[Padraig]

Sounds great but I am never going to pay a subscription for my IDE, or my FTP program or my Twitter client. Relationships require trust and effort from both parties and it's simply not a perfect model for every piece of software.

I don't want a relationship with a company. For most apps I want to buy and own a thing as it is now.

This "old and broken" model persists because it's something that customers get instantly and can commit to knowing in advance what their full investment will be.

[skybrian]

With Android apps (and iPhone I presume), it seems that you pay once and automatically get any available updates. I'd guess that would work reasonably well for small utilities, so long as they continue to get new customers.

[tomkarlo]

That hasn't always held true for some of the major iPhone apps, at least - when there's a major version release, they sometimes require a new purchase.

Also, iPhone and Android apps have the potential for ongoing in-app purchases by users. So you buy the GPS app once for a very low price (or free) but you have to keep buying the data updates if you're using it. Or new levels for Angry Birds.