Yeah once they take your money the don't have any real incentive to fix it, or fix it quickly. They're not getting anything out of it, anymore.
This was an issue with computer gaming. Games would release barely playable and you'd have to hope they'd release an update fixing the issues. This was solved by offering games as a service. Always connected to the internet, they keep selling you stuff in the game, and seems to make sense. Games get better in time, they make more money.
Wouldn't be surprised if oscilloscope manufacturers would at least think about this, if not try it. You get the hardware for relatively cheap but you need a monthly subscription. They could find a way to make it work, upside being good software support. Kind of dystopic tho.
edit:
If we take this HDO1k/4k example in reality Rigol is a hardware making company trying to sell their hardware with somewhat functioning software. Just that all their hardware on the 1k/4k series is basically the same, and they use some software tricks to better monetize them.
Ideally they'd sell us the hardware and have truly open software, or at least leave the enthusiasts in the userbase to also get an alternative open-source app going on their hardware. Android/RK3399 fits the bill for this. But then again they wouldn't be able to sell the (relatively) same hardware for such large price differences (take HDO1074 vs HDO4804).