left or was outsourced and the only changes that seem to be able to ship consistently is web view based welcome screens.
A cut that is actually larger than the price of Photoshop, which is $10 / month.
I understand the outcry but TBH I think it’s a bit exaggerated. That being said I‘m also not sure whether it’s really worth it for Pantone to charge for their digital stuff. I can’t imagine it being a huge part of their revenue.
Pantone has nothing to do with software.
The "software" here is a mapping of color names to hex. It's literally a text file.
Or, for a digital analogy, think of the good old discussion of the cost of distributing an mp3 vs the cost of creating the music (esp. back in the iTunes days when the mp3 cost $0.99).
In this case, Pantone prices the verified digital access to their colours. Almost nobody needs that, UNLESS you deal with Pantone colours in the physical world - and there they have real value.
I'm personally questioning the decision of making designers pay for the digital colours as well; I think it hurts adoption in the long run. But I also think the outcry is over the top: if you design products that require standardised colours in the manufacturing process, the cost of that tiny subscription is completely negligible. Also, because it's negligible, I can't imagine it being a huge part of Pantone's revenue, so this move might have done them more harm than good, but well...
Either way, it seems to me that there's tons of people complaining about this price, but pretty much no-one ever really worked with Pantone colours. That's why I think the internet is overreacting.