Its hard for me to imagine ever selling an app for a lump sum single payment. Software development is an iterative process and there needs to be a payment system reflecting that.
It's doable, though it has much to anti-recommend it from the developer's perspective. (I've sold 10k copies of my first software product. Guaranteed revenue for November as of November 1st: zero.)
But for the runaway success of the iPhone App Store model software-sold-like-shirts would probably be in even wider retreat than it already is. (The competitive models include "$X upfront plus 20% yearly for maintenance", "$X upfront plus an upgrade cycle which strongly encourages you buy a new version for 50% of X every 18 ~ 24 months", and, of course, SaaS. The popularization of the SaaS billing model is one of the biggest things that happened for software in decades, because it lets you sell $4,000 software to someone with $200 of willingness/capability to spend.)
Really? Because that's how pretty much all software was sold for many years. Recurring revenue meant improving the software enough that users decided to pay for an upgrade.
When the path to profitability is to improve the software so users choose to upgrade, the interests of the users and the developers are aligned; better software is good for everyone.
With subscriptions, users keep paying whether the company improves the software or not - so the less the company spends on development, the more is left over to take as profit.
As a developer, I think the traditional sale option sounds much healthier for the industry, and hence much better for me.
Edit: I interpreted the comment I was responding to as lump sum vs ongoing subscription, rather than paid vs free upgrades. In that light, perhaps the parent poster and I actually agree!
This was also set in stone before everyone had a internet connection capable of downloading regular and possibly large software updates. The convenience and feasibility of smaller/incremental updates (rather than yearly large version updates) has completely changed the distribution possibilities, and with that one has to expect changes to the way such software is bought/sold/rented.
This is very true - I wonder if the majority of Windows "enterprise" software is embracing this or whether they are still waiting for purchase orders before shipping out CDs?
Well, one of the complaints of the article was that the app store does not support paid upgrades, so by "a lump sum single payment" grandparent probably meant that the lump sum would entitle the user to all future upgrades, which is not how the traditional model worked.
There is a payment system reflecting that. This year you release version 1 or the 2014 version. Next year you release version 2 or the 2015 version with new features for an additional cost. That's how it always works.
But for the runaway success of the iPhone App Store model software-sold-like-shirts would probably be in even wider retreat than it already is. (The competitive models include "$X upfront plus 20% yearly for maintenance", "$X upfront plus an upgrade cycle which strongly encourages you buy a new version for 50% of X every 18 ~ 24 months", and, of course, SaaS. The popularization of the SaaS billing model is one of the biggest things that happened for software in decades, because it lets you sell $4,000 software to someone with $200 of willingness/capability to spend.)