It could, but I'm not that optimistic about it, if Adobe is anything to go by. When Adobe announced their CC only offering, there were plenty of mad people on their forums and elsewhere, who were skeptical that paying forever just to use a software tool was a good idea (and because of things like price hikes, and no incentive to offer useful features because they're going to get paid anyways). Some of those fears were not completely unfounded, but in the end, the skeptical people didn't exactly make that much of a dent in Adobe's pockets--sure they're probably still not using Photoshop, and I don't doubt a few of them managed to find other programs like Krita, except that Krita has more specialization than Photoshop, so that leaves a few other PS users looking for something else (eg, if you're not using PS for digital painting). The other problem is that this generally only affects freelancers and hobbyists--companies who have more money and need to rely on something dependable rather than affordable won't see the point in using free software, especially if they think it's anything at all like GIMP (and some hobbyists don't even bother to give other free software tools a chance because they think it will be like GIMP as well). And people looking to get hired by these companies won't be putting free software tools on their resume either.Don't get me wrong; I'd love it if people woke up and realized the implications of renting software tools rather than having the choice to own your tools forever or choose when or if you want to upgrade them, but there's just too many people and groups at this point who think they either don't need the switch or don't consider the free software alternatives to be adequate for their needs, and won't even try it. We do still need to convince them that it's worth it; not rely on the fact that some other big software company has decided to do a rental only model. It can help start people looking elsewhere, but it's not going to have as large an impact as it sounds like it could.
