[virgilp]

SaaS was mainstream but e.g. Creative Cloud was not really SaaS - it was "we give you desktop products and you pay an yearly fee instead of the one-time cost". Adobe tried very hard to add Saas features but especially initially, the appeal was purely in the payment model (and I know a lot of individuals didn't like it! But a lot of companies did).

Arguably, Netflix started this trend even earlier - with their exclusively-subscription model for renting DVDs (something that one used to at least be able to pay-per-rental).