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There's an implicit conflation between SaaS-only, desktop-only, and hybrid apps. Although sometimes subscription-only or one-time costs appears to the user to be a Hobson's choice, the alternatives are not purchasing, pirating, and using alternatives. Unfortunately, security updates, feature additions, and hosting servers and storage cost money. This is either baked into a perpetual license, an S&S contract, or into the subscription model. The problem that needs to be solved cannot be solved by a regression in pricing models: the issue is the intent of publishers to act as rent-seeking, extreme profiteering by continually raising prices, pricing hobbyists and individuals out of the market because they only want to sell to large corporations who view high price as a signal of quality. Oracle, Microsoft, and Redhat are the best examples of these. OTOH, there are apps like Plex and Obsidian, and low-cost buffet app marketplace subscriptions like SetApp. For example, I refuse to subscribe to EA Play/Pro because it is heavily-marketed, expensive, lacks ownership, and selectively retains titles out-of-reach from outright purchase (perpetual licensing). |