Hi All,
I’m predominately a print designer/Art Director.
Old school – started in the business when everything was done on a drawing board with Bull gum and Letraset! Worked in the Ad Industry in NZ and AUS for most of my career – the last 15 years I’ve been freelance.
I’ve used Quark, Photoshop, Freehand, Illustrator, InDesign and Acrobat since 1996.
I made the decision to stick with CS6 for many of the reasons Matt Mayerchak has mentioned but I recently had an experience which has made me quite concerned for the future.
Everyone I know in the Graphics business is struggling to make a living. There are too many suppliers chasing a smaller pool of work due to the rise of digital publication. And with access to cheap suppliers around the world pressure on fees is considerable. As a result, creative work has been devalued. Clients appreciate good work but they look to the bottom line and will usually opt for the lowest price – regardless of their wealth it seems. For the small operator every dollar counts. Every change in software is usually accompanied by extra hardware costs. I need my tools to be reliable and equal to the task – and no more.
So here is my problem with CC.
I have always appreciated the graphics software which has revolutionised print production. However, I’ve always regarded the software as a ‘tool’ to help me produce my ideas. It is my talent which creates the work which is ultimately owned by the client who pays me.
CC allows me to access the work I have created as long as I pay the subscription.
If I stop paying I have no way of opening those files again – Ever!
The file type presumably cannot be edited by any other software – in most cases.
So in effect Adobe owns the access to my work!

This really hit home when I recently (and foolishly) allowed my system to upgrade to Win 10.
After checking that all CS6 software was compatible. Everything worked well for about six weeks.
Then one morning InDesign would not open – a Win 10 problem it seems.
I tried everything to fix the problem. I paid my IT guy several hundred dollars – to no avail. In the end we wiped the drive, reinstalled Win 7, CS6 etc and 4 days later I could access my files again. During this time I had to fend off clients who were looking for updates, corrections etc. – it was very stressful and made me realise how vulnerable I would be with the CC scenario.

I’m not arguing against the value of the subscription (access to all those programs and extra features is great) but I don’t need them to do most of my work. InDesign is my main program, PS and AI are used less frequently and I would use a fraction of their potential – but I note the pricing to access them individually is similar to the all in price.
With CS6 I can open and edit files which I created several years ago. I can edit them to my client’s specs and output for production. With CC this will not be possible if, sometime in the future, I stop paying the subscription.
As Adobe have managed to gain a monopoly over most creative industries I will have no choice – and all this from the land of the FREE!
So it makes sense to stay with CS6.

My concern for the future is – how much longer will CS6 be compatible with evolving operating systems as it is no longer supported. When Win 10 supplants Win 7 I will have to move to Adobe CC
I assume this is the same for Mac users.

Hopefully we will have some competition in the industry before that occurs.

Although, by then, print will probably be dead and I will be fishing!