Software used to work like this. You'd pay for a shrink-wrapped product, and the only updates you'd ever get (if you're lucky) would be for major bugfixes.

Subscriptions have gotten ridiculous, but with the way we've come to expect frequent updates the pay-once model isn't sustainable for many products.

Okay, well I don't want most of the updates I get for most of the software I've paid for. I often cancel subscriptions due to unwanted updates. Spotify was a good app once upon a time, but it sucks now. If I could pay to use the old version, I would, but Spotify won't let me because they think they know better.

Additionally, shipped software used to not need too many updates most of the time, because the expectation was that the thing you bought was the thing, and any updates would be to address major defects in the product. Now, most software is delivered in "MVP" form where it doesn't even have all the features most users would want, and they get slowly dripped in over time, or they don't, and you never get the thing you originally wanted from the software at all.

Overall I think this has been mainly a loss for consumers. Security is better, and that's a real win, but frequently updated software is usually lower quality software, because it can be.