Just take a look at Panic - most of their stuff is perpetual license software, with really only Nova requiring a subscription if you want ongoing updates after the first year. They make this model work for them by providing compelling software that just works - no unnecessary feature creep, proper rebuilds on new architectures rather than lazy ports, understanding what customers actually need versus what the broader industry says is a must-have. They’re successful in spite of largely being locked to the Mac, too, proving you can find success in even niche market segments if you’re actually listening to customers and providing a competent product.

To be fair, they’ve pivoted a bit these past few years into more experimental areas - game publishing and hardware, for example - but even those experiments have bore impressive successes for a company of their size and lineage.

So yes, it’s possible, and you don’t even have to find a captive audience to find success. Just do good work while nurturing your customer base.