I should have been clearer. Apps from big publishers were more expensive than the indies in the 1980s. And indie shops that were charging ~$40 ($100 in 2024 dollars) for their titles. This is a direct comparison to the type of pomodoro app mentioned in the upthread comment.

The thing is, all software constantly needs new updates. If not platform-driven, then security, bug fixes, etc.

The more niche (like a pomodoro app), the fewer users over which to amortize the dev costs. A lifetime fee of $1, sold to a huge audience of 100k paid users, will pay for ~1 year of a single dev in the US, perhaps 2-3 years of a developer in a low-cost country. And then where does the money come from for updates in year 4 and beyond?

Subscription payments recognize the realities that a) development never ends for most apps that are in use and b) developers are not going to be free in the future just because the publisher only charged once.

Adobe was $600 per update. Per app.

> Why go that far back?

Because this is the era before really any major software was sold by subscription. Even 2008 was a hybrid era where some Web software was already subscription-based. Consumer behavior had already started to shift by 2008.

> for year apps were sold for a flat one-time fee.

This model also makes a lot of assumptions about where user data is stored and who is paying for that storage. Many apps have non-trivial backend requirements to support very normal use cases like "I also would like to access this from a Web browser sometimes." Those requirements cost money on an ongoing basis. One-time purchases are not a good fit for this either. We do not see many one-time purchases of Web software; many mobile apps are essentially parts of a larger whole that includes other modes of access to underlying services.

This is happening with a lot of companies that don't really have to care about "startup value"; they're tiny (sometimes even one-person) shops that aren't likely to ever go public, be bought for millions, or so on. I think you've got the cause and effect reversed for a lot of these -- the App Store pricing model has driven the price people expect to pay for apps down substantially, which made the "buy outright and then buy a new version in a couple years, at a discount, if it appeals to you" model much harder to sustain. I don't love subscriptions for apps that don't have a server-side component, but I get it.

(The example of the Pomodoro app with the subscription is pretty dubious, though.)