Hacker News Reader

Couldn't that go both ways though? Why would I want to sign up for "yet another subscription" when they can just go belly up and render my investment worthless (vs an alternative with a one-time payment)?

If it had been a "buy the whole package outright, no cloud nonsense" service then having the company go belly up wouldn't render your purchase useless.

Having a subscription means it can disappear on you at any point.

But this subscription business died so doesn't it demonstrate the opposite of what you're saying?

In the good old days, businesses thrived perfectly well off of one-time purchases of products.