[pierrebai]

The problem with this thinking is that you are creating dissatisfaction for 25 cents.

Let's say, you sell your software as a single-version perpetual license. You sell it for 150$. A typical user uses it 8 hours a month. After a year, that's 96 hours. So they spend less than 2$ per hour (I'm rounding in the seller's favor.) So using it for 5 minutes, 1/12h, is less than 25 cents. (Again rounding up in the seller's favor.)

Is this about not giving away 25 cents?

This is where SaaS wins over, but even there, the overhead, both for sellers and users, of managing payment for people who want to do one-shot work is never going to be worth it.

[meiraleal]

This scenario is akin to wanting an insurance payout for a stolen car after paying just the last month’s premium