Add to that photo editing (as much as GIMP is great...). I would guess DAW and video editing would fall under that category, too...and good luck finding many AAA open source games.
Well, sometimes it happens. Lemmy was semi-broken during the APIocalypse, and there still isn't such a thing as a FOSS Facebook, or search engine backend for that matter.
Adobe products often have no real equal. It sucks, but it's the way it is. Gimp doesn't come close to Photoshop, Inkscape is almost as good as Adobe Illustrator, and After Effects is the most capable video editing software I've ever used.
It sucks that they try and lock you into proprietary file formats, like Substance Painter.
Yeah, the only software that can stand toe to toe with Adobe is Affinity, and they're winning at the no subscription pricing. Other than that Adobe is really no equal when it comes to FOSS, a lot of those alternative is just us tolerating the flaw. Used to do stuff with photoshop, illustrator, flash, and after effect, switching to foss is...rough. Like you said, Gimp is barely usable, inkscape is good but far behind illustrator, and i don't think flash and after effect have any foss alternative when i looking for it. The only free alternative to after effect that is good is davinci resolve, but that's still proprietary.
I'm already way passed my time of using image editing software, but i've also heard people say the same for 2.0, but in my experience i still have to tolerate a lot of UX shit. And crash. But cool nonetheless, i'll check it out. Professional still should just get Affinity rather than struggle with a release candidate.
2.0 was released 20 years ago in 2004… a lot of things, including software, can change in 20 years. 3.0 finally has adjustment layers, et al. that they have been working on since I first started following in 2008 but had blockers on GEGL & all sorts of massive refactors… which are now finally coming. If there was a time to try to get a new opinion on GIMP, it will be now (or very soon when 3.0 is finally officially released).
I heard of Gimp 2 and tried it around 2013/14, the version of that time is what my opinion is based on. Granted it's been 10 years or so i first tried it and i need it as i have no access to adobe software anymore. Right now i've no used of image editing software, but i guess it's my only option if i need it.