Dave,
in your video you compare the old prices for the perpetual license directly to the yearly prices of the new pro subscription.
I noticed this as well ... but it didn't worry me too much.
I will never be comfortable with subscription based products and would need a
very compelling business case to even
consider one. I also steer clear of cloud based "solutions".
Why? Several reasons.
A. The first and foremost is that I will be relying on an external party that is responsible for providing the signal to the software I am using to say "You can keep functioning". Anything happens to that company or the their signalling mechanism and I would be stuffed.
B. The next is functionality of the software - and it's implications on my established work flow. Who's to say they won't remove or re-engineer a function I use in an upgrade? I will then have to stop doing productive work until I develop a new work flow ... and that might involve researching other software and even the possibility of new hardware. What has taken years to refine and become efficient now has to be tossed out.
A case in point is Windows 10. I simply cannot move to it. For one particular task, I have hardware, software and a work flow that I have been running with for nearly 6 years. The software runs under XP, it does not run under Win7 ... unless I set up the XP virtual machine. I wanted to move from XP to Win7 to get access to some developer features, but only made the move because of that XP virtual machine. I have had to modify my workflow slightly .... by adding a start of XP mode at the beginning of a session and a shut down at the end. If I allowed myself to get pushed onto Win10, I would be dead in the water.
I would not want that from any update of any such important software.
C. Following on from that, let's say I
can refuse any updates and still continue to use the software. It seems somewhat stupid to keep on paying and paying for an old, unchanging piece of software. Yes, there is an argument that I am paying for the ability to upgrade - but I look at that as saying I am paying for the potential to kill my workflow. If somebody writes a piece of software and gets paid for the sale of that, they they get rewarded for their effort and I get to use a program that will perform consistently. If they then decide to move to Patagonia and live in the forest, it's not going to worry either of us.
D. Security. I do not have any Cloud based data storage. To me, it is a highly uncomfortable notion that security for my data on a Cloud based service is in the hands of that service. Sure, I can encrypt data before sending it there, but that involves an extra overhead I have to manage in both the sending and retrieval processes. The only external data connected with what I do is with a website and a Photobucket account. A portion of what I do is used by another party for their eBay presence, but they are responsible for that. Local DRP is covered. Knowing where my data is and how access is controlled, gives me comfort.
E. Transient network issues. Sure a 14 day "heartbeat" check will get around air travel and other temporary network interruptions, as far as client software functionality goes - but if there is a server component involved, then everything stops. Same argument for web based and Cloud based services. If everything is on my own computer (and I include my own network) I have the security of knowing that whatever goes wrong is within my control to fix.
F. Casual user. I have a couple of pieces of software that were way more than I really needed - but ones that I actually shelled out some real money for. I didn't use them much, but they were there. One of them I got at a release version 7 and then got a free upgrade to release 10 some time later. My infrequent use made this fair value. I didn't do any more upgrades until it got to release 19, when I had a need for a particular project, so I stepped out and spent a bit more than I would normally. I can see myself rolling with that version for a couple of years. A subscription based system would see me dumping that software - or at least staying with the last paid version forever more.
G. Lost motivation of the developers to put value into their software. Why should they make much effort when they are going to get paid anyway? Human nature and corporate bean counters are going to move into the low expenditure, high return paradigm. Getting paid for doing nothing is attractive on that side of the fence. Not on this side, though.
H. Other issues, such as project archiving as Dave mentioned. Maybe I'm naive, but it seems ridiculous to pay for a subscription for 10 or 20 years for a piece of software that you
might have to resurrect.
Last of all ... I just don't like it. It smacks of laziness, greed and control. I don't begrudge a developer for getting paid for their work - but the outright sale model seems to have been good enough for quite a number of years.