[mirkules]

That is true, but that happens on my terms. And there are also drawbacks on being on the very latest of everything.

Examples include: becoming a de-facto beta tester for new features, having UI elements change non-intuitively at a critical moment, software becoming incompatible with older input, etc. You also have to choose between paying for the software or discontinuing its use permanently.

With an old version, I can just go use whatever VM or machine I need to convert files, modify them, perform last-minute changes on my paper that’s due in the morning or whatever.

I’ll also point out most of the subscription plans are annual, lump sum plans, otherwise your monthly is even higher. So you get the worst of both worlds: having to pay a de-facto lump sum (which renews automatically annually), and not having the right to use it once you cancel it.

[ghaff]

I actually get subscription fatigue (per the title of another post) and am pretty careful personally about adding another "money leak" as a friend of mine correctly calls them. I'm mostly just pushing back on the notion that, when it comes to software, there can generally be the same sort of perpetual ownership (or at least useful ownership) that one associates with, say, buying a physical book.