For software, the subscription model makes sense to me. It costs money to develop a working product, then it costs money to maintain it, and, in the case of cloud-hosted software, it costs money to serve it.
The subscription model benefits the consumer because it incentivizes use of the software. For example, suppose I want to learn web design. If I subscribe to Adobe Creative Cloud, I am now committed to use it because if I do not I am wasting money.
The subscription model benefits the consumer by reducing the up-front cost to use software. For example, Adobe Photoshop used to cost hundreds of dollars before use, and now it costs $20 (per month).
I suggest that we, as consumers, may need to reconcile with the cost of labor.
> The subscription model benefits the consumer because it incentivizes use of the software.
Is that really a benefit? I buy a hammer to meet my needs, not to incentivize myself to hammer things. Even in leisure I don't want to subscribe to my snowboard.
> I suggest that we, as consumers, may need to reconcile with the cost of labor.
Fair if there truly must be on going labor. But some things don't need to keep changing constantly. And if backward compatibility were taken more seriously then we wouldn't be wasting so much effort just keeping shit working.
The subscription model benefits the consumer because it incentivizes use of the software. For example, suppose I want to learn web design. If I subscribe to Adobe Creative Cloud, I am now committed to use it because if I do not I am wasting money.
The subscription model benefits the consumer by reducing the up-front cost to use software. For example, Adobe Photoshop used to cost hundreds of dollars before use, and now it costs $20 (per month).
I suggest that we, as consumers, may need to reconcile with the cost of labor.