Affinity photo isn't dead, they released the suite for free, but did unfortunately inject AI into it, which thankfully you can ignore if you don't pay for it.
However, as with all proprietary products owned by investment corporations, it's currently at the 'capture the market' phase, after which it will enshittify, putting us in the same situation we are with adobe now. The only long-term solution is to adopt and donate to open-source alternatives, like Krita, Scribus, Inkscape, and Kdenlive.