It was probably just the advent of new technology that allowed them to rent instead of sell their product, and they can do it at different prices to different customers (price discrimination).
A perpetual license is not meaningfully distinct from ownership in the context of software - you don't "own" open source software either, just license it for the low, low cost of free.
Your house/car get re-possessed if you stop making their loan payments since they are listed as collateral for the loan, that's different then you not owning them in the first place.
I don't need my builder's permission to add a sofa, paint the walls, or change the locks. But god help you if Adobe finds out that you've changed the DRM locks on the version of Photoshop that you "own".
> you don't "own" open source software either, just license it for the low, low cost of free.
Depends on the license, ones like Unlicense or 0BSD try to opt out of the default copyrighted licensed state of released code.