[TomAnthony]

Offtopic: I despair that a calendar widget for my Mac is now a pay monthly thing. It is becoming widespread that things that were previously just a piece of software you could buy (then optionally upgrade in the future) are now a monthly cost.

It makes sense for high ticket pieces of software (Office, Photoshop), where it makes it more accessible for regular users. However, for a calendar widget or many similar examples that come up nowadays, it just turns me off immediately.

[dormento]

This is not offtopic at all. Remember when a certain company wanted to make us pay monthly for... _squeezing fruit juice packs_ ? The startup/invest world follows some weird-ass rules, to be honest.

[hntrader]

It also makes sense when the software has high recurring marginal costs per user (so, not calendar software), such as with high ongoing data egress costs (Dropbox, Netflix, YouTube). The model there needs to be subscription or advertising.

[tschellenbach]

Engineering salaries have increased quite a bit. Pay once doesn't seem very sustainable, unless the volume is extremely high.