I guess we have different experiences because we choose different things. I use a commercial OS that includes a notes app, a syncing password manager, and the

I guess we have different experiences because we choose different things. I use a commercial OS that includes a notes app, a syncing password manager, and the vendor provides a pretty good (IMO) “office” suite for free. That software is essentially “paid for” by the cost of hardware. My IDE is a subscription if I want to update to a newer version - but the version I have works perfectly fine “forever” if I don’t want to keep paying for it. Given how much money I make with this tool, it’s not much once a year to pay for updates. I have a few other less critical dev tools that use a “pay per version” approach, which I haven’t necessarily got the latest version of. Subscription software is relatively common now, yes. But I’ve not seen too many examples where there is no alternative at all: either a different pricing model for the same tool or an alternative tool with a different pricing model.