I was like, 19 or so when boxed software ended, around 2013, but before then I don't remember any paid software that didn't come from a physical store on optica

I was like, 19 or so when boxed software ended, around 2013, but before then I don't remember any paid software that didn't come from a physical store on optical media. I have not actually bought any software besides a few games and an android app or two, in about a decade. I've paid for SASS, Tile, Netflix, a cheap VPS, and used lots of YouAreTheProductWare, and made a few donations, but FOSS seems to be better than commercial software you can actually buy, all the cool stuff in proprietary seems to be cloud based.