I think the tricky part is how many applications these days are relatively “dumb” clients that rely on a back-end server at least for data storage and potential

I think the tricky part is how many applications these days are relatively “dumb” clients that rely on a back-end server at least for data storage and potentially even for compute. You can’t really offer something like that as a one-time purchase because the backend requires continuous operation and maintenance for the software to work. These days a lot of consumers don’t want to deal with file management or having to think about their data, so it’s increasingly the case that “the app magically works via the cloud” is table stakes. I agree, though, I don’t like it and I buy less software as a result. This especially frustrates me with things like the Adobe creative suite and Creative tools in that category. I used to keep a fairly robust collection of image editors, sound editors, etc. but so many of those things have gone subscription that I just don’t bother anymore.