[nhtsamera]

"Subscribe vs buy" feels like deciding between "rent vs own".

Sure, if I can snag a rent-controlled apartment for well under market price, that would be a good deal. And yes, if I buy a poorly-designed money pit to live in, that could be a bad deal.

But in almost all cases, I would prefer to own the place where I live. The biggest reason to rent is, "I cannot afford to buy", which seems like a reasonable way to restate your framing of subscriptions as a pricing-vs-value proposition.

So, would it be reasonable to conclude that allowing people to buy software like Photoshop or MS Word (or removing add-on subscriptions from paid products) would result in most people being priced out of the market? Could the recent rise in subscription models be seen as a form of software shrinkflation?