This is an unpopular take, but for certain kinds of programs, I actually prefer subscription software.
All software is a sandcastle build on top of a thousand other sandcastles. It takes active maintenance, especially if it's a professional-grade tool.
Subscriptions are the best way to ensure active, responsive product development. They align the developer's incentive (keep paying me) with your incentive (keep my tool working).
You wouldn't pay a contractor everything up front to renovate your bathroom. You'd pay as you go to ensure the work continues and is of good quality. Same thing with software.
Sometimes I think the optimal subscription model isn't to pay for additions to software but to maintenance for a stable environment/OS/API set. Like, I've long since failed to get excited about upgrades to macOS, but I might well pay Apple some yearly double digit number to keep snow leopard stable as long as I have hardware that runs back that far. That way, nobody's software rots out from under them, there's always the environment they first brought it to as long as there are enough people to pay the subscription.
You do get to keep the product at the end though. And then you’ll typically pay someone else again 20 years down the line to fix different problems, or do different things, etc. Much closer to the old Creative Suite model than CC is. (the latter is also just dreadful software that I dread installing to use Adobe products, which I feel a need to bring up every time I think of it because of how awful it is)
All software is a sandcastle build on top of a thousand other sandcastles. It takes active maintenance, especially if it's a professional-grade tool.
Subscriptions are the best way to ensure active, responsive product development. They align the developer's incentive (keep paying me) with your incentive (keep my tool working).
You wouldn't pay a contractor everything up front to renovate your bathroom. You'd pay as you go to ensure the work continues and is of good quality. Same thing with software.