Depends on the company. Complete startup with zero history suggesting they're still around? Or a company that's been at it for 30 years, happily paying their e

Depends on the company. Complete startup with zero history suggesting they're still around? Or a company that's been at it for 30 years, happily paying their employees to have a life, and no interest in IPO or selling? Because the former: that's buy once, never upgrade, because it's gone. The latter? Buy once, enjoy forever, maybe upgrade once there's a feature that actually makes a difference to you personally 5 years from now. If you ever need to pay for that update at all rather than just getting lifetime free update (VueScan, FL Studio, etc)