What is the basis for the assumption that the subscription is high-ish in comparison? In an ideal market, you would expect the discounted subscription to match

What is the basis for the assumption that the subscription is high-ish in comparison? In an ideal market, you would expect the discounted subscription to match the upfront payment, which would mean that the "high value" is simply the price that they have to pay to get those future subscription payments (or that they could sell those future subscription payments for on some sort of "customer subcriptions market" if there were one). Once they've bought them, they also have the risk of rising interest rates wiping out the value of that investment. (And also, this doesn't really apply all that well in this case anyway, because your typical software license subscription is not a perpetuity, the span of time that people will want to pay for using the software as it is now is rather limited, and they can pretty much stop paying at any point, while you'd supposedly have spent the loan from your bank on your programmers, and your bank will still want to get their interest payments.)