If you’re some dude who edits photos for his kids or makes bday cards for their family, there’s literally a dozen or more free image editors that work just fine.

If you’re in the industry, then you’ll quickly see no client will accept or work with an affinity file. Or a gimp file. Or a photomater file.

Adobe is the de facto standard and their monopoly is only getting worse. It also doesn’t help that schools are basically shills for Adobe. So every kid comes out knowing Illustrator and Photoshop and nothing else.

Adobe’s monopoly extends far beyond “software.”