I think parent's point is about how the company is drawing in cashflow. If the customer owns perpetually a copy of the software, the only reason they'll buy a new copy is if the new one is substantially better than the old: hence, the only way the company makes cash next year is if they've been improving their product.
With the subscription model, the company is still going to make that income regardless if they have a new product. As long as no other competitor has developed a competing product, there's no reason to innovate. (and there's lots of ways to deal with competitors besides innovating)
On the other hand, this removes a big incentive for "featuritis". A developer can sit back and only add features that really matter to the product or fix minor but annoying bugs, rather than pushing unnecessary flashy changes dictated by a sales cycle.
I'm not particularly happy about moving to what is effectively a rent society, but I think this is one of the few silver linings of the subscription model.
I am employed by one of the companies discussed, and while I was on the fence about subscriptions originally, I've come to change my opinion. While not ideal for a subset of users who might use only one or two applications, it is less expensive for the majority of users. It's also lowered the barrier of entry significantly, which has invited a lot of new users, reduced piracy, and encouraged use and exploration of applications they might have avoided in the past.
From the development side of the business, the more frequent release cycle has allowed the product teams to be much more responsive. Under the old model, with major updates every 18-24 months, I might receive a feature request which is implemented in a few weeks, but which the user doesn't have access to for a year or more. This was hugely frustrating as we want to make features and products our customers want to use, and to have it ready and waiting for so long was not a great experience for anyone. Now, we can have that feature in users hands in weeks or months.
I don't understand this idea that there will be reduced incentive to release updates under a subscription or membership model. If anything, frequency and responsiveness feels more important than before, and I don't know of anyone here who feels differently.
edit: I was more on the fence about subscriptions than unsupportive. It was a drastic change that required either gradual transition or a rip-off-the-bandaid approach.
It's almost impossible to keep mature products going without a subscription model. Mature products eventually only need:
a) support and
b) compatibility/stability/performance updates.
But, these types of updates can be very expensive to develop and are very difficult to market as a new release (works with XXXX now isn't a very compelling proposition for upgrades).
It's kind of the same problem that open source software faces after it matures. Nobody wants to just sit and do support/incremental changes on old software, at least not for free.
I have a different view. Perhaps because I used to publish my own shareware. Today's current Patreon model is pretty close to how shareware used to work (for me).
Buying a license today is investing in future development. I wouldn't pay to use software that's not actively being maintained. Nor would I expect my customers to either.
Which is exactly not the case that's being discussed here?
What is discussed here is the case where you lose the right to use the software if you don't continue to pay, completely independently from what that money is used for, which is why it removes one important incentive to improve the software.
And if your skillset and your data is locked up in some software, it's questionable whether you really would stop paying, and thus stop using the software that you depend on.
1. Why you bought it is irrelevant to the question of what their incentives are.
2. That people are willing to effectively pay in advance for a future release without any guarantees what they will get for it is irrelevant to the question of whether you have the lever to shut off that cash flow if they continue to not deliver any updates of value to you, while still using the existing version.
With the subscription model, the company is still going to make that income regardless if they have a new product. As long as no other competitor has developed a competing product, there's no reason to innovate. (and there's lots of ways to deal with competitors besides innovating)