> But before you start waxing lyrical about the halcyon days of software you "own", you've either forgotten or never experienced the shady things software compn

> But before you start waxing lyrical about the halcyon days of software you "own", you've either forgotten or never experienced the shady things software compnaies did to maximize revenue then as well. I don't think software developers not giving me new features and support options for free after purchase was ever shady. Bugfixes maybe is a grey area. Neither of these things are anything close to the level the outright scam dark patterns subscriptions now utilize almost as standard. At the end of the day it is about leverage. With the old model the companies didn't have much leverage after the sale so there was only so many abuse angles available. With subscriptions there are tons because the customer has much less leverage.