I don't think this is correct. Two points against it: 1) Upgrades aren't all that valuable in lots of cases. Why should software require constant upgrades to

I don't think this is correct. Two points against it: 1) Upgrades aren't all that valuable in lots of cases. Why should software require constant upgrades to work right? Lots of rarely upgraded software works just fine. The easy example here is Sublime Text. One of the best text editors, bar none. It had how many years between major upgrades? And old versions work just fine. Maybe for security sensitive software constant upgrades are important, because there are adversarial actors trying to break it. But that doesn't apply to things like Photoshop. 2) My best guess is that the real reason for companies moving to the subscription model is effectively as a form of seller-provided financing. Remember how much Photoshop used to cost when you could buy it? After googling around, I see prices in the $700-800 range. Now it's like 20 bucks a month, so Adobe makes the same amount after a few years of a subscription, but in addition probably gets a lot more casual users who don't quite realize that the monthly payment still adds up over the end. (Edit) Also, one other point on the whole notion of software companies going out of business because people didn't buy the next version. Isn't that just the same thing as planned obsolescence in the non-software world? Don't we get mad when non-software companies insist on forcing people to re-buy their products over and over again in order to make money? Also, how do non-software companies manage to pull it off? Honda cars last a famously long time, yet we don't see people shedding tears for them because once you buy a Civic you don't have to buy the "upgrade" in a year.