At least in the case of subscriptions I looked at:

1) It's a continually updated file, so if you didn't subscribe you wouldn't get new data weekly/monthly. Likely the subscription aligns with the data refreshes for most products.

2) It's a one-time fee with a hefty cost attached (I saw some healthcare data sets that were $100K+). You are paying for that in its entirely and just have data rights to it.