The rentier class doesn't want to lose the ability to extract rents from users in perpetuity, so they - shareholders and investors in the tech sector - are not going to support a model where the user has complete control of their hardware and software once an initial purchase is made.

It's gotten pretty ridiculous - let's say you buy a hammer. But to keep using the hammer, you have to pay a monthly subscription or the hammer stops working. And this is considered normal? Of course there are some tools that are so complex that you don't want to have to buy them and maintain them, so renting makes much more sense - but if your whole world is structured that way, you're just being bled.