DOGE's Misplaced War on Software Licenses

Unfortunately that's not the way bulk licenses has ever worked. For Government or enterprise. What you just described is no different than buying individual licenses.

The reason it's not "pissing money down the drain" is a few reasons:

- Managing licenses is not a free thing. The time it takes to actually go and purchase / negotiate / maintain those licenses can become significant if you are doing it many times per year.

- Vendors negotiate discounts for bulk purchases of licenses and the whole reason they do that is because it is guaranteed payment. If you stop guaranteeing the payment (by only paying for what you actually use) there is no incentive for the vendor to provide discounts. They will just charge you retail price.

Likely, though I don't know the specific in this case, you are seeing 2x to 3x extra licensing because someone actually did the math and found it was cheaper than constantly renegotiating deals and/or paying retail (and the associated bookeeping that goes with that).

That goes double in a situation like Government where you need to get purchase orders, approval, etc. Buying bulk significantly reduces the cost even without the discount just in hours managing the approval process.