[gwbas1c]

Let's go back to wax cylinders, horses & buggies, and the old crank phone while we're at it!

Jokes aside: What kind of new features and tangible improvements are coming?

I get that "owning" a piece of software can have tangible value; but it depends on the purpose of the software and how it's used. I don't see a sudden revolution where all companies decide they want to run their own email servers and and host their own copies of Office 365. Instead, there needs to be use cases where the old-style purchase model and host-it-yourself model makes sense.

And these use cases are...?

[markstos]

You do GIS projects infrequently as a hobby. Simple stuff. You want own some GIS software. Subscription is burdensome due to infrequent use and you don’t care about next year’s features.

[tomaskafka]

Take a look at Slopes app's season pass. Use it 15 days per year? Buy a pass. Need it everyday? A subscription will be much cheaper per day of use.

[TimTheTinker]

Maybe just download QGIS?

[grvdrm]

Another way: just write some R, Python, etc. - plenty of GIS there too.

[gremlinsinc]

the only good ones I can think of are ai related to own the data, and privacy, but the compute and tech needed, you'd be better to just have the whole system in a black box like old school cable tv receivers, with a rack of a100s, software that can receive firmware updates etc, but probably isn't that extendable.