One thing that subscriptions have going for them is that they're a relatively fair way to charge for products that have continuous operating and development costs.

With one-off payments there's the obvious issue that you're either overcharging in case the startup (which the article talks about specifically) fails or you're severely undercharging which I think is more common if anything.

Just a few days ago I noticed I still have a lifetime membership for a podcast app that I once bought for almost nothing and they still ship features. While lucky for me personally not necessarily great for either the devs or other users who joined later after they switched to subscriptions.