Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

it's been a while since Adobe moved from standalone projects to what they call "content supply chain" they have no interest in competing at individual product level. if you only need photoshop, there are tons of better alternatives. they only become irreplaceable if you are in the enterprise level and need things like collaboration, project management, cloud storage, auditing, governance, etc (ie. creative cloud + workfront + their AEM DAM offering).

I do consulting in Adobe products and every year their products are shittier but they still are indispensible due to inertia and integrated ecosystem

I mostly agree. The only Adobe product I miss is After Effects. I haven't found anything that scratches that itch.

I use Blender (and others), but it's not ideal for 2.5D effects.

Usually because the thing I'm editing was originally made with them...

I don’t know. With the exception of a single feature, I’ve found photoshop better to use than GIMP. The one feature exception is GIMP’s wonderful “color to alpha” feature, and I always keep a gimp install around just for it.

Photoshop just seems easier to use, and more robust? With nicer effects, better filters, etc etc? At least for the features I tend to use. I’m not a professional by any means, but I tweak and composite and blend images a fair bit for my various hobbies (mostly ttrpgs).