Why do we accept monthly subscriptions for software that one person uses on their own?
I spent 55 years supervising construction, mostly hi-rise concrete. Over the last few years I've watched more and more of the tools I used go from a one-time purchase to a monthly fee. Scheduling, estimating, and project tracking are all like that now.
I can see why a subscription makes sense when several people edit the same thing at once, or when the company wants cloud sync and IT support. But a lot of the work is one person with one file. A superintendent building a schedule and issuing it to the trades every week doesn't need a server.
A tool that runs in the browser, that you buy once, and that keeps working on your computer even if the maker disappears, seems reasonable to me for that kind of work. What am I missing?
Do you prefer to pay monthly? If so, what do you get for it that a one-time purchase can't give you? And if you'd rather buy once, what would make you trust a small, one-person maker enough to do it?