[ad404b8a372f2b9]

I think that's a cynical view of the model. People are unwilling to pay a lump sum price that'd justify the development costs, many SAAS companies offer a lifetime license that matches the average life time value of a customer but people don't want that.

The long ramp of death for SAAS products is something like 12 to 18 months (if I remember right), without the subscription model I don't see customers paying enough money to sustain the time, energy and risk involved. We're talking thousands of customers paying 100$ licenses just to match a normal software salary and that's not counting the benefits of a normal job, the work-life balance, the stress, the risk factor and so on.

[nulld3v]

Why not have both pricing options?

[ad404b8a372f2b9]

Many companies do, it's generally advantageous from what I've read.

At the start you go for the slice of the market where (size of slice * price the slice will pay) is the maximum. So not the largest slice that will pay 1$ like in an app store, nor the smallest slice that will pay the luxury prices. And then once you've got that middle slice nailed down and product market fit you expend your pricing plans to account for price sensitive customers with lower prices and fewer features, and luxury customers with higher prices and more features.

Going off what I've read and a few talks I've seen, I'm not an expert.