I don't know, back in my day you could get at least discounts on updates for your paid software.

I don't remember which, but Excel doesn't do one of them. Oh, did he say _LibreOffice_ is missing features. Well, probably it does too.

do you really need them in a day and age where you have an llm subscription is a different question

You would rightfully be upset, and it might even be a bad business move but you aren't "entitled" to anything but what is shoved onto your plate like gruel in a Dickensian workhouse cafeteria

The idea that you can release a shoddy product full of bugs and then expect people to pay you for the privilege of fixing your shitty product only exists in software.

In no other industry would that be okay. Automakers, for example, issue recalls when their products have safety defects, and then they fix them on the company's dime. Remind me again who's acting entitled?

But why? I still use Office 2016 and I haven't yet come across a document it wouldn't open. What am I missing out on?

It's not like you get security updates if your subscription has lapsed.

I have to assume a large portion of the community here are paid software engineers or adjacent, how do you think your employer is able to pay you? By selling software...and software updates.

Fact is, there's a lot of "unnecessary" and innovation-deterring in the "own nothing; subscribe to everything" model you're espousing.

On the flip-side, yes, we do love being paid to continue doing our thing.

So. It's a balance.

The equivalent comparison would be expecting BMW to update your car after you have already bought it. It is perfectly reasonable that once you have bought the car, any updated parts have to be bought and installed separately.

But if you don't want to pay for that, your car works as before. That's what the GP is suggesting.

No, I don't open rando word docs

Even though other implementations of the spec are lacking (looking at you Koffice) the fact that a spec exists is data security. Especially in an age where LLMs are getting cheaper and alternative (or custom) implementations might become feasible to produce.

The super-complicated app that fail when an online service fail in Microsoft's offering is Notepad, at least in one botched update where failed Copilot apparently crash Notepad entirely instead of letting it run without Copilot.

How do you draw the line? There is at least one LibreOffice developer who also contributed to Dovecot.

With Microsoft, especially in the past few years, there is no such thing as "offline version"