[gurkendoktor]

Can't we just hop over to a subscription model altogether, now that we pretty much have the infrastructure?

It would lower up-front costs. I bet piracy would go down too. It would give developers an incentive to keep even small apps bug-free. It would make more sense for apps like Instapaper where the server needs to keep running. Everyone would get exactly what they pay for, and nobody would have to keep using an older version for artificial (financial) reasons.

The only downside I can see is that people cannot decide to stick with an older version because they actually like it better. But that's something that Apple customers are probably used to (e.g. surprise 10.6 users, no OTA contacts & calender sync for you anymore!). And for Apple, it may decrease vendor lock-in because people have no sunk costs anymore.