This was never an issue because in the old model you only provide support for one year, and sell an annual maintenance plan at 20% of original price to continue it.
Re:Users hate change
by enraged_camel on Friday July 26, 2019 @01:17PM
(#20536390)
People balked at that too, though. It was widely perceived as a "money milking" scheme.
Consumers complained, sure but most businesses understand that it costs money to provide services. If a software vendor had no plan for funding maintenance that would be perceived as a supplier risk because it’s unsustainable.
The primary reason subscription model makes sense, and why many software shops are switching to it, is because you never want to find yourself in a situation where you have to generate new sales to afford supporting the existing customer-base.