Not disagreeing with you here, but buying full licenses adds up too. And you will likely have to buy "upgrade" licenses when new versions are released.

That being said, I do like the license model that JetBrains uses for their products: if you pay for the subscription for more than 12mo, when you stop, you get to keep a perpetual license for the latest version that was released during the last 12 months of paid subscription (I hope I got it right).