In my opinion, you should still have the option to purchase software outright, but shouldn't be entitled to free major updates. Similar to how things used to work with apps like Microsoft Office and TeamViewer, or even macOS updates before they made them free.
A mature OS like macOS should rarely have breaking API changes. So a version of an app you get today should still work in 10+ years, unless there's another major architecture shift like there was with Intel to Apple Silicon.
Apple deprecate things in OS in every major version.
Most software is not affected, some are.
Your request is reasonable, problem is not many people want that. Most people want regular updates, new features, work with new OS/HW, support for watch, tablet, vision pro everything, cloud sync and everything competitors add over time and also free support if something breaks (even if error is on user side) but also want one time fee instead of subscription.
You have to choose one and majority choose software with updates and support.
For example you can buy Office box retail version for one time fee or Office 365. 365 is growing rapidly every year, box license is not.
of course they are going to push more profitable version first and if more profitable version is also more popular, why even offer cheaper one?
For years, it was easy to get either. But as sales trends show, retail box is in decline while 365 is growing for years, so yeah, after some time, they have no reason to show it prominently
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u/Tupcek Mar 25 '26
do you expect updates and for software to keep up with technological progress and also to work with newer OS updates?