Ownership vs subscription

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I was scrolling through my app list the other day and counted 5-6 of them that were paid for in full which have now been rescinded. In some cases the developers switched to a subscription model and the idea of paying $3-5 a month for a sodding ebook reader is laughable.

Similarly I was pondering a flight simulator on my phone for those idle moments. The most popular ones are subscription too and add up to over $100 a year for something that looks like I've drawn it.

Will we reach a stage where subscribing and leasing squishes the idea of ownership completely in many an area? Does that bother you or do you prefer the more ephemeral approach?

I wouldn't mind if it were definitively cheaper, and it can be for films and music. For software it seems vastly more expensive so my money will remain in my pocket and anyone who pulls the rug from something paid for gets a voodoo curse from me.

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It'll be interesting to see how far they're willing to push it. There's a point where you're repelling many more people than you're profiting from. The apps that pulled the rug from owners and attempted to force them to subscribe are snowed under with negative reviews.

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bigpriest said:

Is there an issue with offering both subscription and one-off payment to keep all your customers happy? Pushing someone down the subscription route and then losing them as as a customer doesn't seem productive.

That would be the sensible option but I've yet to see anyone do it.

Another one that did this is Flightradar24. They transitioned to a subscription model, said the old paid for app would continue to work and then squished it. Cue - https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.flightradar24...

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droopsnoot said:

I think part of the issue is that stuff like Microsoft Office has so many features that, for most people, there's no reason to upgrade past about Office 2003, other than things like newer versions of Windows refusing to run the older versions.
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Yes. I still use 2007 and have barely scratched the surface.

Most of my other main programs are old too. I'm not going to edit with Adobe creative suite when I have Sony Vegas that's fully paid for.

Perhaps they will start to get more aggressive about this but that's going to drive me to find kludges purely out of principle.