And then you have those magical psychological effects at different price points. I remember when almost every piece of "shareware" was $20+ and most full "progr

And then you have those magical psychological effects at different price points. I remember when almost every piece of "shareware" was $20+ and most full "programs" were $100+. Now people balk at apps over $0.99 and even opt to have a ton of their personal information sent off to a stranger to avoid that price. The tone of the engagement matters, too, because it works on psychological levels most people aren't aware of. It's essentially brainwashing. To me, "Buying" means assessing and confirming value, "Upgrading" means reassessing the value and how relevant the new features are to me, and "Renewing a subscription" means to keep the status quo and automatically remain up to date. Upgrade notifications feel like nagging, while subscription renewal notices are almost alarming. Nag all you want because I can just use what I have now. Yay! I upgraded and now all the icons are in different spots. Maybe they added something interesting. I hope it still reads my old files. End the subscription and who knows what happens. Yay! I renewed my subscription and now all my most precious files are no longer in danger of being wiped from existence. Subscribing sure saved my butt. I'm so glad I did! Overall, though, I think the subscription model exists to take advantage of inattentive customers, which makes up the bulk of any user base. A person forgetting to cancel their subscription is as good as a new subscriber and there are all sorts of situations where that can happen to anyone. Hell, those are probably the same customers that didn't notice when a new version was released, so the company even makes up for missed upgrades. I have no real data to back that up, but it fits with a lot of personal observations.