MS Office is a good example, and like you mentioned Word is pretty much Word from 10 years ago.
But you know who else does this? Book publishers. Specifically, textbook publishers. Every year there is a new edition of a calculus or algebra book. So this is a business model that has been around for awhile, and takes a variety of shapes. Such as planned obsolescence.
Software has it easy today, though. They can just cry "security updates" and instantly have a solid case for the subscription model. Even if it is nonsense.
> They can just cry "security updates" and instantly have a solid case for the subscription model
or they can cry "changes in browser and OS!" stuff that worked 5 years ago may not work the same today, or at all. Having a business model around it to help keep up with changes that are largely outside the control of that vendor helps ensure the value still stands. Or... new value can be unlocked - want your useful service to be able to handle that new video format, or compression, or audio format? I seem to remember something as 'trivial' as Apple moving MacBooks to "retina" displays caused a lot of problems and non-trivial amount of work for a lot of tools and services to be able to work 'correctly' with the new formats.
But you know who else does this? Book publishers. Specifically, textbook publishers. Every year there is a new edition of a calculus or algebra book. So this is a business model that has been around for awhile, and takes a variety of shapes. Such as planned obsolescence.
Software has it easy today, though. They can just cry "security updates" and instantly have a solid case for the subscription model. Even if it is nonsense.