[vineyardmike]

That's basically a variant of a subscription, but one where the end user churns aggressively.

It's worse in many ways too - it's a lot harder to gauge interest as the developer to understand how well any update will sell, and if the updates "stack", then a user only pays for the newest update to get all older features free. It's also worse from a cashflow perspective for the developer (but better for consumer) since they have to pre-build the update before any chance of getting paid for it.

[jpfromlondon]

I'd be surprised if the churn was as high as the subscription model.

If I buy a product and like it as-is then I don't necessarily want it to change over time.

Buy once is better, buy once with optional updates or periodic version releases is better still.

[abcd_f]

The principal difference is that things keep working if I stop paying. All other aspects are secondary.

And generally speaking there is a lot of options that are excellent for developers but complete shit for the users. That's obvious, but it's also off the point in the context of fairness.