If the subscription pricing was a "steal" and the perpetual licensing was genuinely more expensive and worse, they'd still offer the perpetual licensing.

Instead they killed it, they clearly do not want to cannibalize their subscription offing. It clearly makes them more money.

Your first point is valid, I was misunderstanding the yearly subscription pricing, they offer an upfront payment as well as a monthly (but with year commitment).

I believe still however, if you pay for a year, cancel, you still get access cut off. Which is absurd.

The subscription pricing makes it more accessible to consumers where as previously the only people that paid for licenses were companies(and probably only large companies given it was basically always the most popular warez). So they charge less per release but they dramatically increase the possible consumer base and release lumpy revenue based around semi-regular annual releases with constant cash flow. So on a per user basis it is without a doubt cheaper but overall they can still make a lot more money.

>I believe still however, if you pay for a year, cancel, you still get access cut off. Which is absurd.

I've not seen anyone claiming this actually happened but maybe I just missed them? Everyone I've seen has said the opposite.