I thought about it and a lot of physical products we use everyday are either perishables themselves or require perishables for a regular maintenance.

Yes, we aren't forced to buy from the exact same brands like in a subscription model. Practically, we end up buying the same products in a predictable schedule, to keep the wheel spinning.

A lot? Furniture? Clothing? Cars? Electronics? Appliances? Physical books? [takes off glasses to think] Glasses?

Physical products wear out eventually, but they can last for many years. They're not necessarily perishable.

Yes, for the second category I mentioned: "require perishables for a regular maintenance".

Cleaning products, washing powder, fabric softener, bleach, fuel, windshield wiper fluid, tires, batteries.

Books, sure, they seem to be maintenance-free. I guess glasses too.

Could you explain how clothing needing to be cleaned is relevant to subscriptions? After all, you don't have to buy the cleaning products from the clothing manufacturer. Same for car tires, etc. So the clothing companies and car companies aren't making any extra money from this.

I agree with your original post. Very thoughtful. The subscription version of glasses is contact lenses. Plus, most people need a tweak to their vision prescription every year (or two), so they need to update lenses.

Most physical products don't require constant work to be done. Software will mostly stop working properly if not updated.

Why wouldn't it be updated?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34043936

There aren’t always new customers to sell to. When your system requires on constant growth to not collapse, it isn’t sustainable. A Ponzi scheme is the closest way I can describe it but I wouldn’t say it’s fraud since you weren’t promised future updates. You just implicitly require and expect them.

I really don't see how there's any difference between software and physical products.

Businesses are working year-round — manufacturers are manufacturing new products, software developers are writing software updates — and also selling year-round. If you run out of customers, that's of course a problem, but that's not a unique problem to software.

As a software developer, I sell new copies year-round, every day, and also release updates year-round. If I run out of new customers I'll let you know, but last month was actually my best sales month ever.

What do you mean exactly by "constant growth"? You need constant sales, yes. You don't necessarily need a constant increase in sales, if sales are at a sustainable level.