Yes, I was a long-term photoshop user as well. I purchased the very first version that was ported to Windows. It was version 2.5 which was release in November of 1992. Mine came bundled with a package called Kai’s Power Tools that was designed to work with it. I eagerly upgraded to version 3 which came to Windows two years later. Back then Photoshop came up with a new version approximately every 2 years.
The upgrades were pretty expensive even back then. I eventually started buying them only when there were features that looked like they would be very helpful. I stopped sending them money when they switched to the subscription model.
I own several photoshop alternatives, but there are some tasks that I just do not know how to accomplish with them, and they are just not as capable. So, I still find myself turning to photoshop instead of learning the ins and outs of these newer packages.
Yep, I have a couple alternatives too- but I have so many custom actions in photoshop that I can’t do without it. Actions I made myself,over the years- lots and lots of work making them, refining etc. It just wasn’t acceptable t9 me that I could lose it all because they got greedy and were trying to force people into monthly subscriptions. I was almost resigned to the fact that I would,need another app like,affinity, but finally ran across the “fix” for not,being able to deactivate on old,machine thankfully