Why can't software like a music player or playing podcast function perfectly fine w9thout updates for 10 years. We had same audio formats for 10 years, and same OS audio API.

Well, most software can run perfectly without updates, for example: You can still have a PC running on Windows XP.

Why you might need updates: 1. New functionality (if you need a particular feature that was not available before) 2. Security issues

This is my favourite model. Say you are an illustrator, you purchase photoshop once for 900$ and you update again when the features are compelling. Maybe every 5 years?

These are not industries where people make programmer wages. Combining all of the required software costs is very expensive. Subscriptions more closely match the model/needs of the producer, but they are often quite bad the consumer.

You then need to take assets from a 3rd party and use them in your work. Their files are for a version newer than yours and is not backwards compatible. Are you gonna upgrade then even if there’s no feature you require? This was the main issue with photoshop in my experience and a problem that has disappeared with the subscription model.

this is my own ignorance, but have codecs not changed or gotten new features in the last 10 years?

What you end up with though is a predatory sales team so that when the time comes to upgrade they want you to back pay the subscription :)