Software companies should do the same thing material goods producers do: make the product smaller, faster, and cheaper. Instead they rent seek with half-assed updates and added bloat that 95% of users never need. Adobe is not alone in this.

If microchip producers had done what Adobe has done, computers would be developed by adding a few vacuum tubes each year and bumping the cost by 5%.

Be careful about looking as if they're abusing that dominant position. Back at the highwater of the "Wintel" dominance, early 2000s, Intel staff reportedly found Microsoft hair-raising, boasting openly of crushing the competition, choking off their air supply, undercutting then till they bled to death, etc. Intel had already had the antitrust stick brandished at it and had made sure the troops all understood the importance of the marketplace at least looking like a fair fight.

exist, innovate, maximise long-term value for shareholders and users, eliminate inefficiencies, externalise risk, internalise sources of value, monitor the business environment for new opportunities and threats

Issue dividends and return profits to their shareholders. They don't need to increase revenue by n% every year. Lots of electrical distribution companies are publicly traded and do just this.

Share price appreciation is like crack. I think a large part of the investment market is looking for the share price to increase or they aren't interested.

There are inexpensive stocks yielding close to 10% from dividends, but you are told not to expect an increase in share price. Instead, people go after stocks that yield far less (0-3% dividend with a much higher stock price) but which may experience a growth in share price.

That's because in many places capital gains are not taxed while dividends are, hence a preference for stock price increases. This distortion should be corrected somehow otherwise the economic incentives will continue to be to milk the cow dry at the expense of everything and everyone.