I have no problem paying for recurring usage costs. For example I have a paid vps and paid email. But in my mind I'm paying precisely for the compute, storage,

I have no problem paying for recurring usage costs. For example I have a paid vps and paid email. But in my mind I'm paying precisely for the compute, storage, and network infrastructure behind them, not paying, e.g. to run linux. And I'm happy to pay for someone else to manage that infrastructure because the setup is nontrivial, I dont need to own the infra, etc. Contrast this with Office 365, or even more niche pay per use or per month products, that are not better in any way that matters to me because they are hosted elsewhere. With these products I feel like someone wants me to pay a recurring fee just to run their code. Some of it is psychological, but I feel like I'm getting ripped off, that someone is trying to find a way to get me to keep paying for something (which they are). Spotify and Netflix have found a good balance of offering a subscription, but providing such a large catalog that the value vs. actually owning all the content is clear. Most SaaS feels more like having to pay monthly just to own a single DVD. But TLDR for me is I dont want to pay recurringly for the privilege of executing your code, I will pay recurringly for needed* infra, support, etc that goes along with it. *not just tacked on to make it SaaS or to deploy it as SaaS