They lock you in to continuing to pay even when you no longer derive value.
Say you stopped using Photoshop years ago but suddenly need to export one of your old documents. You’re now forced to pay rent to Adobe for at least one month to access one of your own files. And Adobe won’t make it easy to unsubscribe again, which adds to the hassle.
> The pay per update model forces the creator to release big feature updates, even if the features are just bloat, as bug fix releases and stability work will usually sell much worse. That's mostly fixed by the subscription model.
Perpetual fallback licenses[1] solve that issue without forcing users to keep paying rent.
> But eventually, if they want to continue doing the task they'll end up paying for a new version.
Freehand[1] has been discontinued for almost two decades, and ten years ago I was still able to use it to great effect. Heck, if I wanted to use it today I probably could, thanks to Wine[2].
> however it's still got a lifespan that eventually requires the next payment.
Unless you wait so long that a competitor arises or you stop having the need. I never paid for Adobe Creative Cloud and Affinity[3] came along without subscriptions. One could also conceivably do without Microsoft Office updates so long that Open Office catches up to the needed features and surpasses it.
Note I do tend to pay for new versions of software I use. But I have no quarrel with stopping if they no longer provide adequate value, like 1Password moving to subscription pricing to collect rent on a done product yet somehow still managing to make it inferior (Electron).
I continue to disagree with the premise that “one-time purchases are a lie we tell ourselves”. If that were the case companies would have continued as they were. They move to subscriptions precisely because it removes the customer’s choice to upgrade—you either keep paying or can’t even access your past files. And they can jack up the price or remove features at any time (see LastPass).
Though I can get behind the hybrid model of Perpetual Fallback Licenses[4].
They lock you in to continuing to pay even when you no longer derive value.
Say you stopped using Photoshop years ago but suddenly need to export one of your old documents. You’re now forced to pay rent to Adobe for at least one month to access one of your own files. And Adobe won’t make it easy to unsubscribe again, which adds to the hassle.
> The pay per update model forces the creator to release big feature updates, even if the features are just bloat, as bug fix releases and stability work will usually sell much worse. That's mostly fixed by the subscription model.
Perpetual fallback licenses[1] solve that issue without forcing users to keep paying rent.
[1]: https://github.com/vitorgalvao/perpetual-fallback-licenses