I think about this a lot as well, but I always come back to the idea that many companies raise venture capital and they need consistent revenue to be able to raise future rounds. They get that predictability with the subscription model and in exchange they provide a product that gets consistent updates and new features. I agree with your sentiment though — as a consumer, I don’t love how I don’t have much control over the products I use. I might subscribe for a certain set of features, but those might be removed or changed down the road as the company’s needs change. But ultimately people have come to expect that their products just work indefinitely and it takes a ton of resources to make that happen, hence the subscription. Do you have any other ideas for models that enable a company to continue making money after the initial purchase? I don’t think I’d be opposed to a model where we pay for each time the product delivers value. Some examples that come to mind are paying per news article or paying a small fee each time I save a design in Figma, etc. But I think that gets super complicated to explain to customers and it makes it hard to justify charging enough to not only support that specific feature while also earning enough to invest in future product features and improvements.