Software subscription models are quietly draining more money from users than one-time purchases ever did. I've run the numbers on my own toolkit: Adobe Creative Cloud costs $599/year now, while the old CS6 perpetual license was a one-time $1,899 that I used for seven years. That's over $4,100 in subscriptions versus $1,899 upfront—a 116% price premium, and I still don't own anything. Even smaller apps like Notion and Figma add up to hundreds annually. The convenience of auto-updates and cloud syncs is real, but I suspect the industry pushes subscriptions because they guarantee predictable revenue, not because it's better for customers. Should we accept this model as the new standard for software, or is it time to push back and demand more perpetual options?