And when that happens (and if buyers ever get fed up), the pendulum will swing back as it will be a competitive advantage to offer one-time pricing and someone will exploit that edge. But that supposes buyers will care enough.
> And when that happens (and if buyers ever get fed up), the pendulum will swing back as it will be a competitive advantage to offer one-time pricing and someone will exploit that edge.
Why would they? If it's more profitable for a company to charge their users forever, have tighter control over their product and how it's used, and have the option to collect massive amounts of personal data nobody is going to give all that up for a somewhat larger percentage of interested users.
There are all kinds of products consumers want and would pay good money for that nobody has any interest in providing because they can get much richer by not giving consumers those things.
I'd be perfectly happy to take my millions and run (or so I say now at least) but very few would rather take 100 million in sales today but not another dime vs 100 million+ every year
This is misleading about SaaS advantages. Most SaaS don't sell data, their main advantage is making money monthly by providing a service, not selling data.
I've yet to see a SaaS product that doesn't "share" personal data with 3rd parties. They may not be mainly about collecting and selling/exploiting personal data, but every one I've seen does it.
Services doesn't necessarily mean internet based. If I run a local coffee shop, I can sell one bag of coffee or a subscription to monthly coffee, just pay upfront and come in to the store to pick it up.