JetBrains made a good compromise, IMO: You get a perpetual license that allows you to use whatever version you had at the time, but you only get updates as long as you're paying the subscription.

And that's fair, IMO. A lot of my "buy once" software in the past turned into a never-ending game of unpredictable upgrades. I'd have to re-buy upgrade licenses at unpredictable intervals to continue using the software with new version of MacOS or new plugins. At least with the subscription model, it's honest and open.