Comment by strange_quark

Why would it only be a year of updates? Just go back to how it was 10 years ago when most software was a 1 time purchase and you got updates until the next major version, then maybe you'd only get bug fixes and security updates until your OS deprecated some API the app depended on.

The industry had arguably more innovative products than exist today and that business model worked totally fine until the platform gatekeepers and VCs invented SaaS because they decided they weren't making enough money and needed to do some rent seeking.