Software used to all be lifetime purchases by providing you with the actual program. If you bought a copy of WordPerfect in the 90s it will still work fine today even though no one is offering it anymore.
I have various perpetual CAD licenses going back to the 90's.
Same for some development tools, some, or maybe just one dating back to the 80's. (MAC/65)
MSDOS
All versions of Windows I have used and or purchased.
Microsoft Office
Libre Office
SGI IRIX
And I could go on for a long time. Point is a whole lot of software runs on some sort of perpetual license. Any why not? It all does what it was written to do.
Until very recently, with the rise of software in our browsers, one could expect most software to operate this way.
When new versions are needed, AND if needed, payment for that work is obvious and entirely reasonable. And with some software navigating what happens if new is needed becomes huge pressure to get people to upgrade. And that is sometimes unpleasant.
CAD is one of those for sure.
Subscription software, in many cases --and I am speaking generally here, can be easy to subscribe to.
All good right?
Well, I tend to keep software that2, Supports my skills.
Doing that would be huge payments!
As a buyer,I expect to see software coat / licensing make better sense.
I don’t disagree with you. I’ve had several “lifetime licenses”, some of which were quite costly, become varying states of useless. Some were acceptable (no more updates because the vendor was acquired/folded but the software still works and can be activated) and some were hostile (no more updates because we ran out of money and decided “lifetime” isn’t actually “lifetime” or “we folded and shut down activation servers that are required to install the app without patching out drm”)
But the solution is very simple then. Just don’t promise what you can’t deliver? Why mislead customers with fine print double speak when you could just be upfront and say “license for until we run short on cash” or whatever