> This has all but confirmed a belief that I have long suspected: > subscription is the only way to survive as a software company. No, no, no -- not at all.

> This has all but confirmed a belief that I have long suspected: > subscription is the only way to survive as a software company. No, no, no -- not at all. The subscription model may be the best way to thrive for certain kinds of software companies, at certain price points. But that doesn't make it a unilateral principle. For software with one-time or fleeting value (e.g. games), a classic perpetual license (pay up front) is often the best. For software with real upgrade value in releases (I'm NOT looking at you, Quicken), a perpetual + upgrade charge model may be the best fit. (Which is kind of like a subscription, but users pay when there's real value, not just elapsed time). And there's the evolving new world of in-app purchases, add-ons and hybrids: for example, you might sell an app up front, but then charge monthly/yearly for a related cloud-based service that has ongoing value (such as backups).