Anyone could see this coming. A continuous revenue stream with very little work. Nice an profitable.

The old physical model had a lot of restrictions and drawbacks that people seemingly forgot about.

It can't keep going on much longer. Thanks for sharing the article.

There are alternatives and usually better ones that are maintained by the community vs. being locked in by corporations.

I've been working at getting some older folks into using Linux on their laptops/desktops. None of them wanted to go back to Windows or Apple.

Smart phones are possible to move but a lot harder/riskier since the "owners" have learned how to do the "lock-in" better.

and rather than subscriptions to the latest and greatest versions of my software, I'm perfectly happy using my old software... it was bought and paid for and came with no "subscription" needs. Of course, I DO keep my antivirus and antimalware software up to date, and run on a frequent basis. But I can see the reason for subscriptions on that type of software... the entire paradigm changes on a near constant basis as the script kiddies and others up their games.

My old Word (the last one before they went to Subscription) does everything I need, as does my Excel. I will admit I'm no longer a power user on any of this software, simply because I'm now retired and my needs are more simplistic. Knowing when what you've got is "enough" is one of the hardest things we have to adjust to, IMO. And that's not just in software, but in all things... I believe people would be a lot happier if they made do with "enough" and not kept hoping for "more." But, at 70, I'm at the age when I'm looking at downsizing on a lot of issues and "things"... things look different from my view vs those younger than me.

... With MS Office documents.

I absolutely refuse most subscriptions, I am NOT paying monthly for Microsoft Outlook or Office, NOPE.

..... and, although I don't know the cost to the organization, I can say it greatly improves my productivity over what I could achieve, in that environment, with Open Office Libre. But for use outside of work, the open suite is not just adequate or make do, it is exactly what I actually need and the price is right.

So I am not paying, neither upfront nor monthly, for MS Office, NOPE.

Same with Photoshop. I use GIMP. I've used Photoshop both at work and at home. It's absolutely the tops. If I was a real pro I might go for it, but GIMP is very, very good and more than I actually need. And, again, the price is right.

yes absolutely MS was better for work stuff (I worked in IT) but in retirement I am finding I very much prefer workarounds to most subscription stuff

doesn't provide, Libre is what I go to, as well. I had an ace in the hole with MS, tho... I've never paid a retail cost for it. For schools, government agencies, etc., there used to be a program that allowed you to buy the latest copy for $10.00. THAT was where I bought my (now old) copy. Even under this program, I refused to buy into the subscription routine. I don't like "leasing" things... not cars and certainly not software. To me, what you can "connect to" can easily be what you "can no longer connect to" at the whim of someone you've never nor will ever see. I feel the same way about right to repair. If I bought something out right, then I should be able to fix it, repair it, or change it as I see fit (the latter perhaps diminished by no right to "sell" the copy with changes.. but I can understand the authorship issues inherent in that.).

I ditched it when I upgraded to Windows 11, it was a very old copy by then

Get your own version to own on Word et al., they don't have all the newest stuff, but still work well.

Yeah sure it was a "retail miracle", but if you read the fine print, so many people put their shit on payment plans it wasn't funny.

If you need a payment plan to pay for $110 worth of stuff, that's not a sign of economic prosperity. That's a sign something is truly, deeply wrong.

Yet you'll never hear about it on the news because the cult and Fuckface himself have the media wrapped around their finger, and he will scream and whine if anything bad is said about him.

That's exactly how the economy is laid out now!

photoshop elements, corel, and more

monthly cash flow is somewhat predictable and steady income. The benefits for the software as a service model (for example with office 365) was never really for consumers. It was pitched for B2B because from the business customer perspective, SAAS also helped to lighten the IT infrastructure burden and it was shift from capex to opex (preferred by shareholders).

For the average consumer, the shift hasn’t been ideal. For Microsoft (or Adobe) it has helped combat piracy since they’re not dealing with key codes getting distributed with bootleg soft copies. No one ever paid attention to the “one physical copy installed per user machine” EULA anyways. People bought the software and installed it on as many computers they had. Now, if you’re not subscribed, you can’t use the software.

As for everything else (homes and cars in particular), leasing/renting became more common simply due to the large cost of the goods themselves. The next shift with cars is that even features will be a service, since more functions are software controlled. You want heated seats? Well that’ll be $x per month. You get the idea.

I’ve seen proposals to get private equity out of ownership. Good luck with that. I’ve rented homes in the past where even private landlords used an LLC. It’s easy to create a shell corp.

I don’t think the effort here should stop though. Large scale corporate ownership of single family homes is a major long term threat to home ownership in this country. It could also be politically smart for democrats to build a populist position on this. It’s especially problematic for mobile home parks.